Do you Buy the Travel Insurance????

[tinker_me_happy]

We are going for our first trip home in August. My reservation letter came in the mail with a flyer for trip insurance that covers the cost of points (sort of) if something happens. Has anyone here bought the insurance? Used the insurance???
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dianeschlicht]

In 11 years of DVC we were only tempted to buy the insurance once, and that was when my grandmother was dying. We decided against it, because we figured our guests who were invited on that same trip would still go even if it turned out we couldn't. As it turned out, she passed away 3 weeks before the trip, so we were glad we hadn't purchased it. I would not buy it as a matter of course unless you expect there might be a reason that you would be cancelling les than 31 days ahead of the trip.

 

[Buckeye Fan]

Never used it and really haven't consider it. Knowing that you can cancel and place points in a holding account almost up to your check-in day, we feel the overall risk is pretty low.

Also, according to the boards, people have used what MS calls a "once in a lifetime" exception for extenuating circumstances. I absolutely wouldn't count on this, as MS has no obligation, but they have been known to make exceptions in the past. They seem to be extreme cases, though.

 

[DebbieB]

The insurance will pay you $5 per point, not even enough to cover the dues. You do not get the points back. Unless I was at the end of my use year, I would not do it, I'd take a chance that I could rebook it.

 

[Cruelladeville]

The insurance company won't give you the $5 per point unless you can prove that you couldn't get there. A couple of years ago, the East Coast lost electrical power, and we couldn't fly out. Since it was a weekend trip, we went back home, because we would have been in Florida for just one day--we didn't get reimbursed for the points, because we could have made it for one day. Thankfully, MS gave us back our points, but I wouldn't recommend the trip insurance either.

 

[DebbieB]

That's a good point - it has to be a covered reason. Watch for pre-existing condition clauses. Sometimes travel delays have to be over 24 hours.

 

[becca-becca]

If you feel the need, can you get trip insurance from 3rd party such as insuremytrip.com, which is what we got for our past 3 trips (Pre-DVC)? I think at a DVC resort, the holding is enough insurance. However, what about cruises? Do you buy insurance for those?

 

[eva]

If you feel the need, can you get trip insurance from 3rd party such as insuremytrip.com, which is what we got for our past 3 trips (Pre-DVC)? I think at a DVC resort, the holding is enough insurance. However, what about cruises? Do you buy insurance for those?

Unfortunately, I don't know of another company besides Travel Guard that has a price assigned to DVC points. Maybe someone else would know. We didn't buy the insurance for the points on our previous cruises. But I did call Access America direct and bought insurance to cover the medical.

We have never been tempted to buy the insurance until this year. We did because we are going on a trip through ABD and it is a lot of points. Plus if we canceled just moments after making the reservation, we would still lose 54 points per person. After you hit 90 days out you start losing large percentages of your points, if you cancel. I told DH that if something happened, I wanted some cash to take another vacation with. Before we had the same thought as most of you. Even with the cruise you could still have all your points in reservation points. With ABD, they are just wiped out and what is left goes into reservation status. And with the current state of the CC, there isn't as much hope of spending those points easily.

 

[KevGuy]

We bought it for our trip. I figure it's better to be safe than sorry and get something back if things go arwry.

 

[spruce]

No, I see the insurance equal to an extended warranty many places want to sell you.....additional profit for slim risk.

 

[BirdsOfPreyDave]

I bought it this year because my boss has told me she isn't able to sign my leave request. She needs to wait and see what's going on that month to determine if I can go. (We're replacing a major computer system, and we're not sure what portion of the implementation schedule will fall on those weeks.)

The first week of the trip is the last week of our use year. If we can't go, the points will be lost. The second week is on next year's points, so at least we wouldn't loose everything.

I figured the cost of the insurance was worth it in this case. It's at least giving me a little bit of peace of mind to deal with the stress of not knowing if we can go or not.