Do you buy travel insurance through the cruise line?

[Frwinkley]

We don't cruise frequently, and have never purchased cruise insurance.

I now want the flexibility to cancel for any reason at any time.

What's the best course of action?

 

[sam_gordon]

Insuremytrip.com

 

[hardcorestitch]

We don't cruise frequently, and have never purchased cruise insurance.

I now want the flexibility to cancel for any reason at any time.

What's the best course of action?

You can choose between cruise line protection (like Disney Cruise Line’s Vacation Protection Plan) or through third party insurers like RBC or Allianz, which may be cheaper.

 

[soccerdad72]

I just recently bought yearly travel insurance for my wife and I through Allianz

 

[Deb]

Insuremytrip.com

yup

 

[georgina]

We don't cruise frequently, and have never purchased cruise insurance.

I now want the flexibility to cancel for any reason at any time.

What's the best course of action?

It is stuck in my head that if you want coverage for pre-existing medical conditions, you have to buy insurance within 2 weeks of booking/putting down your deposit.

We usually buy travel insurance separately from whatever tour operator we are using. There are a lot of options.

 

[kdonnel]

As others have said, you can get better coverage for less by NOT buying from the cruise line.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We don't cruise frequently, and have never purchased cruise insurance.

I now want the flexibility to cancel for any reason at any time.

What's the best course of action?

Generally speaking, travel insurance through a cruise line isn't the best option. By using a trip insurance comparison site (there are a couple of good ones out there) you put in the parameters of what you want covered and they will show you multiple companies plans for you to choose from. Usually at a lower cost and better coverage than the plans through a cruise line.

We didn't have insurance for our first cruise (we were inexperienced in the cruising world). But, when we looked into what costs would be if we needed it and didn't have it we've bought insurance since then.

Initially we bought travel and medical insurance, but now we only hold an annual medical/evacuation policy (well, actually 2).

 

[Living42Day]

We have always just bought through the cruise line. I probably can get it a bit cheaper from a third party, but I just appreciate the ease of adding it to the package and not having to spend time researching that.

Granted, we have only ever sailed with DCL so that ease might be specific to just DCL.

 

[georgina]

We have always just bought through the cruise line. I probably can get it a bit cheaper from a third party, but I just appreciate the ease of adding it to the package and not having to spend time researching that.

Granted, we have only ever sailed with DCL so that ease might be specific to just DCL.

I suspect they are all easy to buy from, they are counting on cruisers not looking around for less expensive insurance.

 

[Darcy03231]

I use the Trip Insurance Store. Steve has been great and will make sure you get a policy that covers what you want. He also backs up what he sells. We had to make a claim and were having trouble with the insurance carrier. Steve stepped in and the claim was resolved in our favor in about two weeks.

 

[sam_gordon]

We have always just bought through the cruise line. I probably can get it a bit cheaper from a third party, but I just appreciate the ease of adding it to the package and not having to spend time researching that.

Granted, we have only ever sailed with DCL so that ease might be specific to just DCL.

Probably quite a bit cheaper from 3rd party AND with better coverage. Research can be beneficial.

 

[Meriweather]

Since we have started buying insurance for cruises, getting older so decided we should, we have used Allianz

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

We've never bought through the cruise line. I've used Travel Guard, and lately we've been using Tinleg. I've never had to make use of it (thank goodness), so I don't really know how much of a hassle either of them is for needing to file a claim.