Does Disney's vacation insurance cover hurricanes?

[qst4it]

I would check because when we bought insurance indepantly for a vacation you only got to claim if you missed your entire trip. So if you were their two days then a hurricane hit and you missed the last five days you were out the money. Sounds crazy but it was in the tiny magnifing glass type on the bottom of the policy.

 

[pixistix]

I think if you book your trip and insure through disney, they'll do whatever is necessary to make it right if a hurricane becomes an issue.
Two years ago, we booked thru Orbitz....didn't get trip insurance...and Hurricane Charlie barreled through Florida the day before we left. Our flight was cancelled from Philly because of damage to the terminal in Fla. They said flights would not be going out for 3 days. We had to drive or lose our vacation. This time I booked thru disney and the trip insurance was included.

 

[DeterminedOne]

I'm reading through the coverage information sent from WDTC and if I'm reading it correctly it states that it covers for Natural Disasters, including hurricanes. Specifically, it says they will pay the trip cancellation/interruption benefit if an insured is prevented from taking the trip due to certain unforseen circumstances, natural disasters being one of them. It goes on to say if the natural disaster causes complete cessation of travel services at the point of departure/or destination a benefit will be paid. The benefits are for:

Trip Cancellation - trips that are canceled BEFORE the scheduled departure date. In that case, the benefit is they will pay forfeited, non-refundable prepaid deposits or payments.

Trip Interruption - trips interrupted due to natural disasters (and a few other reasons.) In that case, the benefit is if the insured is unable to continue the trip they will reimburse for unused, non-refundable travel arrangements prepaid to Disney, any additional transportation expenses incurred, or to reach the orginal destination if you are delayed and leave after the contracted departure, OR return the insured to the return destination of the trip as specified in the travel documents from the point where the insured interrupted the trip, OR rejoin the trip fro the point where the trip was interrupted.

Travel Delay - they will reimburse up to $200 a day to a max of the benefit of $600 if the trip is delayed for twelve or more hours for reasonable add'l expenses until travel becomes possible. Again, a natural disaster like a hurricane would apply.

With all that said, it appears that the maximum benefit for each category is $600. Not a lot considering what we pay for the vacation. I could be interpreting this incorrectly, so if you have the documents please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Cinderpals]

I was there before Frances arrived. WDW never shut down while I was there, but the MSO did for 1 or 2 days. I left early which was fine on a room only reservation, but couldn't get back my deposit for the SBP breakfast!

 

[AllAboutPluto]

I reviewed my policy while I had it out last night...

Trip cancellation pays 100% of the policy, trip interruption pays 150% of the policy. I don't remember how much trip delay was exactly, but I'm thinking it was $750/person. After reading the above post about the WDTC policy, I'm even more comfortable with my policy... I don't have to worry about any "unused portions" or "additional expenses". I can just go and have fun!

 

[KimberlyC]

Travelex is the company, TraveLite seems to be the plan and I also lied... I bought it thru quotetravelinsurance.com, not insuremytrip.com, although I shopped at both. I found quotetravelinsurance to be the easier site to comprehend and compare policies, but if I remember the same policy I bought was available thru both sites.

Good luck to you, but I'm a smidge concerned that you might be too late to buy. There is usually a cutoff time before your trip that you have to have purchased by. Either way, DO enjoy your trip!!!!!

Thanks! Its usually 14 days from deposit date (not final payment date) to get all the benefits. I just put the deposit down on Monday so I've still got over a week to decide but still need to do so quick. I booked TravelSafe through insuremytrip.com for our trip earlier this month but I wasn't concerned about hurricanes in early June.

 

[checkwriter]

Of course you need to look at the fine print. Our trip insurance protected against "outbreaks of temporary dementia caused by the inadvertent ingestion of wild mushrooms; cancellation of flights due to plagues of locusts; and inaccessability of major tourist attractions due to floods covering at least 79% the entire planet Earth provided said floods fail to recede within a 40-day period of their initial rising."

Maybe that's why we got such a good price on it . . . .

 

[TiggerAllie]

We were there during Wilma--got there before and stayed through. The parks closed early Sunday night and opened with limited availability on Monday (after 1pm, Disney resort guests only, only MK and Epcot). It didn't bother us much. I don't know if we could have claimed anything anyway (not that we had the insurance).

Going down again in early August for a week... don't know if we need to get it or not. Maybe we should look into it.

Thanks for the thread!

 

[KimberlyC]

Ok, I've now poured over a number of policies and here is the basics of how they differ and what to look for.

Most policies do NOT allow you to cancel for any reason. You can get ones that do and still cover 75% or 90% of what you pre paid for your vacation but these are much more expense. For my upcoming little 4 night vacation 2 adults, 2 kids, staying at CSR, ($2000 value) it was $325 or therabouts opposed to other policies for $59 and $74.

So knowing you probably can't cancel for any reason, what can you cancel for? Weather is one but look at the policy. Basically, the airport/hotel has to be SHUT DOWN for 48 hours, 24 hours or 8 hours depending on the policy. If its not, you don't get to cancel. So if you are scheduled to go to WDW on a Friday and a named storm (you must purchase before named) is scheduled to blow through on Saturday - too bad if the airport is open you don't get to cancel.

Take a look at the travel interuption clauses too. If you can't complete your trip for the same reasons as the cancellation (ie 48 hour, 24 hour or 8 hour Shut down) you are covered. BUT if you are ordered to evacuate and the airport stays open, too bad - not covered.

So the moral of the story is unless you want to pay a high premium which allows cancellation for any reason (but only pays a percentage), you can't cancel unless its so bad that the airport shuts down, or your hotel either shuts down or is rendered uninhabitable. To me, this is disheartening. I don't want to lose all my prepaid package $ but I don't want to fly my family to Florida if a hurricane is ABOUT to blow in. Yet under the policy I would not be able to cancel under these circumstances.

 

[auntie]

Now I'm sooooo confused! DH and I booked a trip for September on the free dining. We put our $200 deposit down... we need to pay in full by August 10th (we're using our Disney Visa). HOWEVER, I was under the understanding that if we cancelled our trip within 48 hours of leaving, we would only be out the $200 deposit- and would be refunded the remainder. Am I wrong? When I booked and they asked me about the insurance I opted out thinking... "why spend $160 for sure on the insurance... when I know I'm only possibly out the $200 if we have to cancel on short notice"??? Any info would be appreciated.

Same situation here..we pay in full by Aug. 15th. Also..what is the policy if you cancel right before trip..say 24 hrs.?...Do you loose your total trip if say there was a death in the family (God forbid..)..or emergency that you were not able to go?....My dad is in poor health..and we never know when he's going to wind up in the hospital..so it seemed like a good idea to purchase the insurance..but with 4 adult people in the party it's another $261.00...and I wonder if it's worth it or not. Our tickets are seperately purchased, and non refundable..but do offer credit. That was okay with us. Seems like it's covering weather...then some say not....?? So what is the point if you will be refunded...less the $200.00? I do not see on the web site what the cancellation is if you cancel after the 48 hrs. prior?...how do they handle that? I know that once we had a room reservation and we were in an awful car accident while on route to Disney and they refunded our deposit...but it was a room only. Packages certainly are alot more complicated.

 

[BeckWhy]

Most "good" credit cards offer travel benefits. Check out the fine print with your cc's travel insurance. Also, I know when I was reading up on Disney's travel insurance, the fine print mentioned that if you had to cancel for illness, it wouldn't cover pre-existing conditions.

I won't be getting the travel insurance.

I am a little naive when it comes to credit cards. Where can I find out what the travel benefits are?

My mom and I were talking about travel insurance the other day. And I saw this post so I checked it out. I must admit, it is confusing.

 

[mlwear]

Same situation here..we pay in full by Aug. 15th. Also..what is the policy if you cancel right before trip..say 24 hrs.?...Do you loose your total trip if say there was a death in the family (God forbid..)..or emergency that you were not able to go?....My dad is in poor health..and we never know when he's going to wind up in the hospital..so it seemed like a good idea to purchase the insurance..but with 4 adult people in the party it's another $261.00...and I wonder if it's worth it or not. Our tickets are seperately purchased, and non refundable..but do offer credit. That was okay with us. Seems like it's covering weather...then some say not....?? So what is the point if you will be refunded...less the $200.00? I do not see on the web site what the cancellation is if you cancel after the 48 hrs. prior?...how do they handle that? I know that once we had a room reservation and we were in an awful car accident while on route to Disney and they refunded our deposit...but it was a room only. Packages certainly are alot more complicated.

From the back of my Disney Invoice/Confirmation:
Cancellation of Reservation if the reservation is cancelled, amounts paid, minus cancellation fees and other amounts owed will be refunded. For a cancellation made 44 to 6 days prior to guest arrival, there is a cancellation fee of $100, per package plus any cancellation fees assessed by hotels or other suppliers. For a cancellation made 5 days or less prior to guest arrival, there is a cancellation fee of $200, plus any cancellation fees assessed by hotels or other supplier; provided, however that for a cancellation of a Grand Gathering experience add-on option made 5 days or less prior to the experience date, no refund will be given...
It goes on from there discussing changes, airfare booked by Disney, attraction tickets, etc.