I agree that the DCL insurance is more expensive than comparable policies, and that it has exclusions. However, buying it is better than not buying insurance at all if you need to use it, and obviously, it is impossible to know whether you will need it until you do.
For some people, the ability to get a credit on a rebooked cruise in the case of a non-covered cancellation could be more useful than saving a few dollars. Other plans may have “cancel for any reason” coverage, but that is usually significantly more expensive.
When my family planned a Mediterranean cruise several years ago, I planned to look into other insurance plans, but got busy at work and didn’t get around to researching plans. At final payment, I just bought the DCL plan so I would have something. I was particularly concerned about some non-traveling relatives with health issues — I was concerned that something could happen with them that would cause us to miss our trip. Three weeks later, I was hospitalized for an issue I had never expected, and was later advised by my doctor not to take the cruise as I was still recuperating. When I cancelled just 3 weeks before the cruise, the insurance reimbursed my family for our full fare. Could I have saved $100 or so by buying other insurance? Yes. Could I have lost $10,000 if I hadn’t had insurance? Yes.
In this case, I had a covered condition that caused me to cancel, so any insurance would have paid off. In other circumstances — for example, If my mother-in-law had been hospitalized instead of me — the ability to lose just 25% of our fare might have made it easier for us to decide to reschedule.
On my next cruise, I did look into other plans, and found one that provided more coverage at a lower cost than the plan offered through DCL. That is preferable, certainly, but especially for people who don’t need to cover pre- and post-cruise plans (because, for example, they have other coverage for that), the DCL plan isn’t awful.
