Is it necessary to purchase travel insurance?

[Jennyh]

I never purchased travel insurance through my travel agent when I booked my land/sea vacation package back in June. I'm wondering if it is completely necessary or just another way to get a few bucks. Any comments or suggestions?? How would I purchase it now??

Thanks!

 

[Amberle3]

For me, that's like asking if it's completely necessary to have insurance on your house. I'm sure you're not planning that your house is going to burn down in the near future, but I'm willing to bet you still have insurance to cover it.

As a TA I always recommend people take travel insurance. Yes, I've had many cases where people have purchased the insurance and haven't had to use it. I've also had several clients that have had to file claims, and a couple where they didn't purchase the insurance and ended up regretting it.

If you can afford to lose the money you've invested in your vacation should you have to cancel shortly before the trip, or if you can afford the cost of flying home if there's an emergency at home, then don't purchase the insurance.

I know TravelGuard here in Canada would issue late insurance, I'm sure some of the other posters will have an idea on what US companies will.

 

[Lloyd Dobler]

It's hard to say whether you actually need it. It's a matter of what will be covered by your personal insurance, and also probably a measure of your comfort level. A lot of health plans don't cover you if you're outside the country. Most people don't have any kind of personal insurance in place which would cover trip cancellation or delay. I've always gotten it for trips that cost a few thousand dollars, but have thankfully never needed it. I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

I think you can still add the insurance DCL offers to your trip via your travel agent. You can also purchase your own plan separately. This is usually cheaper. Here are some places you can get it online:

http://www.travelguard.com/

http://www.travel-insurance-online.com/

http://www.accessamerica.com/

http://insuremytrip.com/

I've used both Travelguard and Access America and prefer Access America. I believe that DCL's policy is actually a Travelguard policy. Insuremytrip.com allows you to comparison shop and probably the best place to start. Their quotes will usually include Travelguard and AA.

 

[tkd lisa]

As someone who has actually used the insurance, imo it's worth it. You never really know when you'll need it.

My in-laws have friends who took a panama canal cruise, and the package they booked flew in the day of the cruise. You guessed it, flight was cancelled, and they missed the ship. It cost them nearly $1000 to fly to Panama (next port of call), and stay in hotels, meals etc. waiting on the ship. I'd say the trip insurance would have paid off for them big time.

 

[mrsltg]

And the voice of dissent... I'm not in favor of travel insurance. Yes flights can be delayed or cancelled. Fly in a day or two ahead of time and you won't miss the ship. Could you be in an accident that would be bad enough to keep you from the boat? Of course! If so, would you have bigger and better things to worry about than the loss of a couple of thousand on a cruise? Yep! Check with your insurance company and see what they cover. You may be pleasantly surprised.

As far as homeowner's insurance being compared to travellers insurance, they are not even close to the same. 1. Most mortgages require that you have some way to pay them back, ie, insurance, and 2. If I miss the cruise, I'm out $3000, not fun, but not financial ruin. If I loose my house, I've got $400k to come up with while paying for another place to live. Not possible! The two products are more than slightly different in their levels of importance.

Erin

 

[TinkerKat]

I too got antsy about this subject. Especially after hurricane Charley.

I was presently surprised yesterday when I walked into my
AAA office and was able to purchase insurance for my family of six
(kids are covered and FREE!) The total cost of the insurance for my husband & I and four kids for a four day cruise was $59.00!

That $59.00 is worth the "peace of mind"

With four kids, we scrimp & save for our little get aways... I'd hate to have it GONE and then no repreive in sight til next year.

AAA is thru Access America and it doesn't matter whether or not the trip was booked through AAA or not.

Kathy

 

[justcruisin]

Having never purchased it in the past, I did purchase it for an upcoming trip to Mexico and will purchase for any furture trips. DS5 came down with chicken pox on our cruise, if we had insurance we could have received money back. Had he come down with it 1 week sooner we could not have gone, loosing almost 7000! You should try to buy the insurance within 2 weeks of your initial payment to get the best coverage.

FYI ... You only need to purchase insurance to cover the non-refundable amount of your trip, on a cruise that's 100% and usually airfare. Hotel policies are generally 1 or 2 nights not refundable.

Just MHO!

 

[figment52]

The trip insurance not only covers missed/cancelled flights butmedical evacuation. My regular health insurance will cover treatment but it will not coverthe $10,000-$15,000 airlift cost to get me back to the mainland in the event of a medical emergency.

MY brother in law had to use it when he was vacationing in South America and his grandmother died. Becuae he was on a charter trip it was not just the "fee" to change a ticket to another day. It was over $3000 to get home and the trip insurance covered it.

I think it is money well spent if I am going out of the country, but that is my opinion.

 

[Amberle3]

Originally posted by mrsltg
The two products are more than slightly different in their levels of importance.

This is quite true, and I wasn't attempting to put travel insurance on the same level of importance.

The point that I obviously wasn't clear with is that both are types of insurance to protect against unpredictable emergency situations. Obviously nobody thinks that they're going to lose their house, just like nobody thinks that something unfortunate is going to happen and they're not going to be able to go on their vacation. The point is that you never know what's going to happen.

I have a friend who went on her yearly trip to AZ, and her mother died the day after she left home. The airline would not change her return date and she would have had to purchase a 1 way ticket home (which was well over $1000, and I believe closer to $2000). She did not have the money for that and ended up missing her mother's funeral. Cancellation insurance would have been a fraction of the cost and would have paid for her flight home.

I had a client whose cruise was cancelled partway through due to Norwalk. The cruise line did get them back to the embarkation port, but from there they were on their own. The insurance paid for her ticket back home, as the airline wouldn't change the return date. Without the insurance she would have had to either pay for the new flight herself or pay for hotel & meals for the 4 days until her flight was scheduled.

Neither was an expected occurance, both happened after the vacation had already begun.

Just as a personal note - I use the house insurance analogy also for a personal reason. My grandmother, depsite being a highly intelligent woman and firmly in her right mind, decided that she really didn't need fire insurance for her house (this despite having 4 smokers living there). My aunt was able to reason with her and convince her to keep it. A few years later the house did actually burn down! Not from smoking, but from an electrial short. She was convinced that nothing like that would ever happen to her, but it did. And I see the same conviction from clients who say "I know I'm going on the trip, I'm not going to have to cancel".

 

[Andrew DEREK UK]

We all want value for our money, and luckly most pepole who take out travel insurance never use it.

However I know someone who was on a cruise and had a stroke, the local country looked after them in hospital, flew out the next of kin, then they ( when well enough) were flown back and taken to a local hospital.

They were very glad they had travel insurance.

 

[LisaGoeke]

We are doing everything we can to save for our Disney/cruise vacation next fall. I would feel horrible if something happened and we couldn't go and we lost all our $$ which we worked so hard to save. For me it is definitely worth a few hundred dollars. (And this will be the first time I've ever purchased it.)

 

[tigger53]

we cruised this past july and bought travel insurance on our own and i too was thinking of not purchasing it. i am so glad i did end up getting it as my DD came down with the worst tripple ear infection ever, still is having problems with pain and hearing. anyway all the co-pays to the hospitals and pharmacies and a visit to a health care facility and another visit to the ships doctor were covered. just received our check for reimbursement for all the vacation dollars we had to use at this unfortunate turn of events, IMHO trip insurance is very neccessary, you never know when something could go wrong and put a sour note on your dream vacation.

 

[nuts4sn00py]

I too believe in trip insurance. My family & my best friends family are cruising this Saturday 8/28. My best friends FIL passed away today. Her DH will definitely not be coming with us, & she is not sure if her & her son will be cruising either. Needless to say she will be calling the Insurance company tomorrow about her DH's portion on the trip. Otherwise, she would be out over $1000. My feeling is, if you don't take the insurance you are being "penny wise & pound foolish", and believe me I like to gamble, but not with that much money! JMHO. Kathy

 

[Doctor P]

I do not generally overinsure myself, but I have bought travel insurance for both of our cruises (from Travel Guard). I primarily buy for the medical evacuation and foreign medical coverage, but it is piece of mind for all the kinds of things that can come up.

 

[ivanova]

We always buy travel insurance for major trips .. not only can we not afford to lose the money we already paid for the trip, but we could not come up with the money needed for medical evacuations, airfare changes, or new one way airfare purchases. I'd rather scrape together the extra money for the insurance, so I can relax 100% and not worry about the "what if" scenarios.

 

[thiscloud]

many insurers, like travelex which we're using, covers children under 18 (or 14 or some determined age) for free. that really saves a lot of money considering kids' tickets (above age 3) aren't that much cheaper than adult tickets on dcl.

you can (legitimately) reduce even the cost of adult coverage if you have kids by putting in a total trip cost rather than a per-person trip cost when getting a quote (at insuremytrip.com for example). what that does is reduces the amount per adult since the total cost is divided across all travelers, and it might push your per person cost to a cheaper bracket and your kids are free anyway.

 

[kmiles]

Like so many other things the decision to buy trip insurance or not is a personal one.

With that said, I often hear people say that their regular insurance will not cover them outside of the U.S. I have found this to be a widely held misconception. Working in the industry I can tell you that the vast majority of health insurance policies do have travel coverage. If you are injured outside of the U.S. and receive treatment, it will be covered under most policies. If you are unsure of your coverage, take 10 minutes and call your health insurance policy administrator. They'll be happy to answer all of your questions. And yes, many policies will also cover emergence evacuation. Again, call and ask.

So, the main reason one should look at buying trip insurance is not to insure their medical care (unless your health insurance policy does not cover things mentioned above) but rather to insure the cost of the trip. One should look very carefully at the exclusions listed in any policy as well because, as many will tell you, a lot of things will not be covered and the policy can be very restrictive. For instance, if one was to get sick, you may have to provide documentation from a doctor that your health would *further* deteriorate or you would be caused harm if you did travel. For some trip insurance policies, being sick is not enough.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Another suggestion--check your policies on credit cards you might have used to pay for the trip. I know that we automatically have insurance on the purchase of airline tix. CC company charges us a couple of bucks--but if something happens--there is some coverage.

We got travel insurance for our honeymoon cruise--but when we went to Europe recently we did not. Didn't actually occur to us to do so..but I didn't have any concerns over the healthcare system as I do with carribean nations.

I say spend the extra few bucks for piece of mind. You just never know what could happen whileyou are away.