Trip Insurance in Hurricane Season?

[winniethepoohsmom]

Do you purchase trip insurance when traveling during hurricane season? I did on our last trip in Sept 2005, but I have'nt gotten around to it yet for our upcoming Aug/Sept trip yet and I was wondering how many people purchase the ins. and do you purchase it from disney or elsewhere? Linda

 

[CapeCod53]

Yes I did purchase thru insuremytrip.com for a lot less than Disney ($60/adult) for $25/adult including airfare purchased separately. We're traveling the last week of Aug.

 

[winniethepoohsmom]

I also purchased ins. from insuremytrip on our last trip Sept/Oct 05, I read that since we were purchasing the package we should buy ins. I guess if you are driving and have room only ressies it would be easier to cancel or leave earlier like we did when we vacationed to Myrtle Beach in the summer months. I should have done when I booked the trip now it just seems like something else I need to spend money on, but I know if we don't have it and if we need to make changes due to a hurricane I will regret it. Better safe than sorry. Linda

 

[ellyn2000]

I'm planning to go in Sept. next time and wondered what the insurance covers exactly. I will have a package, but no airfare. Thanks!

 

[trekker93]

It didn't dawn on me to think about this but you're right! We're going down in October and we may need it - we'll look into itQ Thanks alot!

 

[msmayor]

I'm planning to go in Sept. next time and wondered what the insurance covers exactly. I will have a package, but no airfare. Thanks!

It all depends on the actual policy you purchase as to what is covered, and what the maximum limits are.

Regardless of the policy, though, almost every insurance company will only cover actual prepaid costs. In other words, if you booked a trip during free dining, you cannot get reimbursed for the 'price' of the dining plan (to, say, take that trip at another time) since you never actually paid for the plan out of pocket.

Plane tickets obtained with frequent flyer miles will NOT be covered by insurance; again you've had no actual out of pocket cost for them.

The suggestion to review policies at a site like insuremytrip is a good one. It was very helpful when I was looking for a policy to cover my upcoming cruise vacation.

 

[winniethepoohsmom]

You can go on the insure my trip website to compare policys with different companies and the cost depends on how much coverage you purchase. They can cover different things from travel delay to baggage delay, trip cancellation, trip interuption, medical ins. car rental collision, but make sure you don't already have some of these things before spending the money again some credit card companys have some ins. when you use them to rent a car or your own auto policy. The prices can range depending on the cost of your trip the amount of people in your policy and how much ins. you purchase. I'm mostly concerned with trip int. or cancellation due to hurricane season. Linda

 

[smep013]

We have purchased trip insurance for last August and this August, through Travel Guard.

Last year we got a pretty basic policy for 2 adults, costing about $50 total.

This year, I changed the policy to include terms for cancelling the trip because of a relative's illness (mom has cancer), so I could return home if needed. This plan cost less than $80 total for both me and DH.

Travel Guard is very helpful and will answer all questions you have. I would ask things like: What happens if I'm in WDW and there is a hurricane and I have to stay an extra day? Am I covered? I just gave the scenarios to see if I would be covered and they would tell me yes or no.

Hope that helps!

 

[cancer_survivor_06]

I must be crazy then b/c WDW is the only place I don't buy travel insurance even during hurricane season. In fact in 2004 when hurricane Ivan came we were heading down to disney. I must admitt that after that trip it seemed like that is the best time to go to disney since no one else is there. In fact after katrina I decided my new evacuation plan is to go to disney.

 

[burberryplaid]

We bought it through Disney, just to cover our pakage. Our airline tickets were purchased through JetBlue and we didn't get insurance for those since we'd only have to pay the re-booking fee if we had to cancel or change plans. Better safe than sorry.

 

[DarthKTrava]

I didn't bother with getting the insurance last year. Not sure I'll bother this year either....

Funny thing is that I NEVER had to worry about hurricanes when I DID live in Florida. But only worried about them when we were wondering where Floyd was going to hit that year.... I've only had one trip (non-DW) where one messed with our plans as we had to wait on one of our guys' spouse to fly in so he could leave (we were going in his van) and they'd closed the airports. Left 12 hrs behind schedule.

 

[cancer_survivor_06]

I wouldn't have a problem purchasing it through disney if they would give us room credit/disney dollars/gift card for that amout to spend while we were there as long as we didn't cancel. I look at is nothing is going to stop me from going to disney so I would rather spend the money there.

 

[winniethepoohsmom]

I don't think I would get the ins. if I was driving, but since we are flying if there was a hurricane our flight could get delayed for days either way, and we are traveling over labor day weekend so I would think the airport would be busy enough without the weather contributing to it. When we drove on vaca to Myrtle Beach we never took out ins. once there was a mandatory evac. and we checked out only having to pay for the days we stayed and drove to a hotel all the way in by 95 when the hurricane passed two days later we returned to our hotel in MB and checked back in. Another trip we checked out a day early and did'nt have to pay because of the approaching hurricane. But with the prepaid package and the airlines to deal with I'm going to take out the ins. I looked at it today and for a fairly basic package it's $66 for our family of four it would cost us a lot more than that if the hurricane situation was to arise, which it won't Linda