Trip insurance

[8timesblessed]

If you book everything seperately, where do you get trip insurance??

 

[awesomebrownfamily]

There are a range of options….you can walk into a travel agent, they’ll happily sell you what ever policy they tout. You can look on line….a search on google will bring up lots of choices (though many of those will be underwritten by the same company, with the same assistance provider)…or you could check with your regular insurer (whoever your home/car insurance is with) as many of these will also offer travel insurance too….

Just remember that price isn’t the best indicator of quality when it comes to insurance……

 

[bumbershoot]

For some reason, the names of places elude me...for some reason, insuremytrip comes to mind, as does travelguard, but those might just be made up in my brain.

However, if you're doing everything separately, you might not even need it. Most hotels have a cancellation policy that is clear on how many days in advance they need to know you're not coming, and how many nights will be charged if you cancel too late. You would *at least* want to know if the premium is MORE than the amount of, for instance, one night's hotel fee if you cancel late.

You might be able to choose an airline that allows canceling with no problems, like Southwest.

And tickets, well, you'll want to use tickets for when your trip is re-planned, if you have to cancel, so you might as well just buy the tickets now, because the prices on tickets will only go up!

You could also wait to buy tickets until you absolutely know that you are going, then buy them online with either the will-call option or the e-ticket option (go for e-ticket!).

In short, if booking things separately, apart from the flight, I'm not sure you NEED to get trip insurance. Just be fully aware of cancel policies of the various aspects of your stay.

And also make absolutely positively SURE that you understand what the insurance would and would NOT cover! In a recent discussion, someone was saying that the trip insurance they bought would not cover for pre-existing conditions within a certain amount of time. So if little Johnny got strep 6 months ago, and now he's gotten it again, the insurance is NOT going to help you.

 

[geekypeach]

I have to second Molly. I decided to take a detailed read through the insurance I paid on my Priceline hotel. Basically, it isn't really even worth the $5 per night I paid for it. The hoops you have to jump through to file and then be awarded a claim are ludicrous. Better to know what you're agreeing to with a reservation!

 

[8timesblessed]

Good to know. My DH just wanted me to look into it and if you booked through anywhere else they seemed to charge $59.95 for each adult. The AAA lady tried to give me a hard time when I told her I just might do everything on my own and she's like what if something happens and you need to change at least you can call us and we can help you out! But I'm really not worried. I've gotten great advice here and get to live through all of your experiences and I just ordered the Unofficial Guide to Disneyland so that should have some more helpful info.

 

[briangl]

As other have said you really have to read all of the different policies to understand what you are buying. The downside of trying to read the policies is you really have to be a lawyer to understand them. I have never seen a policy written in plain English.