Trip Insurance

[oufpat]

Just booked our first Disney Cruise and I'm very confused about trip insurance. What's a good company to use or should I just book through Disney?

 

[bumbershoot]

Travel Guard is one company.

A nice google search is "insure trip" and see all of the things that pop up.

But to start, what do you need insurance to do for you? Do you have pre-existing conditions in the travelers or immediate family staying at home? That's important. If you have no pre-existing conditions at the time you bought the insurance (or made initial deposit...different insurances have different rules), then that's great! No need to cover that.

You want medial stuff covered while you're on vacation, like if someone has a bad leg break and has to be helicoptered off somewhere? Make sure you get that.

etc.

 

[jlynch924]

I just bought travel insurance for the first time for our upcoming cruise (our 6th... I've never purchased it before) in case something happens with my aging mother in law and we have to cancel. I just went with what Disney offered. I'm sure it was done at a premium, but it was simple and not horrendously expensive (I think $240 for all three of us).

 

[Markonefive]

You want to be covered from when you leave your door, to when you get back, in case something bad happens. Weather delays, flight delays. Someone gets ill before the trip and you have to cancel. Someone gets ill on the trip or has an accident and needs medical care, whether on the boat or at port. Luggage gets stolen or lost. Passport lost. Read carefully what the insurance policy you are looking like covers. What reasons they will pay out if you have to cancel, and what they will include (or exclude) in your costs. You may wish to talk to an insurance broker who deals with multiple companies. AAA Travel may sell insurance - I know CAA in Canada does. Don't just rely on travel insurance on a credit card. Definitely get it, consider yourself lucky if you never have to use it (like fire insurance for your house or auto insurance for your car).

 

[Maggie'sMom]

You will generally get better coverage for less money purchasing trip insurance from someone other than DCL. There are sites that will allow you to compare policies from many different companies so you can find the best policy for you. As bumbershoot mentioned, google "trip insurance" and look for sites that will allow you to compare.

 

[lanejudy]

The coverage through DCL will only cover those portions of your vacation purchased directly through DCL -- for most of us, that's the cruise fare. It won't include flights or pre-/post-cruise hotels or other aspects unless you book all that through DCL.

That said, DCL coverage does not need to be added until PIF and will include somewhat of a "cancel for any reason" clause in that if you end up canceling and the insurance denies your claim, DCL will offer a credit towards a future cruise. I believe that credit is 75% of cruise fare and must be used within one year, but you'd want to check those details.

I suggest checking the online comparison sites, then call to get details about your specific needs. Don't hesitate to ask questions to be sure you are covered for what you (may) need. Think through various scenarios to decide what's most important to you.

Enjoy your cruise!

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

We used Allianz. We have used them in the past for non-cruise vacations. We even had to postpone a previous trip we insured with them. They paid the claim, no problem and reimbursed us for the portion of the trip we missed. They just required a note from the doctor saying why we started the vacation late (medical care under his supervision, no specifics required), and a note from the Cottage Rental place to show what day we arrived later in the week.

As said above, medical insurance when outside the country is the most important thing. It is expensive and probably not covered by your normal medical insurance. (Just seeing the doctor on the ship costs $150-$300.)

Also as stated, you have lots of choices for what to cover. Just the cruise? The airfare? The hotel? The rental cars? Don't forget to cover the cost of shore excursions. If you book them through Disney, they are non-refundable 3 days before the trips so if you had to cancel last minute or during the trip, you'd be on the hook for excursions you don't take unless you have insurance. We didn't cover the airfare (Southwest), the hotel or the cars because the ones we booked could be canceled up to the last day.

Another set of choices is around the reasons for cancellation. For a few percent more, we covered cancellation for any reason. For our policy, some reasons were only covered at 80%, others at 100%, but that gave us a lot more flexibility and peace of mind. Medical reasons and such were covered 100%. More subjective reasons like "too busy at work" were covered at 80%. Also, since we were 9 people travelling together, we made sure that we could cancel all 9 if one person couldn't go, or that we could cancel just some people if we preferred. Hard to know what the situation will be until it happens so we wanted to have all our bases covered.

Altogether it was something like 3-5% of the total cost of the trip, which seemed reasonable to us. This time we didn't use the insurance. (Hooray!) But I'm still glad we bought it. And as I said, we did use it once in the past.

 

[jerseygal]

If you need to cancel for a work related reason that may arise, I believe Travelguard has a specific travel insurance which covers that. This would fall under their covered reasons for cancellation. Good luck in comparing; really pays to "get into the specifics" of the policies before purchasing!

 

[RedSox68]

Just booked our first Disney Cruise and I'm very confused about trip insurance. What's a good company to use or should I just book through Disney?

We use insure my trip -- you can compare up to four policies at a time. Have used them for every one of our trips. I pick the policy/company that best suits what we need at the time. For overseas, our big must have is air evacuation and pre-existing (which has to be booked within 10 days of your deposit). We never use DCL insurance because they are too expensive and never offer what we want. good luck.

 

[bumbershoot]

Good luck in comparing; really pays to "get into the specifics" of the policies before purchasing!

Yep.

I'm not actually sure if this is an issue now due to the affordable care act, with pre-existing conditions in health insurance not mattering (as much?) anymore, BUT the last time I bought trip insurance (I've been lazy with it b/c I'm lazy) it was an issue. The issue is that my state, WA, has required that pre-existing conditions be covered, and very very few insurance companies do that. Even with health insurance, my state lost MANY companies once that happened; State Farm sells individual health insurance, for instance, but pre-ACA did NOT sell it to WA residents, because they WANTED to exclude pre-existing conditions.

And it affected trip insurance. If you live in WA, the insurance available had to have the PEC clause (meaning that * if my MIL got a diagnosis of a new heart problem on the 1st and I bought the insurance on the 2nd, it was still a coverable condition if she had to cancel....without that clause, something diagnosed BEFORE I bought insurance would not be part of being covered, and if she missed a trip or if we had to cut a trip short because we're her healthcare proxies, it would NOT be covered). Not every insurance company offered taht product. DCL didn't, so DCL specifically could not and did not sell trip insurance to those of us who live in WA.

I think this has changed, but I'm not sure. Because I can get trip insurance for so much cheaper elsewhere. And like lanejudy mentioned, it doesn't include anything not booked through Disney.


So when we used a company that compared products to insure my trip, each time I added something new that was nonrefundable to our vacation, I called them up and had it added. I didn't add car rental because we didn't get a nonrefundable rental. I didn't add our WDW stay prior because that just covers the DVC dues, which isn't that much, and well I just didn't. But I included air, cruise, that sort of thing.



*I might not be describing this correctly. The words get a bit twizzled in my mind when talking about the PEC, and I try to use specifics, but I still might have it mixy when I type it out. I apologize in advance if I mixed it up.