What do you think is most important in trip insurance?

[dskib]

A travel agent once told me that one of the most important things she looks for in trip insurance is the medical evacuation amount. Should be at least $500,000.

I want insurance to cover trip cancellation in the event of weather or illness/family illness, lost luggage, and hotel stay of flight is cancelled. That's about it. I'm pretty sure most plants would cover me pretty well that way. Of course, now she's got me thinking about medical evacuation. It's the one thing she really pointed out.

What do you all look for in a plan. Is there something more important that I'm missing?


Thanks!

 

[bobbiwoz]

We are senior citizens, and we think medical evacuation and pre existing conditions are most important. We have been on over 60 cruises altogether, and we have seen medical evacuations on about 1/2 of them. For example, this helicopter coming to CC.

 

[iivye]

I agree with the medical evacuation and if I am cruising to the Caribbean I generally stick with only a medical evac policy since we fly in the night before. If I am doing a cruise in Europe I will get a policy that includes all the stuff the op mentioned.

 

[wanderlust7]

Medical evacuation definitely. I don't know how much is really necessary, but having the $1 million coverage makes me feel very secure.

For cruises, missed connection coverage is a must for me, and the shorter than delay time required the better. If you miss the cruise for covered reasons, this is the coverage that will pay to fly you to the next port and reimburse for missed days.

The luggage coverage is very low priority for me. Usually it's the airline that loses it (or it gets delayed) and so they compensate for that.

 

[bumbershoot]

When we buy trip insurance we do it immediately to make sure pre existing conditions are covered. And that that includes people not traveling with us, in case MIL has a problem at home. She has enough conditions that just about anything that might happen to her would be considered pre-existing.

Sonce you want hotel covered in case of flight (home?) being cancelled, you'll need to have the flight covered, too.

Basically cover every nonrefundable cost from the moment you leave the house to when you get back home.

That's about it.

Lol. You named nearly everything in trip insurance.

If you miss the cruise for covered reasons, this is the coverage that will pay to fly you to the next port and reimburse for missed days.

But that will only work if you have passports. So if you're traveling with birth certificates and IDs that's not going to be possible if you miss the ship.

 

[wanderlust7]

But that will only work if you have passports. So if you're traveling with birth certificates and IDs that's not going to be possible if you miss the ship.

Good point. We travel with passports so this didn't occur to me.

The insurance we have for our next cruise, if you miss more than 50% of the cruise, then it becomes covered as a cancellation. So I suppose, if someone didn't have passports, they would go do a rush application and see if by the time they get it if they can still make more than 50% of the cruise at the next port.

 

[NS8VN]

A medical evacuation costs far more than the entire trip combined, so I agree completely that it is the most important consideration. Missed flights or cancellations could run in the hundreds or thousands of dollars, but a medical emergency can easily end up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. That order of magnitude is why I get it when leaving the country, any help with other potential problems is just a bonus as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Ralph&Pam]

A medical evacuation costs far more than the entire trip combined, so I agree completely that it is the most important consideration. Missed flights or cancellations could run in the hundreds or thousands of dollars, but a medical emergency can easily end up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. That order of magnitude is why I get it when leaving the country, any help with other potential problems is just a bonus as far as I'm concerned.

This is the primary concern for us. We have switched to an annual travel insurance plan to get this coverage for all our trips during a 12-month interval. That way, we are covered for pre- and post-cruise add-ons that we book on our own without making adjustments every time we make a change. Most of the annual plans I investigated have more limited trip cancellation and trip interruption coverage (ours is a maximum of $5000 per person), but we’re okay with that to get the much higher limits on medical emergency and evacuation (the DCL insurance coverage for medical evacuation is only $30,000 and medical emergency is only $10,000; too skimpy based on what I have read).

 

[ludari]

I have never purchased cruise insurance in my past 10+ cruises, however I do have extra medical insurance that will cover medical care and medical evacuation expenses if necessary.

 

[cmwade77]

I would say medical evacuation and preexisting condition waivers.

 

[butterfly0202]

ours is cancel for any reason