Which Insurance co.?

[Minnie&Mickey]

If you buy insurance to cover your cruise, which company do you go with? The insurance through Disney or some other company? We booked through AllSeas and received our package of information today and they use a company called Travel Insured. Is this the same company that Disney uses? Do some companies cover more than others?

 

[CAMICKEY]

We just use the insurance provided by DCL. Hope to never use it - but nice to have just in case. - Mike

 

[Doctor P]

We bought our insurance through Travel Guard and got the same, if not more, insurance for less than half the cost of Disney's plan.

 

[makaylee]

Our first cruise we paid for the DCL insurance. I have since wised up from reading these boards. You can get the same amount of coverage or more for half the price DCL charges you.

 

[CAMICKEY]

Sounds like I have been wasting some money. I will need to check into Travel Guard. Thanks for the info - Mike

 

[Scotch]

I've heard good things about Travel Guard on www.cruisecritics.com boards and plan to buy through them for our upcoming cruise. We just placed the deposit today on our DCL cruise so we'll buy the insurance within the next 15 days -- we're looking that the "Cruise, Tour and Travel" insurance option offered, even though we don't plan on purchasing our airline tickets until much later (I'm using an estimate of the cost of each ticket to value the amount of coverage we will buy.)

If you buy that insurance option within 15 days of the first payment Travel Guard will, for each insured --

(1) waive the pre-existing medical condition exclusion clause (which we need because my mom has a pre-existing condition that could interfere with the trip in 15 months; keep in mind that many trip insurance out there do not offer a waiver on the pre-existing medical conditions exclusion clause);

(2) provide trip cost financial default protection for no extra cost, which covers you if the tour operator, cruise line or airline declares bankruptcy more than fourteen days after the effective date of coverage under the policy (the lack of such coverage hurt lots of travellers in the immediate post-9/11 days when tour operators and cruise lines went out of business and left customers stranded; though of course the chances of DCL going bankrupt even after another 9/11 seems small); and

(3) provide "change of mind coverage" which reimburses your penalty up to $250 if you cancel your trip simply because you change your mind (this is not a big deal in my opinion; at best it will be okay for for non-emergency/illness cancellations of our cruise before final payment but after we've already purchased plane tickets because move airlines charge $100 change fee for the discounted non-refundable tickets).

You can obtain information and do all the purchasing online via www.travelguard.com. I've also called them and emailed them with questions on a few occasions during 2003 and this year and they've been pretty good to deal with. I don't know that Travel Guard is necessarily the cheapest out there. But it's a well respected company and, as I stated before, many Cruise Critic board members have had good experience with the company over the years. When shopping around just be sure to compare side by side the kind of coverage you will get from each company's offerings and the cost of those offerings, keeping in mind which coverage options do you really want/need.

 

[Minnie&Mickey]

Thanks for all the information. I guess I will need to call Travel Guard tomorrow and add the coverage. I got a quote from their website, and for the complete coverage, it was about $280 for our family of 4. Right now we don't have any pre-existing medical conditions, but I guess I'd rather be safe than sorry.

 

[Minnie&Mickey]

I hope you guys aren't too sick of my insurance questions! I'm very new at all this and don't want to mess up...just wait until I start asking all my questions about Nassua!

Okay, let me see if I am getting this right...I don't need to decide on insurance within the first 10 days of putting down my deposit unless we have a pre-existing medical condition, right? If we are healthy, we can wait until later to purchase the insurance? Is it 60 days out?

 

[DawnCt]

If you want a good site where you can compare all of the trip insurance plans, check out www.insuremytrip.com. Just as important to me as cruise cancellation insurance, perhaps more important, is medical evacuation insurance. No one wants to be stuck in the Caribbean with a medical emergency and the bill to fly home. I have used travelinsured. They have an office in Ct. and have the coverage limits that I like.

 

[DISNEYMOMx5]

I am new to all this, too, but when we recently booked our first cruise, the nice folks here (like dawnct) directed me to www.insuremytrip.com . We got a great deal thru Travelex--kids were free, & with 5 of them, this definitely helped. Also, the coverage has everything we need & then some. Good luck in your research More importantly, enjoy that cruise!!!