Do you buy travel insurance?

[Sunset]

Ooh, I may get a couple for my next trip! The last one was in Central America, changing hotels every 2 days (only one 3-night stay) and one bathroom did have a step up. I put a white towel across the doorway to remind myself. I like the idea of motion-activated lights better.

While not motion activated, I bring very tiny flashlights.
I've found these to be the best, they take 1 AAA battery and are bright and small.
They give them away free if you sign up (have to pay $5 shipping) but are aluminum and fantastic.
I carry one on my key-ring as it's small enough.

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[NoiseBoy]

This is an interesting and helpful thread. I started buying travel health insurance last year on a per trip basis for what are typically two weeks stays somewhere in Europe. I use InsureMyTrip.com, but seem to always end up buying a GeoBlue policy. The average cost is about $75 for ~14 days worth of $100k medical coverage. Note that I opt to raise the deductible which offsets the increase in cost over the default $50k of coverage. I do not buy trip interruption insurance for the same reason others have posted.

Last December I was 4 days into an 11 night cruise, my first ever, when I got a call from my sister telling me that her husband had had a heart attack and died. We were in port, so I started making plans and I was able to get a flight home the next day. I left the ship after dinner and spent the night in a hotel by the airport. I flew home the next day and, after things settled down, I began filing some claims. United, the carrier I flew home on in the emergency, was great. They refunded the full cost of my flight. Cunard gave me a travel credit equal to 50% of the cost of my cruise. All in all, I figure that I "lost" about $3,000 which is a tiny price to pay to be home with my sister in her time of need.

From reading this thread, I am going to research the recently updated travel benefits of my Citi Strata Premier card as well as take a look at the health and evacuation benefits of the Chase Reserve card. I am in the hunt for a Visa card, so the Chase card might make sense, but I will need to do the math first.

 

[FIYes]

Shopping for travel insurance for our upcoming trips. I’m considering an annual plan from GeoBlue. Has anyone used this company? We have reached the ages where insurance is expensive…71/70.

We have Chase Sapphire Preferred, but we need medical/ medical evacuation. I’m not concerned about insuring for minor losses like delayed or lost luggage….and the Chase card coverage on that is good enough.

Whatever company i choose I will want an annual plan. Again I’m not concerned about losing the cost of a trip, I’m concerned about a many thousand dollar medical event. We are in good health but I’ve been on cruises where medical evacuations occurred.

 

[SecondAttempt]

Shopping for travel insurance for our upcoming trips. I’m considering an annual plan from GeoBlue. Has anyone used this company? We have reached the ages where insurance is expensive…71/70.

We have Chase Sapphire Preferred, but we need medical/ medical evacuation. I’m not concerned about insuring for minor losses like delayed or lost luggage….and the Chase card coverage on that is good enough.

Whatever company i choose I will want an annual plan. Again I’m not concerned about losing the cost of a trip, I’m concerned about a many thousand dollar medical event. We are in good health but I’ve been on cruises where medical evacuations occurred.

I am far from an expert but when I researched our medical coverage overseas I found that we were covered for all but routine care. But given your ages you likely have medicare which, as I understand it, does not cover anything outside the US. If you have an advantage plan then maybe you are covered. Check with your carrier.

That said, we are 59/58 and will be carrying Geoblue starting this year just in case. But it's only $200/yr for us so more of a no brainer given our travel.

 

[Romer]

Received the United Club card and read the fine print. Has all the things I am looking for. $10K Travel Cancelation per person up to $40K a year, evacuation coverage all included with the higher fee, which is half I was less I was paying for insurance on one trip. We didn't use to get travel insurance. My in-laws now are in their late 80's and you never know when something could happen that we need to be home to care for them. We have been booking more expensive trips now that we are retired. Plus I like the Club access, will use 3-4 times a year and the many other benefits that come with the card. Canceling the United Explorer card so the fee delta is $425 a year. Since I am a lifetime Unite Gold member, this card made better sense for us as we only fly United with the free perks that comes with being Gold which are better than the card comes with.

Now I get to see how well the Insurance works.

My wife has treatment for Multiple Myoloma (sp?) starting this week. I had paid the deposit on a RCL cruise for 9 people to make a family cruise. Full payment would have been due in February

So canceling the cruise and asking for a letter from the Dr's offfice before I file. Everything but the $250 per person deposit is refundable, meaning tours and prepaid gratuities should be refunded no issue.

I will post up here how it goes for the $2250 deposit

On a side note, because they have been watching my wife closely they jumped right on a treatmeant well before she would have felt anything. The DR said with the new treatmeants and early catch, this is one of the rare instances he can assure 100% chance of remission. She will be in treatment and immune compromised though when we were suppose to take the cruise in early May.

 

[flyingaway]

I don't buy any travel insurance. I don't want to be bothered with the claiming processes. I can afford one or two hotel nights if flights are canceled or delayed, usually the airlines are responsible for that. I don't see the point of buying insurance when you can easily afford the losses.

 

[Dtail]

I have bought it for Cruises, but not any USA based trips.

 

[Luvtoride]

Now I get to see how well the Insurance works.

My wife has treatment for Multiple Myoloma (sp?) starting this week. I had paid the deposit on a RCL cruise for 9 people to make a family cruise. Full payment would have been due in February

So canceling the cruise and asking for a letter from the Dr's offfice before I file. Everything but the $250 per person deposit is refundable, meaning tours and prepaid gratuities should be refunded no issue.

I will post up here how it goes for the $2250 deposit

On a side note, because they have been watching my wife closely they jumped right on a treatmeant well before she would have felt anything. The DR said with the new treatmeants and early catch, this is one of the rare instances he can assure 100% chance of remission. She will be in treatment and immune compromised though when we were suppose to take the cruise in early May.

All the best to your wife. Yes, this is the reality of why we need to buy travel insurance. When it’s an expensive trip with family we will buy it. Traveling at our age is the reason, especially for the “airlift back to states” benefits.

 

[Gallaher]

Always buy travel insurance in this order:
Primary medical
Evacuation
Cancelation.
I almost don’t care about cancelation coverage.
I am considering an annual plan.
Usually buy on squaremouth.com

 

[Romer]

My card has $150K evacuation, $20K per person trip cancelation and a slew of other benefits. It only lacks Medical

However, my Antham Retiree insurance suprised me by having international coverage at approved facilities. Plenty of places in Europe I lookeed through

We were going to Alaska in any case and our normal Health Insurance would have covered Medical

I did price Medical only via USAA and it was pretty cheap and also had better evac coverage. The credit card has everything else covered and more, or I will at least see how good it is soon

 

[FedRetired50]

I don't see the point of buying insurance when you can easily afford the losses.

An income/assets bell curve applies here. Those on the lower end aren't taking trips worth insuring, and can't afford to insure them anyway. Those in the middle can afford trips that are worth insuring, can't afford to lose that money, and can afford the insurance. You are on the other end of the bell curve where you can afford the trip, can afford to lose the money, so self-insuring pays off over the long run.

I saw someone argue on the forum that this applies to bonds, too. Up to a certain level of assets, the use of bonds promotes stability. By the time you hit UHNWI on the bell curve, it may not matter.

 

[brett]

We would not leave the country without out of country medical and evac. insurance.

We have 60 fsu coverage through a pension plan but sometimes need to augment it when travelling for more that 60 days at a time.

My business TA gave me some good advice years ago. Never by travel insurance from a travel agency or a travel vendor. Chances are you will not only pay too much but also have a lower lever of coverage. The few times when I tested this it turned out to be true in spades.

Read the policy, ask questions. Be very careful when anwering the qualification questions.

My concern is not the the 10,20, 50K medical evac costs. It is the 200, 300, 400K expense liability.

 

[athena53]

Sad example of why you need travel coverage for the catastrophic issues:

Family of sick grandmother stuck in Florida hospital hit back

Patricia Bunting, 76, was determined to have one final foreign holiday with her grandson William, who is 23 and has autism, but it took a turn for the worse when she ended up in hospital with no insurance.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Briefly- British grandma LOVED Disney World and wanted to visit it one last time with family. She was in poor health and it would have cost GBP 3,000 to buy coverage for medical expenses. So she didn't. She's terribly sick (COVID then heart problems and a GI bleed) and the family is trying to raise money to get her home by air ambulance since she's too ill to fly commercial.

And this is why I buy good insurance plus evacuation coverage when I travel internationally. I don't have her health problems but Stuff happens.

 

[brett]

Another one this week trying to raise money. Heart attack etc in Thailand. Time in heart institute. Needs a medical evac. $400K, meter is still running, in medical expenses. Includes cost of dedicated medivac home.

 

[EastWest Gal]

I bought an annual plan last year from Allianz. It includes a collision damage waiver for a rental car, which also includes if the car is stolen, as well as trip cancellation, interruption, emergency medical, medical evacuation. It covers for any trip over 100 miles from your home. I'm renewing this year because of the nature of my travel plans-I'm planning on a New England ski trip, and we'll be renting an AWD vehicle for the trip because of my concern for snow and ice and not wanting to deal with repairing or replacing my own car should something happen. The cost is $280 per person. There are higher cost plans which include a higher coverage for medical evacuation, but I'm not planning international travel, so I'm not purchasing that. Their highest cost annual plan is $510.

I'd shop around. GeoBlue looks fantastic for international travel.

 

[KiwiFI]

Which credit card do you use for this? Thanks

Not US related but I use a platinum card built in travel insurance. Never had to use it but good to have that peace of mind for the $175 /yr card fee.

 

[FedRetired50]

I bought an annual plan last year from Allianz. It includes a collision damage waiver for a rental car...

I reviewed the fine print on the following just a few months ago. Allianz rental car coverage is secondary, not primary. For Chase Sapphire, rental car coverage is primary. For Chase Amazon Prime and Citi Costco, rental car coverage is secondary in US, primary outside the US.

 

[frank05]

We have a yearly GeoBlue coverage but have never taken advantage of it. We have friends who used it and didn’t have any trouble getting reimbursed for expenses even including a supplemental oxygen machine.


We get it for two reasons air evec from a remote location to a medical facility and medical transportation home in case we can’t fly commercial. We use a travel credit card for travel related issues although they don’t cover trip cancellation.

 

[Lewis Clark]

Friend of mine had a stroke while on a cruise last fall. Fell and broke all three ankle bones. A couple of weeks in the hospital in Chile for her, and in a hotel for him. Air ambulence flight back to the US was over $200,000.

They were glad to have good travel insurance.

 

[rembrandt]

Whatever happened to airport insurance vending machines? I remember buying cheap life insurance in case the plane crashed.

 

[athena53]

Whatever happened to airport insurance vending machines? I remember buying cheap life insurance in case the plane crashed.

My guess is that demand diminished- you're safer in a plane than a car on the road. I remember Dad always used to buy it when he went on business trips- it included a postage-paid envelope to mail the policy back to your family just in case.

It also used to be a perk with Amex cards in the 1980s- I priced it as part of my job. Not sure if it's still included but it's pretty cheap coverage.

 

[brett]

We have had a few cards that provided trip medical insurance. They were worthless to us when we read the details.

Usually a combo of a two or three week limit and and age restriction of 65. We are in our 70's and our shortest trip is most often one month, often longer.

We have never bough cancellation insurance. We have it on one credit card. Only ever have one claim...cancelled trip to China due to health issues.

The majority of our cruise have been late booking. No more than sixty days out, often much less so cancel insurance is not something that we have ever considered for cruises.

 

[SecondAttempt]

I'm considering if we should start buying an annual travel insurance plan. Cost is about $750 each for $10,000 annual trip cancellation and interruption (annually), $50,000 for medical insurance and $250,000 emergency evacuation per trip.

We do quite a few cruises each year, and will likely be doing 1 international trip a year.

We currently have GeoBlue emergency medical insurance (I made sure it covered cruise ship medical!) That runs us about $260 a year for both of us. It "only" pays $50,000 for medical expenses, but I'm conformable with that amount.

My husband is inclined to have us not get trip insurance. Our travel budget (per year) is about $40,000 per year. If the worst happened and we lost some of what we paid for an individual trip, I'd be bummed, be it wouldn't be catastrophic to us. Equally, if I had to make emergency arrangements and pay a lot to get home, I could do it. We have a pretty large amount of credit card limits, so we'd have money available if needed.

I was actually thinking we should get the insurance, although I do understand his reasoning. I am 62 and he will be 66 in the fall, so we are also hitting those ages where medical issues are more common.

So, just curious what other people do in terms of insurance. I'd appreciate any input.

Can you describe specifically what you are esnuring against? It seems like you have the big things covered with geoblue

 

[NextInLine]

One of the reasons I keep an expensive credit card is I find I use more benefits than the fee. And they are usually geared towards frequent travelers. So getting the Cancellation Insurance included, as well as other perks, really pays off for me.

Would you mind sharing the credit card (and fee) you used which has good travel insurance coverage? I plan a 100 miles hiking trip in Europe in July and thinking about insurance.

 

[brett]

We have used cancellation insurance once in 50 years or so of international travel. The only 'loss' we have ever had was one night of a prepaid hotel stay when we decided to leave early.

We did haveto cancel a prepaid tour to China a few years ago. Checked our recently acquired Master Card and realized that it had cancel insurance. Bit of a fluke.

MC's carrier paid out three weeks after we submitted the required documents. The claim was equiv to about 15 years of the annual cost of that specific card. Entire process was clear and straightforward.

We have never purchased cancellation insurance to the best of my knowledge. Certainly not in retirment since we are spontaneous travellers and tend not to book very far in advance.