Travel Insurance

[gayl]

I just canceled my cruise line insurance and thinking of just going with my credit card insurance. My comparison:
View attachment 45163Cruise costs are:
#1 is 906, insurance 72.48
#2 is 4348, insurance 345.03 so 3k 'at risk'
#3 is 1938, insurance 155.04, 438 uncovered so 282.96 'at risk'

 

[njhowie]

Just be sure your credit card insurance covers everything you're looking for and in the amounts you're looking for.

I would go so far as calling the credit card customer service, verifying the coverages and then having them email it to you so you have it in writing from them and dated.

 

[gayl]

It's on their website ... I've used it before but for land trips. Never dawned on me to use it for cruising.

 

[explanade]

Had a trip delay in November when the airline screwed up my return flight from Australia.

So I had to stay there an additional two days, during which I incurred about $500 in hotel and meal expenses. I didn't even spend on entertainment.

I pursued claims vs. the airline and a travel insurance that I took out for about $50 for a 2-3 week trip.

Airline gave me a $350 credit and the insurance, after about 2 months of them asking for specific receipts instead of my sending them my credit card statement showing the expense charged, finally approved the claim.

I don't recall but I think I briefly looked at the insurance on the credit card and for whatever reason, I didn't file a claim. Since I paid for travel insurance, I went with them directly.

 

[gayl]

Which insurance company was that??

 

[explanade]

Which insurance company was that??

C&F Travel Insured International.

Worldwide Trip Protector Plan.

Purchased on Insuremytrip.com

 

[Drake3287]

gayl, by chance do you have Kaiser insurance over there in CoCo County? Kaiser is one of the few providers that offer coverage over-sea's. A few hoops to jump through but you'll eventually get reimbursed.

 

[gayl]

Yes. My HMO is Kaiser. So I'll look into that too

 

[Sunset]

When traveling out of the country, I think of health insurance (and medical evacuation), as one thing, and the actual trip/traveling insurance as another.

I buy extra health insurance, and generally use a "travel" credit card that claims to cover the actual trip.

I've never had to use either one, so it's untested.

 

[Teacher Terry]

In 2016 we booked a cruise with friends through royal Caribbean and bought the trip insurance. His cancer came back and he was terminal and in too bad of shape to go. His wife had Alzheimer’s so obviously she couldn’t go without him. I tried numerous times to file his insurance and had a letter from his doctor saying he was too ill. They just kept saying that they didn’t receive it despite me both mailing it and faxing it numerous times. I finally got frustrated and gave it to his son to deal with. 6 months later at his funeral the son had still not collected. I wish I remembered the name of the company.

 

[Sunset]

^^^^^^ Not too surprising to me, for insurance companies, I send by certified mail or faxed and phoned to confirm they got it immediately.
Too often it seems claims get "lost".

 

[fh2000]

When traveling out of the country, I think of health insurance (and medical evacuation), as one thing, and the actual trip/traveling insurance as another.

I buy extra health insurance, and generally use a "travel" credit card that claims to cover the actual trip.

I've never had to use either one, so it's untested.

I looked into the credit card benefits. The medical and evacuation coverage (about $50,000/$100,000) tend to be low.

The cruise line offers their insurance and the coverage (also about $50,000/$100,000) are also low. I used insuremytrip.com to search for just medical and evacuation. With the same amount of money, I often found insurance companies cover for higher limit ($500,000/$1,000,000), so that is what I purchased.

I also never used it and untested for me too.

 

[MrEd]

Chase Safire Reserve Credit Card

If you travel often the travel insurance coverage benefits are excellent.

Dive into the details.

 

[explanade]

Other thing to look for is medical evacuation coverage, though usually coverage is at their discretion, not you to demand you be medically evacuated.

Some of these policies have primary vs. secondary health care coverage.

Most ACA policies have emergency coverage of some kind so they will cover certain types of events like accidents.

 

[Chuckanut]

I tried buying health only insurance for a previous trip and found nothing available in my state. I figured I would purchase it very early just in case a new 'condition' arose between my first purchase date and the trip. Upon calling a trip insurance broker, I found out that it is only sold within 6 months of the departure date.

 

[Scuba]

Also consider the maximum loss payable and the trip duration for the credit card insurance. We got Chase Sapphire cards mainly because of the travel insurance benefit, but it only covers trips up to 60 days and no more than $10K. That’s great for shorter trips but did not help us for our recent Australia trip.

 

[explanade]

Also consider the maximum loss payable and the trip duration for the credit card insurance. We got Chase Sapphire cards mainly because of the travel insurance benefit, but it only covers trips up to 60 days and no more than $10K. That’s great for shorter trips but did not help us for our recent Australia trip.

For credit card travel insurance, you must book your travel with the card.

So airline tickets, cruises, train tickets, whatever the main transportation cost is to get you to your destination.

I'm not sure if it covers hotels or rental cars booked with other cards though but the verbiage is coverage for unused portions of the trip if for instance your trip is delayed or interrupted or canceled before it starts.

That's assuming you can't get refunds. I suppose you will have to document that you are unable to obtain refunds. AFAIK, there isn't a requirement to book only refundable hotel rates.

But there are also strict daily limits on the travel delay portion of the coverage.

I believe that goes for all travel insurance, whether from credit cards or a separate policy.

Also when you go to sites like insuremytrip.com or squaremouth.com, you have to enter the dates of the trip, where you're going to and the cost of the trip.

If you put in the full amount, you're asking for cancellation coverage and the premiums will run into hundreds for a trip.

I usually enter zero because I'm mostly interested in health care coverage (primary or secondary), medical evacuation and some trip delay or interruption. Adding rental car coverage also makes the premiums go up so I use Chase Saphire Preferred to pay for the car rental, to get primary coverage.

That results in policies which start around $40-50 for a 2-3 week trip.

I haven't looked into those annual policies but they seem to be similar policies to the ones I get per trip but they're a couple hundred and won't cover a lot of cancellation costs.

I looked into CFAR (Cancel for Any Reason) policies and they will be more because you have to specify the amount of the trip (and they cover up to 80-90% I believe, maybe less). But you have to book a CFAR policy right away, like right after your first charge, which for me typically is the flight fare. If you wait a couple of weeks or more, CFAR is no longer available for the trip.