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Insurance experiences


MommyAJ6
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Found out I had cancer, and had to cancel a booking 3 weeks before we were to go (was starting radiation treatments).

 

We had no insurance on the trip (heck, I thought who needs insurance?), and lost the full cruise booking fee. The airline was much more accommodating and gave me a 75% credit for my fare, and 25% for my wife.

 

Will I ever book again without insurance? nope never. Stuff happens, better to spend an extra 10% and be sure.

 

PS cancer was beaten!

 

 

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The morning we were departing on our January 13, 2 week Panama Canal Cruise, my wife's Dad died. We had Nationwide Cruise Protection from insuremytrip.com. We insured $8000. I did take 2 months but we got everything back. You must have every receipt, airline ticket, hotel reservations, and any necessary document.

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Not on a cruise but...in Playa del Carmen my husband slipped on the wet tile and busted open his head. Had to put a 2k hold on credit card for hospital to treat him. 16 stitches ended up being 1800 bucks. Luckly we had allianz travel insurance from delta flights. They reimbursed us after returning home.

 

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On our first stay at Galley Bay Resort in Antigua in 1995, Hurricane Luis was a class 5 monster barreling straight for this isle. We used our insurance to get a last minute emergency flight off the island to Newark.

 

Insurance also covered our cab to JFK, where I had parked our car in the long term lot. We also got reimbursed for the unused portion of our stay at the resort. Had we not been able to flee and were forced to stay on the island during the storm and its aftermath (no electricity, no running water, etc. insurance could have covered my hospital bills or death since I discovered a few weeks later I had a coronary artery blockage that needed roto rooting.

 

Now we purchase a year long policy that covers all our travels. Much cheaper than getting 8 or 10 individual trips insured!

Edited by evandbob
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First: My mother was admitted to the hospital (life threatening illness) three days before cruise.

 

Second: My mother was admitted to the hospital four days before cruise (passed away three weeks later).

 

Third: My mother-in-law was admitted to the hospital (life threatening illness) three days before cruise.

 

In all cases all money was recouped. But as someone said, you have to have documents supporting your reason for cancelling, including medical records if an illness is involved. Of course, you CAN pay more and get "cancel for any reason" coverage, though I believe this has to be done within a few days of booking your travel.

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On our first stay at Galley Bay Resort in Antigua in 1995, Hurricane Luis was a class 5 monster barreling straight for this isle. We used our insurance to get a last minute emergency flight off the island to Newark.

 

Insurance also covered our cab to JFK, where I had parked our car in the long term lot. We also got reimbursed for the unused portion of our stay at the resort. Had we not been able to flee and were forced to stay on the island during the storm and its aftermath (no electricity, no running water, etc. insurance could have covered my hospital bills or death since I discovered a few weeks later I had a coronary artery blockage that needed roto rooting.

 

Now we purchase a year long policy that covers all our travels. Much cheaper than getting 8 or 10 individual trips insured!

 

 

If it's allowed here can you share where you get the year long policy please. Thank you. Very glad all worked out and you were safe.

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Sailed Carnival Breeze out of Galveston last summer. Booked Carnival's insurance policy fire the first time. Hurricane Harvey wrecked havoc and extended our cruise and canceled our flight home. We disembarked in New Orleans, got a flight the next day. The policy covered our hotel, food, and Lyft rides in New Orleans. Flight was changed free of charge by the airline.

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Reading your earlier post about missing St Thomas, my experience may be of interest to you. I booked a cruise last summer just to finally get to see Key West. So of course, Hurricane Irma had other ideas!

 

I had travel insurance but learned through CC that many policies will offer Trip Interruption coverage, which means that if you miss a port (I believe it had to be cancelled prior to the cruise, such as is your case but I'm not sure) then you were entitled to a partial refund from the insurance company. We calculated how much that lost port cost (cost of cruisedivided by 7) included any non-refundable expenses, subtracted any refunds (one Carnival excursion, port fee & tax refund) and provided the appropriate documentation (like the letter you got from Carnival saying St Thomas was cancelled).

 

Because there were 2 of us, we ended up getting $400 or so back from the insurance company! it took about 3 weeks from the time I submitted the claim until we got a check.

 

It didn't make up for missing Key West, but at least it was a deposit on our next cruise!

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If it's allowed here can you share where you get the year long policy please. Thank you. Very glad all worked out and you were safe.

 

In case you don't get any response on this, search "squaremouth" where you can look at ratings and reviews for a whole bunch of travel insurers, as well as who underwrites them, etc. You can also initiate policies from there.

 

But there are also threads here on the CC boards where travel insurers have been discussed at great length. It's been years since I read that (or those) thread(s), so I can't offer a quick link. But I'm sure they're still here.

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1) We had to cancel our cruise aboard the Carnival Triumph when I was promoted and had to attend mandatory training during the week of the cruise. We found out about this a few weeks prior to sailing. Our insurance refunded the cost of our cruise 100% under their “cancel for work reasons” clause.

 

2) The airline lost our luggage enroute to Seattle to sail aboard the Westerdam to Alaska. The luggage was never located. We received a measly compensation from the airline, but our insurance compensated us for the balance of everything that was in our luggage, everything that we needed to purchase last minute in Seattle before boarding the ship, and they also added additional compensation specifically for lost luggage when traveling by cruise ship. By the time it was all said and done, we received almost $3,000 worth of compensation.

 

The main thing to keep in mind is that you document EVERYTHING, and that you save every boarding pass, receipt, and invoice that you receive. Chances are that the insurance company will ask for all (they did for us). Both times we had to make claims, they were processed fairly painlessly, but I had everything that they asked for in my possession, including a notarized letter (from my employer) for the first claim.

 

Do keep in mind that all policies are different, so always read the fine print before you purchase. For example, the “cancel for work reasons” clause is worded differently in various policies. The way it was worded on the policy I chose allowed me to file the claim, but I would’ve been denied under other policies.

 

 

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We have never needed to use our insurance, but it gives me peace of mind. We nearly missed our first cruise due to traffic and my husband not listening to me. After that, we show up the day before and get insurance.

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my travel partner got very sick during our cruise a few years ago. 3 visits to the ship medical center was around 4,000 dollars. I submitted all of the paperwork and copy's of statements/bills. a few weeks later, i received the reimbursement check from the travel insurance.

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Have made claims on our Travelguard gold policy 2x - once when dd then 18 had appendicitis attack and she and I were off-loaded in Belize and spent 3 days in the hospital there. Got back every penny except $5. Then once when I came down with norovirus the day before our pre-cruise flight/stay in Miami. Got back all our money for that one. As soon as I book a cruise/vacation, my next call is to travelguard for a policy!

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I too use Travel Guard, several years ago I had to use it due a medical issue three days before a cruise. I had to fax them all medical records for the previous six months and get a statement from my doctor but after about six weeks I got all of my money back.

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Had an eye emergency morning of cruise. Was refunded total cruise fare, but nothing else as insurance was through Royal. Happy with that though as it was to be our first RCI cruise on The Harmony in a suite $$.

That was also the same week last September that Hurricane Irma hit a few days later.

 

We always purchase insurance, usually privately. I think last time we waited too long and that’s why we went through the cruise line.

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First big trip to Europe and a friend strongly suggested trip insurance. Glad we had it. Flights were messed up due to big storms. Very glad I had a carry-on with half my clothing in it! We were re-routed through a different airport in Europe, did not see our luggage nor hubby's golf clubs for three days. He had to rent clubs, shoes, buy socks and balls. We kept all the receipts. Travel Guard reimbursed us 100%.

 

Second time I had a claim was on a cruise. I became deathly ill (probably salmonella) from something I ate at the airport before the cruise began. There was not another soul in the infirmary, so I knew it was not ship-borne. Two separate trips to the ship infirmary for I.V. fluids and a $800 bill. I had bought insurance thru the travel agent, don't know which company, but it reimbursed me 100% after our own group health insurance plan denied it. Agent said that is the usual procedure.

 

 

We won't book a big trip without travel insurance, especially now that we are on (original) Medicare A&B. We also bought a MedJetAssist membership this year.

 

 

Read the plan policies thoroughly before purchasing. Hubby is semi-retired but self-employed. Some will not reimburse "cancel for work reasons" if you are self-employed.

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Always buy travel insurance ! Had two of our party of six bail on cruise for medical reasons, the week before we were set to leave. Travel insurance covered the cruise fees and also the added single supplements we had to pay the cruise line due to our solo room results.

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My first cruise was when I was 20 and on my honeymoon. The cruise was part of a 2 week package that included Disney pre cruise and Coco Beach post cruise. The drinking age back then was 18 in most states (except for my home state), so you can sort of see where this is going. Well by the second day of the cruise I had "malade du jeunes mariés" as the ship's physician put it. Basically I had 2 more visits to the doctor for IV's along w/ pills prescribed and filled in port.

During that time my newly mint husband (27 at the time) fell asleep sunbathing during my final IV treatment (the day before disembarking) and wound up with 3rd degree sunburn. Another visit to the ship's doc with a strong suggestion to follow up once in port (which we did).

All in all, since we had an HMO at the time and Florida was well outside of our coverage area the medical bills were about $2000. Though paid for out of pocket initially, 100% + reimbursement for travel to/from the emergency care was recouped from travel insurance which we almost didn't take since we were both young and healthy. The insurance also offer to fly us home early, but we figured rather be miserable on vacation than at home.

Next year is our 29th anniversary and we always get travel or vacation insurance if doing more than an instate trip or weekend getaway.

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We learned quite late in life about "travel insurance". I guess we just never paid attention to it before, possibly also because we hadn't really taken "real" vacations, just weekends before/after business trips.

 

So... as a major birthday neared for DH (already *past* regular retirement age, but still not interested in retiring), we planned The First Big Trip, a cruise and land trip, as a combo major b-day and "pre-retirement" celebration.

LOTS of planning, fancy suites, business class air (paid through cruise line = no refund, no changes, etc., all $$$$).

It was to be his FIRST cruise, finally! :)

 

With less than 2 weeks to go, he had a medical emergency, and the only travel we did for a few months was back and forth for medical visits and treatments, etc. (Fortunately, he recovered, but he almost became partially disabled.)

 

We called Trip Insurance Store on a weekend, not sure what to do, and they helped us get the process started and made sure we understood that we must officially cancel everything, etc.

 

Because we had that precious waiver of exclusion of pre-existing conditions, there was no challenge about the cause of the problem, and also, there was no need to send along any previous medical records.

Travel Insured refunded all costs very promptly.

 

About 2 years later, I landed in hospital overseas on a land trip. We ended up needing to stay in a major European city ($$$ hotel) for an extra week, and couldn't get to our other planned stay. And we needed to change our transportation (pre-paid also) to get to the final part of the trip.

 

Note: On this occasion, we came mighty close to calling MedJetAssist to "take me home" to our regular hospital, but just in time, I turned the corner. But I still couldn't travel for a while and we had to remain at that nice hotel for a few more nights...

Travel Insured paid for all extra expenses, again, and promptly.

 

Then... on a trip to the Caribbean, our JetBlue flight home was just... cancelled... (very badly handled by JetBlue, but this report is about travel insurance).

Travel "delay" has some limits, but we got most of the cost of the extra costs of needing to spend an extra night on short notice.

 

There were a few other minor claims, although we only have the travel insurance in case of major expenses. But we've got the coverage, so we've submitted for the smaller claims, too.

 

We are truly indebted to those CruiseCritic members whose comments about travel insurance we read during the summer/fall of 2014!

 

Sure, we could "afford" the lost travel expenses, given that we had already paid them.

But that first time, it was so comforting, in the middle of medical stress, to know that we wouldn't need to "pay a second time" to take that special trip!

 

We'll never go on a major trip without travel insurance.

 

GC

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I used TripMate for my last cruise . While on the ship I experienced upper abdominal pain and went to the infirmary .I was examined and given a medication .The doctor gave me an itemized form to submit to the insurance carrier.

It took 6 months to get reimbursed .

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We had a very positive experience with a large Travel Guard claim a couple of years ago when I had a medical emergency on a land tour in Canada. They required a lot of documentation, but they not only reimbursed us promptly for everything they were supposed to--they actually arranged our expedited trip home for us.

 

We had a dedicated claims rep who handled our case start to finish--with coverage from someone else on her day off.

 

Important hint if you need to make a claim: Notify the insurance company as soon as you realize there is a problem. We contacted TG right from the emergency room, and (thanks to the hospital's willingness to let us use their FAX machine) had the claim initiated and all the necessary medical forms submitted, complete with required physicians' statements and signatures, before we left the hospital. Those might have been a problem to get later.

 

We always go back to Travel Guard now. It's just a question of which level of coverage is best for a particular trip.

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