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Viking TripMate Insurance - Cancellation Policy


Alicomp
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We booked a 2018 cruise and a 2019 cruise that we are going to have to cancel. Unfortunately we purchased Viking's TripMate insurance. I just found out that if you cancel your cruise more than 14 days after placing the deposit, the insurance is non-refundable. We can choose other cruises and move the insurance to those, but that is not going to be possible. We are making major home updates and can't do that and the cruises. To TripMate for two cruises we paid over $5,000 for insurance, which we will lose. If I file a claim we can get vouchers for the $100 per person per cruise ($400) penalty we will have to pay Viking to cancel.

 

I am posting this message so that others will be aware of the TripMate policy. We will not purchase insurance from TripMate again. There are plenty of other companies from which to purchase trip insurance.

 

Alice

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The refund policy of the company that I use for travel insurance is as follows:

You may cancel this insurance by giving the Company or the agent written notice within the first to occur of the following: (a)
15 days from the Effective Date
of your insurance; or (b) your Scheduled Departure Date. If you do this,the Company will refund your premium paid provided no insured has filed a claim under this Certificate.

 

Are there any companies that give you a complete refund on your travel insurance if you cancel before the penalty phase kicks in and are not rescheduling a trip?

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I buy through Insuremytrip. I only insure say $1,000 so that preexisting conditions are covered. At time of final payment I insure the rest and pay the additional premium. I always call them to make sure that the company I am insuring with allows this. I've also cancelled cruises and have been able to transfer the insurance to the new cruise (and cruise line) that I booked.

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Important things to be aware of if you buy insurance, either from a company that a cruise line suggests, or one you find on insuremytrip, insurancestore, and other online sites:

 

*Check to see if the policy includes a "cancel for any reason" provision. You'll likely pay a lot more for these, but in some situations, they're worth it.

 

*If you have a pre-existing condition, check to see whether you need to purchase insurance immediately after making the FIRST payment on your cruise in order for the condition to be covered.

 

stretchcruz, I like your strategy about insuring a little up front and paying for more insurance later. I've never had to cancel, and therefore not use, a travel insurance policy. However, that looks like a good way to minimize possible losses. I've heard about doing what you do but have been a little afraid to try that strategy.. Do you find that many companies allow you to do that? Can you share which ones? Viking's cancel policy (like other cruise line policies) isn't bad up to a certain point, but closer to the cruise, it gets expensive.

 

Alice, hope you can find a way to go on a cruise or two, whether in 2017 or much later!

Edited by roothy123
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Roothy, my past 4 policies have been with C & F Travel Insured International, Global Alert Preferred, Roam Right, and Travel Guard. I find the best policy for the best price on insuremytrip and then I call them to be sure that I will be able to increase coverage and change dates when needed. When I do that I email them saying that I have incurred no costs or penalties with the change, and they tell me the additional premium and send me a new policy. So far I've had no problems. One time I had to cancel a river cruise a week before due to emergency surgery and I was reimbursed everything including the fee to put my frequent flier miles back into my account.

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Roothy, my past 4 policies have been with C & F Travel Insured International, Global Alert Preferred, Roam Right, and Travel Guard. I find the best policy for the best price on insuremytrip and then I call them to be sure that I will be able to increase coverage and change dates when needed. When I do that I email them saying that I have incurred no costs or penalties with the change, and they tell me the additional premium and send me a new policy. So far I've had no problems. One time I had to cancel a river cruise a week before due to emergency surgery and I was reimbursed everything including the fee to put my frequent flier miles back into my account.

 

Thanks for this great info.. we travel 3 to 4 times a year, usually get our insurance thru the same companies never thought of just insuring the deposit. I haven't bought my insurance for my Ocean Viking cruise as they only charge a $100 cancel fee, before our final, but did buy insurance thru the airline for our tickets only.

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I buy it at the time of deposit so that our preexisting conditions are covered.

 

Has anyone had to cancel a Viking cruise or had a health issue on trip that was related to a pre - existing condition? AND purchased Viking insurance at time of deposit for coverage of pre-existing conditions? Was there any problems getting medical overage or refund?

 

Thank you

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  • 1 month later...

I also like the incremental purchase and will look into that.

 

Here's my current thinking. Viking wants $840 for their insurance with deposit to have the pre-existing condition waiver and the cancel for any reason coverage. But all I have at risk until 120 days before cruising is $200. Why would I pay $840 to cover $200? There is a company on insuremytrip (Nationwide) that will let us get the same insurance coverage amounts, with cancel for any reason and pre-existing condition waiver included, and we don't have to pay their premium of $895 until final payment. The big difference is that the coverage for the cancel for any reason is only 70% of the loss, so we could lose $2,400. Viking would give us the full loss in a travel voucher, but there are conditions to its use, which might be hard to meet.

 

My thinking is that it is probably worth it to use the Nationwide policy since it's only $55 more and understand we could lose the $2,400. We have had a change of plans in the past and cancelled booked cruises before final payment so I'd rather have that option with minimal cost upfront.

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We too only cover what we have paid for....but purchase it immediately to cover "preexisting conditions" I have a 90 year old mother and she has changes in her medications regularly. That 2 month window for medication changes always makes me nervous!

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  • 1 month later...

We have always used Travelx insurance, my Dad passed away on the 2nd day of our Africa trip. Travelx paid for the extra flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg. They did not pay for our flights to and from Africa because of course we were using the flights. Delta was nice enough to wave the change fee because of my fathers death. I have also used the medical on a south American cruise and TravelX paid the $800 ships fee. We are trying Viking's insurance for the 'cancel for any reason" on a 2019 trip. We had to drop the last half of that B2B. This early (last June) they refunded that part of our insurance.

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Roothy, my past 4 policies have been with C & F Travel Insured International, Global Alert Preferred, Roam Right, and Travel Guard. I find the best policy for the best price on insuremytrip and then I call them to be sure that I will be able to increase coverage and change dates when needed. When I do that I email them saying that I have incurred no costs or penalties with the change, and they tell me the additional premium and send me a new policy. So far I've had no problems. One time I had to cancel a river cruise a week before due to emergency surgery and I was reimbursed everything including the fee to put my frequent flier miles back into my account.

 

I am using Global Alert Preffered for this cruise. I just paid additional money to insure my fees upgrade to economy comfort and the hotels both pre and post crusie which are all paid for in advance. I use the insurance broker Steve whose name I got from the Cruise Insurance forum on CC. They are great with helping understand your particlar needs. Hope I do not need to use it . Now I am good to go.:)

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I am using Global Alert Preffered for this cruise. I just paid additional money to insure my fees upgrade to economy comfort and the hotels both pre and post crusie which are all paid for in advance. I use the insurance broker Steve whose name I got from the Cruise Insurance forum on CC. They are great with helping understand your particlar needs. Hope I do not need to use it . Now I am good to go.:)

 

 

 

One thing you need to remember when booking insurance is the length of the cruise will be a factor. We had an issue with our Viking WC . Most insurance companies will not write a policy for that long of a time period (141 days) so we had to stay with Viking’s Insurance supplier. Check and make sure you are covered for the full time period !

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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Anyone have experience canceling a cruise for medical reasons with Viking insurance?

 

My wife is ill and we'll probably need to cancel. I'm looking for info about the process, who to deal with and what documentation is needed. The cruise was booked with a TA.

 

Any help or guidance will be greatly appreciated.

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Very good information in this thread---I like the idea of only insuring a small amount at the beginning.

We (so far) 'self-insure'---we have $5K per person per trip coverage with our Citicard.

 

We had to test this out recently as we had to cancel two trips due to knee surgery.

Citicard refunded us a fully pre-paid villa stay in Belize with no issues.

And AA let us re-book our tickets for both trips after submitting a letter from surgeon---even though they were cheap non-refundable tickets.

A Priceline booking at the Four Seasons in Nevis was also completely refunded---with just a phone call to Priceline Customer Service. That was surprising but we would have submitted to Citicard if Priceline had not generously refunded.

 

Obviously the $5K per person per trip coverage will be inadequate for more expensive trips (Africa safari) but our Viking cruise was less than $5K per person so we did not purchase any insurance for our cruise.

 

Make sure you check your credit card benefits and understand if they provide any trip cancellation and/or trip interruption insurance. Obviously read the fine print and fully understand the T&C.

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We, too, cover our cruises with our credit cards, including the deposit - Chase Preferred. I then purchase for a small amount (cost under $200 total for both) an insurance policy for the medical benefits. What I am most afraid of would be if one of us had to be medically evacuated, especially back home. We have both had claims on board ships and were promptly reimbursed.

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We, too, cover our cruises with our credit cards, including the deposit - Chase Preferred. I then purchase for a small amount (cost under $200 total for both) an insurance policy for the medical benefits. What I am most afraid of would be if one of us had to be medically evacuated, especially back home. We have both had claims on board ships and were promptly reimbursed.

 

 

That's good info. I just double-checked and our Citicard (Aadvantage Executive World Elite) covers medical evacuation up to $100,000.

We figure we easily save enough on insurance to pay for one more trip per year.

So for $450/year we get all our travel insurance, Admiral's Club access and EQM's for status on AA--but if you don't fly AA it would not make sense.

But if we ever do need to purchase trip insurance I will use the hints on this forum to get the best price.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Very good information in this thread---I like the idea of only insuring a small amount at the beginning.

We (so far) 'self-insure'---we have $5K per person per trip coverage with our Citicard.

 

We had to test this out recently as we had to cancel two trips due to knee surgery.

Citicard refunded us a fully pre-paid villa stay in Belize with no issues.

And AA let us re-book our tickets for both trips after submitting a letter from surgeon---even though they were cheap non-refundable tickets.

A Priceline booking at the Four Seasons in Nevis was also completely refunded---with just a phone call to Priceline Customer Service. That was surprising but we would have submitted to Citicard if Priceline had not generously refunded.

 

Obviously the $5K per person per trip coverage will be inadequate for more expensive trips (Africa safari) but our Viking cruise was less than $5K per person so we did not purchase any insurance for our cruise.

 

Make sure you check your credit card benefits and understand if they provide any trip cancellation and/or trip interruption insurance. Obviously read the fine print and fully understand the T&C.

 

This info touches home, we just recently received our Citicard .

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