When to buy insurance -- flights not yet booked

[cherylwillow]

I've been reading others' threads and am grateful for all of your knowledge and your willingness to answer Qs (extra thanks to ken076!!!!).

 

I've never bought vacation insurance, because I believe in the "self-insure" philosophy -- only buy insurance for what you can't afford to lose. Always have felt that because I can afford to lose out on a $3k vacation, should something happen, it would be foolish to buy insurance. Sort of the same concept of not maintaining collision insurance on a $2000 car -- only liability.

 

BUT!!!! Thanks to CC, I've learned about the medical side of travel insurance! Holy mackeral -- talk about not being able to afford the "what if" of needing medical services!!! I checked with my personal medical insurance and indeed found it is greatly lacking when out of the country (yikes, head slap, and gratitude that I didn't have to learn my lesson the hard way!!!).

 

 

Specifics:

• Booked on Dream 1/21/12
  
• Down payment paid 2/14/11
  
• Ages at time of travel: 36, 36, 15, 13
  
• No medical issues for any travellers
  
• US Resident (Wisconsin)
  
• PTO from employers have been granted
  

My questions:

1. When should I buy? I probably won't nail down flights for sometime, so I'm estimating the cost and travel dates.
   1. 
      
   2. I called a couple places, and they recommended, of course, that I buy now and modify the travel dates later.
      
   3. I put in dummy dates on the website (pretending I had put initial payment down 9 months ago and travel is in 2 months -- mimicking buying ins. in Nov at final payment) and the price was the same.
      

[*]Through squaremouth, I found aTravel Guard product that seems crazy-cheap. Do you think it's enough? I think I'm most interested in the inclement weather cancellation/interruption (always fly out a day early, but WI can present challenges), medical, and evac. Among other things, it includes:

1. 100% trip cancellation
   
2. 150% trip interruption
   
3. Covered for inclement weather
   
4. $25k pp Emergency Medical & Dental (primary)
   
5. $500k pp Medical Evac & Repatriation
   

Wow -- didn't mean this to be so long. Thanks for any thoughts...

[bankerbabe]

We buy insurance for each trip, and I typically use insuremytrip.com so that I can compare policies. To be honest, I have no idea what is enough and what isn't, I just kind of look at what I'm willing to spend and then get the best coverage that I can for the amount that I'm willing to part with. I realize, though, that that is a rather simplistic approach.

 

I too was confused when we booked our upcoming cruise, because I booked the cruise portion LONG before airfare was available. So I emailed insuremytrip.com and they told me to go ahead and insure the cruise portion, and then just call them when I booked the airfare to modify the dates and add the extra cost for the airfare. It was really easy to do, only took a few minutes, and the additional cost of insuring the airfare was not much.

 

By buying insurance as soon as you book the cruise, you are (generally) covered for pre existing conditions. Plus, we bought "cancel for any reason" insurance and that had to be booked within a certain number of days after we paid the deposit.

 

I hope that helped you some.

[pe4all]

We always purchase Travelguard Gold. We spend around $308 for 4 of us - but our ages are "older", so our insurance probably will cost more than yours. (ages 53,52,22,19) Kids cost less, so your cost will be less. We also have 2 with pre-existing conditions, so I get my insurance within 5 minutes of booking my vacations. I would buy the insurance asap, so it is done. If I don't have my air yet, I go to their website, put in my plan #, and hit "modify", and put in the new travel dates. I guestimate the air - I think that up to $1500 per person is one level of coverage for a certain price - we usually never go over that, so that is what I tell the person on the phone. (I like speaking to a human rather than buy on the computer.) And even though you can "afford" to lose the $3000, it is the unexpected medical that will get you in the end. Case in point - Dream cruise this past Xmas dd19 got ill on Dream, we were off-loaded and spent 3 days in a Belize hospital - just dd and myself. DH and other dd continued on Dream for the other 4 days of the cruise. $5,000 later we met up and traveled back to NY together - all which should be covered by our travel insurance, PLUS I just found out 150% trip interruption for each day we missed of the cruise. Well worth the $300 insurance money we "waste" each cruise.

[cherylwillow]

Thank you both for your responses!

 

Case in point - Dream cruise this past Xmas dd19 got ill on Dream, we were off-loaded and spent 3 days in a Belize hospital - just dd and myself. DH and other dd continued on Dream for the other 4 days of the cruise. $5,000 later we met up and traveled back to NY together - all which should be covered by our travel insurance, PLUS I just found out 150% trip interruption for each day we missed of the cruise. Well worth the $300 insurance money we "waste" each cruise.

 

 

Geez, pe4all, SO glad you had the insurance. Yes, I can't BELIEVE I've run w/o insurance all these years. Never thought past the actual "missing the boat". Crimeny. So very much could go wrong with otherwise healthy people.

[jeancmo]

"BUT!!!! Thanks to CC, I've learned about the medical side of travel insurance! Holy mackeral -- talk about not being able to afford the "what if" of needing medical services!!! I checked with my personal medical insurance and indeed found it is greatly lacking when out of the country (yikes, head slap, and gratitude that I didn't have to learn my lesson the hard way!!!)."

 

 

Yes- medical is really the only reason we buy insurance. We could take the hit of losing our cruise/air investment but medical/airlift bills... not so much.

 

We buy from Travelguard with "extreme sport" add-on (~$5/person) since we scuba dive. As far as I know Travelguard will cover scuba accidents(heaven forbid)-not anyone else.

[jmps]

We use Travelex and have used Travelguard as well. Most vendors give you twenty-one days of grace from booking date. So I recommend buying it within this period if you need medical. This is important because even if you don't have a preexisting condition now one might come up between now and the cruise.

 

They let you modify as you work things out. I have had to cancel entire cruises and moved the coverage to another cruise prior to final payment with no penalty. They will let you do that.

 

The policy you are looking at has fairly low emergency coverage but if you regular insurance can cover above that it looks OK to me.

 

You are wise to buy trip insurance.

[pe4all]

1. 1. 
      
   2. 100% trip cancellation
      
   3. 150% trip interruption
      
   4. Covered for inclement weather
      
   5. $25k pp Emergency Medical & Dental (primary)
      
   6. $500k pp Medical Evac & Repatriation

This looks like the Gold Protect Assist plan we get. We insured for $2,000 pp, as it was a 9 day Christmas week cruise, and air was high. Return air is a biggie, as TG allows $750 pp, and we spent almost that getting from Belize-Miami-Orlando to meet up with dh and dd when they got off Dream. They will also cover the hotel and food costs (even lunch in Miami airport, dinner at Orlando airport). The only thing I am worried about is our $1200 cell phone bill - with making all the calls to American Airlines, to dh on the ship, his calls to me, calling a hotel in Orlando, etc., it went waaaay over our normal $250 monthly cell phone bill for 4 of us. I will also send that in, and hopefully TG will cover a portion of it. (at least cover the calls made to them while I was in the hospital!)

[babyblue78]

Hi! Try the Travelex policies, kids are insured free when their parents are covered. I secured mine through insuremytrip.com, and it was very affordable (less than $100 for family of 4 with 2 kids). We booked the basic policy as it was primary coverage for medical, had decent evacuation coverage. This policy doesn't cover pre-existing conditions, but you didn't mention any issues.