Travel insurance to cover flight delays and missing the cruise ship

[psufanatic]

What 3rd party insurance do people purchase to cover flight delays (related to snowstorms) and missing the start of the cruise, getting a flight to the 1st port, etc.?? I have done some searching and am totally confused! :confused: Thanks for any help!

[Kamloops50]

What 3rd party insurance do people purchase to cover flight delays (related to snowstorms) and missing the start of the cruise, getting a flight to the 1st port, etc.?? I have done some searching and am totally confused! :confused: Thanks for any help!

 

I buy Trip Interruption and Medical insurance as a package.

Trip Interruption insurance cover anything that interrupts your trip.

We make our effective date the day we expect to start our trip from home.

The insurance will cover us if the car breaks down causing us to miss our flight to the cruise. If we miss the cruise we will be refunded full for the cruise or flown to the next port that has a proper airport.

[Dayenu]

There is a website "InsureMyTrip" that allows you to compare insurances.

[Hlitner]

Just be careful to read the language in trip interruption policies. For example, many policies will only cover an airline delay if your flight was scheduled to arrive at least 6 hours (or a different time value) before a cruise. Personally, we never buy trip cancellation insurance but we do normally fly-in to our embarkation port at least one day early.

 

Hank

[Bowie MeMe]

I also have medical evacuation insurance to get me home if I am hospitalized in a distant place (at least 150 miles). You also need insurance to cover getting you off the ship if you have heart attack or stroke etc. The ship Dr. can help but as soon as possible they will want to get you to a hospital.

 

Check your health insurance and see what your coverage is outside the US. Medicare does not cover overseas including Canada/Mexico. Our Blue Cross does cover. I add the cost of expensive shore excursions (like the balloon over the Serengehti ) where I was so attached to my throne I could not go and flights and etc. that can not get money returned. Smaller trips I choose to "self insure" as some here has stated --

[#1TravelMom]

I like Travelguard. They have great customer service. I was involved in a VERY large claim for an Hawaiian land trip and cruise. They processed the claim n no time with no headaches. Any company cn offer good rates, but the service when you file a claim is what is important.

[mtwingcpa]

Just be careful to read the language in trip interruption policies. For example, many policies will only cover an airline delay if your flight was scheduled to arrive at least 6 hours (or a different time value) before a cruise.

 

Plus, the policy might require you to get a letter from the airline confirming the delay or other particulars. Obtaining such a letter could be highly problematic.

 

I agree, the best "delay" insurance is arriving at the embarkation port a day early.

[Kamloops50]

My biggest trip delay could be an unexpected snowfall delaying us to arrive a day early at the airport. We have to pass thru a high snow belt area to get to our primary airport to fly to a cruise. The three passes have been known to be closed due to snow .

[dread_pirate]

We're scheduled to fly in a day before the cruise as well, but it's February in New England. Which insurers cover flights cancelled/delayed due to weather (including the ancillary expenses)? We may have to fly in the day of, and snow has even been known to close airports for several days. We may also find ourselves stuck at the end of the cruise if snow closes our home airport.

[cherylandtk]

For tons of good information on travel insurance, check out the Cruise/Travel Insurance forum here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=635

 

As to the several of you who asked about weather related trip delay (which may or may not be considered trip interruption) you must first realize that almost all policies come with two limits to delay coverage. The first is that there is often a minimum amount of time that must elapse, such as 3 or 6 or 12 hours, before that coverage kicks in. The second is that much such coverage is limited to a certain amount per day, with a maximum total coverage. The commonly seen amount is $100per day for five days. This does NOT cover missing your cruise because you cannot get to the airport. Almost all policies require that you attempt to get to the cruise for as many days as it takes until at least half the cruise is missed.

 

Some policies cover trip delay as part of the trip interruption coverage, some have specific missed connection coverages. You have to look specifically at the policy terms. Travel Safe's policy has a very good missed connection coverage up to policy limits which are much higher than most. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1459070

[psufanatic]

Thanks for all the advice! We are flying a day early, but we worry about weather in PA. I'll look into it some more...again Thanks!:)

[Grumpy100]

Insuremytrip.com. is what we use and buy the package with medical as primary. Important to us.

[dorisis]

There is a website "InsureMyTrip" that allows you to compare insurances.

 

That seems to be the most popular site for insurance.

[Kamloops50]

That seems to be the most popular site for insurance.

 

As a Canadian , the site isn't usable . They don't look at Canadian insurers even they are based in the US.

[cherylandtk]

You might want to look at http://www.tripinsurancestore.com/ Sells to Canadians, has intelligent website with plenty of examples and explanations of what trip insurance covers (and doesn't cover!)

 

That other site has every policy under the sun it seems and it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Steve at tripinsurancestore is a lot easier to work with IMO.

 

fwiw-the insuremytrip site does sell insurance appropriate to Canadians, and when you put in your residence the appropriate policies come up. But if you are confused just getting to that point, you might want to deal with a more personal broker.