Insurance advice

[frenchtart]

Hi

 

I am new to this forum and have never cruised before. My husband (46) and I (45) where interested in cruising the Caribbean for 24 nights, in 2016.

 

I have just been on a comparison website to get an idea of travel insurance prices just for this trip. My husband has high blood pressure but it is controlled by medication and his tablets haven't changed. I also suffer from migraines which I have declared.

 

The cheapest quote I have is £494, does this sound about right? I haven't had anything to compare it to, I realise there are added costs on a cruise in case you need to be airlifted off the ship, But does this sound high? Is it likely to be cheaper nearer the time?

Edited March 23, 2015 by frenchtart

[ozarkmama]

There is an entire forum on travel insurance http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=635

[frenchtart]

Thank you, I have reposted there.

[John Bull]

You need to be wary of advice from our North American cousins, terms, premiums, etc are very different for them.

 

£494 sounds positively HUGE.

You say that's the cheapest you've found, have you checked many sources?

 

Without those pre-existing conditions, you should be able to get insurance for around £40!!

High blood pressure & migraines shouldn't multiply the premium by a factor of ten.

 

I had a world-wide annual policy with Insure-and-Go, cruising is included. They have three premium levels for three different levels of cover. Mine (the middle one, silver,) was about £80 until I hit the age of 65, when apparently I suddenly became a much higher risk & the premium doubled.

So I switched to insurance through my bank, Nationwide, at effectively about £100 for an annual world-wide policy.

 

Be aware that some insurance policies specifically exclude cruising, and some insurers have different policies for cruising & other forms of holiday. But the premiums are about the same.

 

The premium for single-trip insurance will not get cheaper the closer you get to the date. And since your deposit is at risk as soon as it's paid (one difference compared to Americans), it's important to be covered when you commit to a deposit. Losing money through an enforced cancellation (for a variety of insured reasons) is a much much more frequent risk than any incident or illness aboard.

But it's the medical side that incurs the highest costs.

 

Keep huntin' ;)

 

JB :)

[dsrdsrdsr]

I agree with John Bull - the rules of insurance are so very different between the UK and the USA that advice from American posters is more likely than not to be wrong.

 

I agree that the price seems very high. If that's what your comparison website gets you, try a few specific sites - AA, Staysure (medical specialists), Aviva, Direct Line, whoever insures your home - just to get a feel for what they charge. Just for comparison purposes, my mother and I have a joint annual policy; she has no medical history at all but is 82 years old, I have a historic (cured) problem which I would suspect costs more to insure than blood pressure controlled by tablets; and our combined annual policy costs less than £700. (Staysure.)

[Cuizer2]

Hi

 

I am new to this forum and have never cruised before. My husband (46) and I (45) where interested in cruising the Caribbean for 24 nights, in 2016.

 

I have just been on a comparison website to get an idea of travel insurance prices just for this trip. My husband has high blood pressure but it is controlled by medication and his tablets haven't changed. I also suffer from migraines which I have declared.

 

The cheapest quote I have is £494, does this sound about right? I haven't had anything to compare it to, I realise there are added costs on a cruise in case you need to be airlifted off the ship, But does this sound high? Is it likely to be cheaper nearer the time?

 

I don't know the insurance rules for England. I use InsureMyTrip.Com. It allows you to compare several policies at once. However, I'm not in England (I'm in one of your former colonies). If you can log on to InsureMyTrip.Com you might be able to get quotes from insurers licensed in England.

[frenchtart]

Thanks for all your help.

[Enforcer]

Hi,

 

If you are a member of a trades union or staff association try them they may have group cover for yearly travel insurance. I pay £14 a quarter for mine.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Pete