Can I Wait Until Final Payment to Buy Travel Insurance?

[mnocket]

With a refundable cruise deposit it seems unnecessary to buy travel insurance until I make the final payment. Can I wait until then or do the insurance companies insist you buy your policy within a certain time-frame?

[Essiesmom]

It depends on what you want to insure. If you have pre-existing conditions - or a member of your family does, you have to buy it within a short time frame of deposit. Each company/policy can be different. there is a board here for questions about travel insurance. EM

Edited November 30, 2016 by Essiesmom

[SuiteTraveler]

We never buy travel insurance through the cruise line but use

 

insure my trip dot com

 

Go to their website and ask them your questions about cruise insurance. Then you will know what to do. They can also help you get much less expensive insurance than through the cruise line.

[klfrodo]

With a refundable cruise deposit it seems unnecessary to buy travel insurance until I make the final payment. Can I wait until then or do the insurance companies insist you buy your policy within a certain time-frame?

 

The answer is completely dependent on what you want to cover.

[GUT2407]

With a refundable cruise deposit it seems unnecessary to buy travel insurance until I make the final payment. Can I wait until then or do the insurance companies insist you buy your policy within a certain time-frame?

 

It can all vary by insurance company.

 

I won't let the day pass that I no longer get 109% refund on whatever I've paid, without having insurance in place.

[klfrodo]

We never buy travel insurance through the cruise line but use

 

insure my trip dot com

 

Go to their website and ask them your questions about cruise insurance. Then you will know what to do. They can also help you get much less expensive insurance than through the cruise line.

 

or you can just provide the link. You don't have to try to be sly when naming travel insurance companies or brokers. Only travel agents

 

http://www.insuremytrip.com

or

http://www.tripinsurancestore.com which is my favorite

[rjrpar]

We always buy insurance thru Travelex, at final payment. Before final payment, you can cancel at no cost. The cost of insurance, of course, is never refundable. We are only concerned about the cost of the cruise and medical coverage

 

 

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[Flatbush Flyer]

We always buy insurance thru Travelex, at final payment. Before final payment, you can cancel at no cost. The cost of insurance, of course, is never refundable. We are only concerned about the cost of the cruise and medical coverage

 

 

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The only problem with this delay in purchase is the loss of any "waiver for pre-existing conditions" that would be provided if purchase was made within that company's XX days post-deposit purchase window. This is an absolute necessity for many many cruisers (and not just us geezers).

[cb at sea]

If you want "pre-existing" conditions to be covered, you MUST buy it when you book the vacation. If you only want delays or stuff like that covered, you can wait.

[Underwatr]

CSA sells a policy covering preexisting conditions that can be purchased at final payment. It's available through insuremytrip.

Edited December 1, 2016 by Underwatr

[easyboy]

To cover pre-existing condition, some insurance companies require premium payment either within 14 or 21 days of deposit payment. There is however a company that covers it at final payment date. It has a higher premium though. You can follow the link of klfrodo. .

 

 

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[Scrapnana]

Also, some companies will cover pre-existing conditions as long as you pay insurance on the amount of the deposit. Check with the company to find out.

[cargo13]

CSA sells a policy covering preexisting conditions that can be purchased at final payment. It's available through insuremytrip.

 

 

 

Yup, love the CSA plan that covers pre-existing conditions @ final payment. Here is the CSA policy: http://www.csatravelprotection.com/prex.do

 

Call them for advice/great customer service too.

[snowskier]

If you want "pre-existing" conditions to be covered, you MUST buy it when you book the vacation. If you only want delays or stuff like that covered, you can wait.

 

Shouting the word must does not make it true. This is one of many cruise critic myths that is constantly repeated as the gospel on this site.

 

As others have noted there are policies that cover pre-existing if you purchase at time of final payment. Some are on insure my trip, some can be found with a simple search.

 

I always wait until final payment to purchase the insurance as the policy fits all my needs.

[Dayenu]

Once I tried to call the cruise line a few days after making reservation through their website (not a travel agency), and they said, only at the time of reservation. I don't even remember which cruise line it was.

 

Somebody advised me to go to InsureMyTrip, they work with many companies that offer different coverage, and this is the website I always use. Never had to file a claim, though, so can't recommend (knock on wood).

 

If you don't buy insurance within 2 weeks of your initial reservation, pre-existing conditions (if you have any) won't be covered, but everything else will.

[CPT Trips]

Once I tried to call the cruise line a few days after making reservation through their website (not a travel agency), and they said, only at the time of reservation. I don't even remember which cruise line it was.

 

Somebody advised me to go to InsureMyTrip, they work with many companies that offer different coverage, and this is the website I always use. Never had to file a claim, though, so can't recommend (knock on wood).

 

If you don't buy insurance within 2 weeks of your initial reservation, pre-existing conditions (if you have any) won't be covered, but everything else will.

 

The time frames vary from company to company . . . Some are less than two weeks, others more. There is a price to pay for those policies that waive pre-existing conditions with "last minute" purchase, so it pays to shop early even if you don't buy early.

[GeezerCouple]

Once I tried to call the cruise line a few days after making reservation through their website (not a travel agency), and they said, only at the time of reservation. I don't even remember which cruise line it was.

 

Somebody advised me to go to InsureMyTrip, they work with many companies that offer different coverage, and this is the website I always use. Never had to file a claim, though, so can't recommend (knock on wood).

 

If you don't buy insurance within 2 weeks of your initial reservation, pre-existing conditions (if you have any) won't be covered, but everything else will.

 

This is simply not accurate, and could cause some travelers needing insurance *not* to look for what they need.

 

Blanket statements like this are rarely useful, unless there is really "just one of something", or such.

 

CSA is one company that has a policy where coverage can be purchased as late as "within 48 hours of final payment" (defined specifically).

There are some other differences to each policy; each person needs to make sure that they policy he/she purchases covers the precise needs each one has.

 

We typically get the Travel Insured policies (within 21 days of initial payment) to get that waiver of pre-existing condition exclusion, and it has some other terms more favorable to us.

We've had two moderately large claims that were paid without any nonsense, and that's what counts.

 

We did get a CSA policy once, but had no claim, so we can't comment on that.

 

We always rely upon http://www.TripInsuranceStore.com for guidance on "which policy" (from among their vetted insurers), if there is anything somewhat "different" about a given trip.

[Underwatr]

FWIW, we recently had a claim on a CSA policy. Typical paper chase but getting payment from CSA was less hassle than getting payment from the primary health insurer (who appeared to misplace the claim for about three months).

[GeezerCouple]

FWIW, we recently had a claim on a CSA policy. Typical paper chase but getting payment from CSA was less hassle than getting payment from the primary health insurer (who appeared to misplace the claim for about three months).

 

Thanks. Good to know.

 

We'll probably need to use them again some time.

[rnff2]

There are so many misconceptions with travel insurance. Everyone has different needs and luckily there are many options available. There shouldn't be blanket statements made about any type of travel insurance. This makes things confusing for people as if buying insurance isn't confusing enough. :confused:

 

Yes, you can buy travel insurance with pre-existing condition wavier at the time of final payment. I have done a lot of research on this because I require the pre-existing condition waiver. Hopefully I will never have to use it.

 

We used to always buy insurance at the time of booking. Unfortunately we had to cancel our last cruise months prior to final payment and ended up not using the insurance and loosing the cost of the insurance. So I started looking at other options and I was happy to find several policies that you can book at the time of final payment. Nationwide, CSA and Global Alert are 3 that I have found. You just have to compare and choose which is best for you.

[GeezerCouple]

There are so many misconceptions with travel insurance. Everyone has different needs and luckily there are many options available. There shouldn't be blanket statements made about any type of travel insurance. This makes things confusing for people as if buying insurance isn't confusing enough. :confused:

 

Yes, you can buy travel insurance with pre-existing condition wavier at the time of final payment. I have done a lot of research on this because I require the pre-existing condition waiver. Hopefully I will never have to use it.

 

We used to always buy insurance at the time of booking. Unfortunately we had to cancel our last cruise months prior to final payment and ended up not using the insurance and loosing the cost of the insurance. So I started looking at other options and I was happy to find several policies that you can book at the time of final payment. Nationwide, CSA and Global Alert are 3 that I have found. You just have to compare and choose which is best for you.

 

Hi,

 

Just in case you didn't know, the type of insurance we get when we are able to start it within 21 days of the first payment, Travel Insured, can be "moved" to another trip, once.

(The other trip has some restrictions about time limits, but I'm not remembering the details just now.)

 

We've used this a couple of times when our plans changed, and so far, we haven't needed to change those plans a second time, thank goodness.

 

This matters to us, because the Travel Insured policy has a few specifics with the coverage that we prefer to the CSA coverage, or it would probably be easier just to get CSA all the time.

[rnff2]

Hi,

 

Just in case you didn't know, the type of insurance we get when we are able to start it within 21 days of the first payment, Travel Insured, can be "moved" to another trip, once.

(The other trip has some restrictions about time limits, but I'm not remembering the details just now.)

 

We've used this a couple of times when our plans changed, and so far, we haven't needed to change those plans a second time, thank goodness.

 

This matters to us, because the Travel Insured policy has a few specifics with the coverage that we prefer to the CSA coverage, or it would probably be easier just to get CSA all the time.

Thank you. Yes, we have researched travel insurance a lot. One can really find a policy to meet their personal needs if they look hard enough.

 

We tried to use our insurance credit on our next trip but unfortunately we don't always travel every year and it had been too long to transfer it by the time we booked our next trip. My TA even called the insurance company to try and get them to reinstate our credit but they wouldn't do it. We knew when we cancelled that cruise that we would probably loose the money we paid for insurance.

 

Our thoughts are we would rather pay for travel insurance and loose a few hundred dollars if we cancel to make sure I have pre-existing medical/evacuation insurance then get stuck with all those medical bills if something were to happen.

 

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