What kind of travel insurance do you purchase?

[Firepath]

Do you purchase the cruise line's insurance, what your TA offers, independent coverage, use credit card travel coverage, self-insure?

My TA recommended not purchasing the cruise line's because if they went out of business, there would be no coverage. I know that's unlikely, but with some people purchasing cruises 2-3 yrs. out, you never know what could happen. Thoughts?

[Shmoo here]

7 minutes ago, Firepath said:

Do you purchase the cruise line's insurance, what your TA offers, independent coverage, use credit card travel coverage, self-insure?

My TA recommended not purchasing the cruise line's because if they went out of business, there would be no coverage. I know that's unlikely, but with some people purchasing cruises 2-3 yrs. out, you never know what could happen. Thoughts?

When we were buying insurance for individual trips, I used a couple of travel insurance comparison sites (insure my trip and squaremouth) to find policies.  

 

We've since moved on to an annual medical/evacuation plan, since that's our biggest concern insurance-wise.

 

 

[mom says]

We've had an annual travel policy for several years. My problem with cruise insurance is how much they don't cover.

[KnowTheScore]

When considering Travel Insurance for cruises take account of 2 important aspects

 

1.  The value covered for clothes.  For many policies it is absolute peanuts and would never cover the cost of a lady's range of dresses and shoes let alone anything else.  So ensure that your policy covers many £100s or £1000s for clothes.

 

2.  The cost of HELICOPTER EVACUATION in case of medical emergency.

 

More and more people are being helicopter lifted off ships and the cost of this is enormous, probably around £80,000 just for the heli ride.

 

The P&O Cruise small print tells passengers to ensure that their policy covers 2 million for such eventualities.

 

It's VITAL that you check your policy for this because if you do have to be air lifted and your policy only covers peanuts then you are personally in for an enormous, possibly life changing bill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RocketMan275]

Our credit card provides $10K per passenger cancellation type insurance.

We purchase an annual policy from geoblue to cover medical and evacuation.  Very cheap.  IIRC it was around $300 for a full year covering multiple cruises.  That isn't bad for a couple of seventy year old passengers.

[mom says]

8 minutes ago, KnowTheScore said:

2.  The cost of HELICOPTER EVACUATION in case of medical emergency.

 

More and more people are being helicopter lifted off ships and the cost of this is enormous, probably around £80,000 just for the heli ride.

Where did you get this from? Most ship/helicopter evacs are handled by the nearest country's Coast Guard or Military from the ship to the nearest shore medical facility and is almost always without a fee. The costs are incurred when the patient requires a medically supervised move to another facility or to their home country.

Edited February 4, 2020 by mom says

[Hlitner]

We simply buy an annual Travel Medical policy that has 250,000 of Medical and 500,000 of evacuation coverage.  That one policy ($450) covers all of our trips (up to 70 days per trip) during the policy year.  We also use a high end Chase card that gives us up to $20,000 of cancelation/evacuation insurance.

 

As to evacuation, cruisers do not pay anything for the rare helicopter evacuation off a ship.  That is done by the nearest Coast Guard or military who do not charge for the service per international agreement.  On far more then 100 cruises over 45 years we have only seen two helicopter evacs.

 

Hank

[lasvegaswinner1]

On 2/4/2020 at 10:13 AM, Firepath said:

Do you purchase the cruise line's insurance, what your TA offers, independent coverage, use credit card travel coverage, self-insure?

My TA recommended not purchasing the cruise line's because if they went out of business, there would be no coverage. I know that's unlikely, but with some people purchasing cruises 2-3 yrs. out, you never know what could happen. Thoughts?