<p>OK, we’re booking a trip to S. Korea that will be in April. The travel agent STRONGLY advises travel insurance and for a change we are thinking of buying it for the 1st time. Would love recommendations, particularly from anyone who successfully made a claim on their insurance. The trip will be about 2 weeks long and cost abou $4,500 per person for 3 of us. Thanks!</p>
<p>Read what it covers carefully. We usually don’t buy it, on the theory that over the long term it would be cheaper even if we had to cancel one trip. The one time we had to cut a trip short, it was for the funeral of a family friend and the policy would not have paid anything, because it wasn’t an immediate family member.</p>
<p>Yes, when I’ve looked into it, the restrictions are so numerous that it hasn’t seemed worth it.</p>
<p>We have never purchased it in the past and figure that over the years we probably saved up enough to cover the cost of several of our trips so far. The travel agency STRONGLY advises people to buy it tho, so we were looking into it and thinking about it.</p>
<p>Before the Iceland volcano, many of the credit cards had travel insurance (to limited extent) as part of the ccards benefits. That was enough assurance for us back then. Anyway, would love anything anyone has to offer on this issue.</p>
<p>The only time we ever purchased travel insurance was for a cruise. On other vacations, most hotels can be cancelled very close to the date of arrival. Plan fares charges are typically $200 per person (southwest is free). Not sure if that rate is for international travel or not.</p>
<p>I’m interested in what others say for international travel as I was actually wondering the same thing for our european vacation next year.</p>
<p>Why does the travel agency advise it so strongly?</p>
<p>I take it back–did purchase travel insurance for our honeymoon to Europe and cancelled, so it was a good thing (Chernobyl was quite convincing for us). I think the travel agency doesn’t like to be given sob stories by unhappy customers when things happen and they don’t have insurance. I also think the agency makes a commission off policies they sell, as their policies tend to have higher prices than ones you could buy on your own elsewhere.</p>
<p>Check out insuremytrip.com - it’s a website that allows you to designate the type of coverage you want, compare various policies against each other, and then to purchase one if you want.</p>
<p>I have purchased policies through them a few times, though it is not the norm for me nor have I ever made a claim against any of them. </p>
<p>On a typical trip where mostly everything except airfare is paid at the time of service (hotels, entertainment, etc.) I don’t get trip insurance. </p>
<p>On trips where I have to pay close to or the entire trip up front, I will get the insurance. </p>
<p>Yea, we are paying pretty much everything up front for this trip, rather than as we go. This is one reason we’re considering buying insurance. Have looked around a bit and prices for 3 of us to be covered on our trip range from $800 on up to well over $1000. We have good medical coverage that would even cover us outside the US, but would want pre-existing condition coverage, cancellation and evacuation coverage, in case any of us needs to be medically evacuated from SKorea.</p>
<p>We purchased it for a trip to Europe where we were paying for airfare and hotel upfront. I did a lot of research and used insuremytrip or travel guard, I can’t remember. It was not that expensive, the rep was very helpful in explaining what was covered and I could choose just what I wanted. I had good health insurance and we were going to Western Europe so I was not as interested in that but I did appreciate the evacuation and other trip cancellation coverages. I would buy it again. </p>
<p>OK, so your “exposure” is under $15,000, and the cost of trip insurance would be in the range of $1,000.
Realize that you will definitely be paying the trip insurance amount, and the potential, and unlikely, payout would probably be somewhat less than the $15,000. </p>
<p>My husband, a financial guy, tends to recommend “self insurance” – i.e., cover your own risk exposure, to those who can afford, on the downside, to handle the exposure. People who most need buffers/cushions such as trip insurance are those without the resources to recover from bad luck. Those who can manage the “hit” are probably better off, economically, taking the slight risk.</p>
<p>But if you will be anxious without taking the coverage, consider it a price to pay for peace of mind. (Although I do agree that your guess re the travel agent’s motivations are on target. She has nothing to lose from your paying for the insurance.)</p>
<p>In any event, perhaps you do not really want to hear responses to “Should I or shouldn’t I?” but just want feedback from those who have taken such coverage and then made claims.
(In which case, my apologies for my unsolicited and inapplicable response. But best wishes for your trip anyway!)</p>
<p>EDITED to add: Actually, I realized after posting that I had not factored in the cost of medical evacuation, etc. which could be very pricey if not covered under your regular insurance. Just wanted to point out that could make a significant difference.</p>
<p>Yea, I’m slightly leaning toward self-insuring as we have all the prior trips. Generally, if something catastrophic happens to my health, my doc writes a note and I have been very successful in the past at getting full refunds, even for “non-refundable” plane fares and hotels. Did this in 2010 when the Iceland volcano cancelled our trip to Europe–didn’t even get hit with cancellation fees! </p>
<p>The $4000-5000 per person is high but wouldn’t bust our budget over the long term and the $1000 we’d pay as a premium could buy a lot of nice momentos! Heck, we never bought dorm or tuition or even cell phone insurance and had a lot more on the line for those for tuition & rental losses than this.</p>
<p>If you buy travel insurance, buy it as early as possible. Rates go way up as the date nears.
I use squaremouth to compare.
You don’t have to insure your entire trip, just the bits you are worried about not getting your money back if something happens.</p>
<p>
I share these sentiments. I buy insurance to cover the expenses that would be tough to swallow if I had to pay them such as hospital bills, medical evacuation, etc. The 15K cost of the trip? Don’t insure that. It would be painful to lose that money but you can afford it since you are planning on spending that on the trip. Ante up for a $25k hospital bill or $50K evacuation? That would be tough.</p>
<p>We use squaremouth.com and a policy that provides $500K of primary medical coverage (meaning they pay, not they pay what your main insurance doesn’t cover) and $500K in evacuation coverage is around $50 a person. Just use the pulldown to decline trip cancellation coverage so your coverage is only for the onerous expenses, not ones you could (unhappily) shoulder.</p>
<p>Holy cow that is a huge premium! I just went and checked my records and it was $242 for about $15,000 in prepaid expenses. I used Travelguard and I really had a good experience. Now of course I didn’t have a claim so I can’t comment on that.</p>
<p>My coverage:</p>
<p>$25k accident/sickness med exp
$1k baggage/travel doc
$300 bag delay
$500k emergency evac
100% - trip cancellation
150% trip interruption
Pre-existing condition waiver included</p>
<p>The first 4 items are per insured person. I had to purchase the policy within 15 days of making the first trip payment. I would easily purchase it again.</p>
<p>Travel insurance has its place. We travel overseas regularly and frail elders got us going on travel insurance initially… We took a trip recently and one misstep off a low curb resulted in broken bones, requiring surgery in the EU. The private clinic where the operations took place provided excellent care, and involved a 4 night stay (mostly to make trip home practical). It was mandatory to elevate the leg, hence 2 business class tickets home were needed, with 24 hour lead time. Spouse also needed 2 business class tickets to accompany and provide necessary assistance. Got initial assistance through private hotel medical service that sent Dr to hotel, ordered local X-rays, accompanied us to X-rays, translated diagnosis, arranged wheel chair transport to hospital, etc. Doc spent 6 hours with us day one ensuring connections were made. This hotel medical service had rep visit daily, coordinate discharge plans and arrange airlines services, buy correct medical boot for transport and arrange for medications en route. Total cost overseas to arrival home: almost $30,000. I almost wanted to self insure that trip, but now I will likely always insure. We have great medical, but doubt that even with Doc’s note they would have covered spouse’s flight. Travel insurance covered the cost of the missed flight to another destination as well. Clinic required payment in full at discharge and airline tix were $12,000. Really made me aware of how vulnerable our just starting out, young adult kids are on a trip. Have to have a lot of credit or cash available to navigate such adventures. </p>
<p>Lots of paperwork, lots of releases of info, but by buying our plan within 2 weeks of initial airline tix purchase, they were primary insurers and we received a check within a week. Only surprise was to be told initially travel insurer was primary and 2 months later learn they would submit some medical bills to our health insurer. We then sent checks received from our insurer to travel insurer. </p>
<p>We travel outside the US twice a year and usually get insurance. Have done so for quite awhile. With just this one incident, we came out way ahead financially on years of insurance. Being far away and facing the unexpected is quite draining. The insurers had contacts if needed and it was some peace of mind. Every situation is different, but it is well worth considering, especially if you could not absorb evacuation costs.</p>
<p>$800-$1000 sounds high for trip insurance premiums. We have gotten it for cruises, and my H gets it for his scuba trips. He did have some claims one year when a hurricane stranded him in the Bahamas, he was reimbursed for hotel and food for a couple of days. Like surfcity, premiums are considerably lower. He does have emergency medical evacuation separately through the Divers Alert Network though.</p>
<p>Himom, I kind of agree with JEM. Some insurance does cover overseas.</p>
<p>We just bought travel insurance through Travel Insured International, Inc. </p>
<p>Www.travelinsured.com</p>
<p>1-800-243-3174</p>
<p>I did mine over the phone. We got the Worldwide Trip Protector policy. </p>
<p>Honestly, their customer service folks were great and answered all of my questions!</p>
<p>Any thoughts about best medical evacuation insurance? I think the problem is that H & BIL are getting older, so premiums rise with age. My premium is considerably lower than theirs, even though I have worse (well-controlled) chronic conditions.</p>