What are your thought on a trip insurance? Last I bought it and I had to change the trip, the insurance didn’t cover. It’s not cheap 4% of the trip cost. I am afraid it won’t cover most common losses. I know I should read fine prints but they are so long.
You have to read the fine print to know what will be covered. It is a pain, butyou just have to sit down and do that.
TravelSafe offers plans that include “cancel for any reason” coverage. You might want to take a look at them first.
Really depends on your financial situation. If losing the cost of the trip would be a true hardship, get the insurance. Is this the dream vacation you have been saving for or is this your annual family trip? I say that because over 20 plus years of family vacations if I would have paid the premium every time, I would have paid in total more than what any one trip would cost. That being said some airline change fees and a few lost hotel reservations although hard to swallow would not have changed our financial situation.
I really look at it like extended warranties on things like televisions and appliances. Some people like the peace of mind and will pay for it and that is fine, Others will add up all the costs and say if I have to replace one of my ten items with an extended warranty that would cost me less than all the warranties.
You are right in that it only covers certain reason for cancellation and changes (true illness or death in the family) not just because something came up. Some do cover cancel for any reason but they are more costly and it ties back to my if you bought it every time would you be spending more over the years then what a vacation costs.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I did purchase the trip coverage once because a family member did have an illness and we thought the odds were more than typical that our trip could be affected by that. Luckily that wasn’t the case but that was a larger trip and a situation we did consider.
@Iglooo , go to Squaremouth.com, you can find and compare many different insurance companies and what they offer, and their ratings and comments. We have never used travel insurance before, but now we find ourselves in a situation where it is very possible we will have to use it. We booked a policy through this website with a company called RoamRight. It is pretty inexpensive, and we chose a policy where we can collect for medical reasons or work related reasons, the only two things that we would probably cancel for. Besides covering the non refundable parts, it covers trip interruptions, medical evacuations and emergency medical.
We paid only $256 for this policy, and the company sounds like it is easy to collect from if you need to, top quality. Check out this website, it’ very useful.
You absolutely need to read the fine print and see what their rules are for cancellations (i.e. deductibles and expenses covered). These companies often get very creative and very legal with their rules/requirements in order to protect their profits. Be sure the big ticket items on your itinerary are covered, and find out what the terms are for cancellation (hotel and airfare primarily).
Personally, I think when the total cost of a trip exceeds one or two month’s discretionary income, it becomes worth it to get travel insurance.
We use the Chase Sapphire preferred CCard which provides free limited travel insurance. We especially like it for trips where we prepay for a lot of hotel and air and tour expenses. We once had to cancel because of the Iceland volcano and were able to get $150 change fee per plane ticket refunded plus able to cancel all our non refundable hotels with no penalties.
We are satisfied with the free limited coverage we get from the CCard and have not purchased any additional coverage.
If we were flying to somewhere remote we would consider buying trip evacuation coverage, which is what can be VERY costly.
We sometimes also book with United Explorer card for free checked luggage–it also has free limited travel insurance.
Our Visa Costco card includes travel insurance, and our health insurance includes medical coverage for emergencies overseas.
@busdriver11 thanks for the squaremouth link.
Last year we were traveling in England and thought it would be fun to take few days and go to Ireland. Our schedule was really iffy, so when I booked the Airlingus flight I bought the trip insurance. I received email confirmations of my purchase and the first line of the insurance email read something like “this policy is only valid for citizens of Ireland.” I am sure many tourists fall for that one! Lesson learned…
Cancel for any reason coverage costs a lot more, about 6% of the trip cost. I think I’ll go with the coverage VISA card offers as part of benefits. I just don’t think there’s 6% chance to cancel the trip. In my case, it would be less than 1%.
My idea of insurance is to cover costs that it would be hard for me to pay. So I have a high deductible on my car insurance and if I get a $750 ding that’s on me. The flip side with car insurance, though, is I’ve probably saved more in lowered premiums than I’d pay if I ever have to cough up a repair on my own.
I apply the same view of insurance to trips. If I’d been saving for years and this is the only shot I’ll have for this trip then I’d take the insurance. My trips so far have not been like that. I won’t be happy if I have to pay several hundred dollars in unexpected expenses (maybe even more) to fly back early or whatever but it won’t seriously damage my financial future. Breaking a leg by getting run into by a moped in Italy and having to pay $25K-$50K for a medical flight back, on the other hand, would.So would ending up in an overseas hospital for some reason with no coverage from my USA insurance. Therefore I buy coverage for medical only. Easy to do on Squaremouth and even though I decline coverage for the value of the trip they also throw in trip-delay and lost-luggage coverage. A policy like this is about $75.
I have never, ever bought trip insurance. We have traveled all over the world, with elderly parents and children, and always looked at it as unnecessary. Well, our last trip, we ran into a boatload of unexpected medical costs (even though we have great insurance, overseas medical is out of network). We had to come home early, and would have had to pay at least an additional 4K in change fees if it wasn’t for the kindness of a Delta agent, who detected the desperation in my voice and moved us to an earlier flight for free. And did an international upgrade for us, what a wonderful woman.
For our next trip, I’m looking at the likelihood of cancelling. The unthinkable medical issue before/during the trip is now a distinct possibility. One kid getting a new job and possibly another kid…what if their workplaces won’t let them leave for awhile, two months after they start? Very possible. If I didn’t get this insurance, I probably would have already cancelled the trip, while it’s still refundable, because it seems so tenuous. But now, I can wait awhile and worry about it later.
@mikemac How do you buy coverage for medical reasons only? When I tried there’s wasn’t an option for medical only. Do you just set trip value to zero?
BD, I wonder if the majority of people who purchase a trip insurance have a reason to think they may need it. If so, the pool may be tilted to risky side making it expensive for an average traveler. I think I’ll buy it this time since we are going with a group.
Perhaps so, Iglooo. I wonder how many people end up collecting on the policy. In our group of four, we can collect on our nonrefundable expenses if anyone of us has an issue. It was kind of pricey to add the “work related cancellation”, about $96, I think. Otherwise our policy would have been around $160, for a period of 13 days. When I look at the potential ways that we could end up using it, it seemed like a pretty good bet for an expensive trip.
Look into Travel Guard if you are interested. Different tiers of coverage. They may not be the cheapest plan out there but sometimes you get what you pay for.
@Iglooo on the Squaremouth site there is a pulldown when searching for a quote that says “Should this search include trip cancellation coverage?” and select “no”. On other sites set the trip value to $0 (that’s what the pulldown does).
If getting medical coverage via trip insurance then it may be a good idea to check to make sure it is “primary” coverage. This coverage means that the travel insurer will pay your medical claims regardless of whether you have other insurance or not.
Also sold is “secondary” coverage in which the travel insurer will pay your medical claims only after you have collected what you can from your other insurance. I have read stories that this complicates things; even if you have no insurance coverage people have posted that they still need to file a claim with their primary insurer at home and only when that claim is denied will the travel company consider it.
And there’s this
If I’m in need of hospital care the last things I want to do is front the money for my home insurance company to cover their share of the cost or take part overseas in 3-way negotiations between the hospital, my home insurer, and the travel insurer on who will pay what.
The cost range of the cheapest to most expense primary policies overlap with the secondary policies, so I always choose one offering primary coverage.
For us, it’s a question of how much money we’ve put down.
We’re big Disney World fans. We always book a package, so the whole thing needs to be paid 45 days out. So we get trip insurance-- that’s a lot of money we would lose if a family crisis caused us to cancel our trip.
If we’re going upstate for a week and have put down a night’s deposit, the cost of the insurance outweighs the money we’ve spent, so we opt out.
I agree-- the most important part of the process is reading the policy.
insuremytrip.com…great site to compare travel insurance plans. I’ve bought plans three times, used it once. Generally costs under $100 for a trip around $3000.
We have used trip insurance regularly for over 15 years, initially prompted by having 3 failing elders with unpredictable health profiles. We have excellent health insurance that would cover us abroad.
A few years ago, I broke a bone on vacation in Europe, necessitating surgery, a 4 night in-clinic stay for recovery, missing a flight to a nearby country, as well as four booked hotel nights there, and two last minute business class flights home as my legs had to be elevated and Dr deemed it medically necessary to have DH with me for in air assistance. The concierge at our hotel had called a Dr from a tourist medical service to come and assess the problem. She spent 6 hours shepherding us to x-ray clinic and hospital clinic, Translating diagnostics, and staying until I was admitted for surgery that night. The service sent ancillary staff daily to inpatient clinic, to provide any needed services and translation, as well as coordinate wheelchair services for travel. All of these ancillary charges were covered by our trip insurance, as was a portion of the bill for our hotel, to give my husband a place to stay and the cost of the cancelled flights. The flights home were half as much as the medical stay and surgery. DH was in touch with travel insurance company throughout to ascertain the required documentation for reimbursement.
While the Travel Guard trip insurance was primary and paid us in full two weeks after our paper work was submitted, they did try to recoup some medical payments from our home health insurer. Additionally, the travel insurance was equipped to do a lot of navigating of local resources that would have been imperative in the absence of the tourist medical company. Even after our last elder is gone, we will continue to buy trip insurance.