Travel Insurance? Don't!

[jebr]

I've purchased trip insurance from time to time, mainly when I'm booking a long haul trip far in advance, but I don't actually expect it to do anything for me when the time comes that I actually need it. It's mainly there in case things go horribly wrong and someone interrupts my story of woe to tell me I should have bought travel insurance. :lol:

Then they'll just say you should've bought better travel insurance...as if such a thing exists. h34r:

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

Be careful of any restrictions. I believe you have to arrive the day before the cruise ship departure (no more, no less), or the insurance doesn't cover a missed connection.

Wow, that's really ridiculous. For cruise ship insurance you really have to be in the city/town the cruise is departing from, one day before? That's a silly as crap requirement, for insurance. But I'll admit I'm not as knowledgeable on insurance related things, as others probably are. I wonder if Allianz(sp?) has such a requirement, if you're doing the reverse(cruise ship to connecting to Amtrak in Seattle)?

I don't know if this is part of any particular insurance, but I do know that if you want to use one of the Cruise discounts offered by Amtrak, one of the requirements for those discounts, is that you have to schedule your Amtrak travel to arrive the day before before the departure date of your cruise.

I am only going off topic a bit here, because I think this is the source of that comment.

 

[SarahZ]

DA, I know you asked me this question four years ago, but I missed it. :lol:

Yes, I do read the entire insurance contract. I also read the T&C that come with my credit cards, especially the parts about benefits offered (travel insurance, rental cars, medical coverage, etc).

I never used to, but then I worked for an auto insurance company, and I cannot even attempt to tell you how many times per day I had to tell people that either their policy didn't cover something (which sucked) or (my favorite type of call) that their policy would cover something they weren't expecting would be covered.

So while I may not memorize every single policy I have, I do give them a cursory glance to see if anything leaps out as weird or stupid. Working in insurance helped me with the lingo, similar to learning Spanish and then living in Barcelona, so I can parse policies much quicker than the average bear.

 

[Dixie]

This topic falls under my line of work, but I am not an insurance agent.

There are a lot of reasons you may want to purchase travel insurance:

• Protect your investment in the trip -- if you can't afford to lose the full amount you've paid for the trip before going, you may want to consider insuring it -- prepaid, nonrefundable rail, air, hotels, car rentals, tours, etc.
• Protect yourself in the event your trip is interrupted and you have to return home mid-travel -- can you afford to buy walk-up fares for air (yikes), hotels, rail, car rental, etc.
• What if you are injured or become ill during travel and you have to receive care, possibly even extended care? Will your insurance cover the hospitals, which may be out of network? Do you have the money to be med-flighted back home? If the unthinkable happens, do you have the resources for your remains to be returned home? If you are out of country, do you have the means to pay cash up front before you receive treatment, even surgery, as some facilities require?
• Do you have a condition that could be considered pre-existing? Then you need to make sure any travel insurance you looking at doesn't specifically exclude pre-existing coverage, or that your insurance is purchased in time to waive the pre-existing exclusion a policy may have (some have it, some don't offer it; many have a "lookback period" of a certain number of days on such conditions).

There are a lot of differences between "supplier" insurance (offered by whatever travel company you are booking with -- Amtrak for example) and independent insurance companies.

• Be sure to read the DESCRIPTION OF COVERAGE carefully. It sets forth the provisions under which you'll be covered.
• Be sure to read all the REASONS FOR CANCELLATION AND INTERRUPTION in the Description of Coverage. For example, I just compared one suppler coverage that had 10 Reasons for Cancellation to an Independent option that offered 17 Reasons for Cancellation. If your reason for canceling your trip doesn't fall under that list, your ask may be denied.
• Supplier coverage will often only cover the trip components booked with that supplier. Let's say you use Generic Rail Vacation Company to book a package that includes Amtrak and a hotel and add their brand insurance, it will cover rail and hotel only. It won't cover tours your might book on your own, or air you might purchase to get to your rail start point. You may want to opt for independent insurance instead that would cover the Generic Rail Vacation Company package, plus your air, plus your tours all together. (Cruise line insurance is very much like this.)
• Independent coverage will often have higher coverage limits -- look for things like $50,000 medical on independent vs $15,000 medical on supplier. Which coverage would you rather have if you have a heart attack while traveling? Independent often has much higher coverage for medical evacuation.
• Independent coverage often will cover insolvency of the travel company -- if the tour company goes out of business, you can get your money back
• Supplier insurance may offer a "cancel for any reason" provision, but it comes with a lot of strings attached, such as a reduced-percentage travel credit that must be used within a year of cancellation. You can find independent options for CFAR insurance, but it's usually much much more expensive. CFAR can be used in instances such as -- I don't want to travel because my dog died, my girlfriend broke up with me, my kid has a soccer tournament I forgot about, I changed my mind, etc.
• Some independent coverage may be "primary" insurance, while supplier insurance is often "secondary" insurance, which means you have to submit bills to any other insurance you have first before the travel company will pay. That's an important question to ask if you don't want to submit 2x paperwork.
• Independent insurance pricing is often based upon the age of the traveler and the cost of the trip components together. Supplier insurance is usually only based upon price of travel. Note: Sometimes you can combine the two insurance options if independent has really good medical, for example, but Supplier has a pretty good CFAR option.
• Compare trip delay and baggage delay provisions: they will differ as to how long you are delayed before reimbursements kick in. I've seen some with a 5-hour trip delay and some with 3-hour trip delay before coverage starts, some longer. I've seen some with 12-hour baggage delay and some with 24-hour baggage delay before you'll be reimbursed. If you are flying somewhere to board a train or a ship, you'd prefer to have 12-hr baggage coverage so you could get insurance reimbursement for clothes / toiletries before you board. Of course you hope your bags go with you every step of the way!
• Some cheapie supplier insurance relies on you accepting it without research: "Add travel protection for just $20, just click here during checkout." I would avoid that without having time to dig into it. No thanks.
• Some travel companies require you to add insurance with deposit, others by final payment. Some independent companies will allow you to add insurance up to the day before departure. Some give you a "free look" period after purchase during which you can receive a refund; after that it's non-refundable.
• Some options may vary by the state in which you live.
• Some credit cards offer travel insurance but there is fine print there as well. Can you pay just the deposit for the trip on that card, or does the full amount have to be put on that card? Do all trip components have to be charged to that card to be covered? Same points apply as above for amounts of coverage, pre-existing, does it cover non-cardholders traveling with you, etc.

Other points:

• You can't buy hurricane coverage after a storm has been named, and you can't buy coverage for an illness after someone comes down with cancer or is already in the hospital. Buy your insurance early.
• If you are concerned about cancellation due to family members who are not traveling ("Grandma is very sick and we may have to cancel,") call the insurance company and ask if pre-existing conditions of non-travelers are an issue. It may be a factor for some companies and not a factor for others.
• If you are booked to travel as a double, but one person cancels under insurance, will your insurance step up and cover your increased single fare?
• Often overlooked is the personal effects coverage -- lose, damage, or have stolen your camera, iThing, cell phone, suitcase, expensive stroller, etc, and it may be covered by your travel protection plan. Some have optional business equipment (i.e., personal computer) coverage for an additional fee.
• Don't buy on price alone, as you can see from above it's not always apples to apples when comparing. Sometimes you do have to dig into that fine print to find the differences.
• Don't under-insure.
• Document everything. Keep receipts and invoices, you'll have to submit them.
• If you are traveling on points vs cash, look for a $0 trip cost option on insurance, or minimum amount coverage if you just need hotels or tours covered.

All of these items factor into pricing for trip insurance and whether something will be covered when you file a claim.

Again, I'm not an insurance agent, but I deal with this frequently. Call the insurance co before purchase if you have detailed questions that aren't answered by the fine print -- don't take the word of a random stranger on the internet. Most travel insurance policies aren't that hard to understand, but you do need to read what you're buying to make sure it's going to cover what you need at the levels of coverage you need.

 

[TinCan782]

Be careful of any restrictions. I believe you have to arrive the day before the cruise ship departure (no more, no less), or the insurance doesn't cover a missed connection.

Wow, that's really ridiculous. For cruise ship insurance you really have to be in the city/town the cruise is departing from, one day before? That's a silly as crap requirement, for insurance. But I'll admit I'm not as knowledgeable on insurance related things, as others probably are. I wonder if Allianz(sp?) has such a requirement, if you're doing the reverse(cruise ship to connecting to Amtrak in Seattle)?

I don't know if this is part of any particular insurance, but I do know that if you want to use one of the Cruise discounts offered by Amtrak, one of the requirements for those discounts, is that you have to schedule your Amtrak travel to arrive the day before before the departure date of your cruise.

I am only going off topic a bit here, because I think this is the source of that comment.

Insurance or not, we always plan to arrive the day BEFORE a cruise if out of town. We'll pay the hotel bill for a little peace of mind. If its a locally originating cruise, we'll drive that morning.

 

[TinCan782]

This topic falls under my line of work, but I am not an insurance agent.

There are a lot of reasons you may want to purchase travel insurance:

• Protect your investment in the trip -- if you can't afford to lose the full amount you've paid for the trip before going, you may want to consider insuring it -- prepaid, nonrefundable rail, air, hotels, car rentals, tours, etc.
• Protect yourself in the event your trip is interrupted and you have to return home mid-travel -- can you afford to buy walk-up fares for air (yikes), hotels, rail, car rental, etc.
• What if you are injured or become ill during travel and you have to receive care, possibly even extended care? Will your insurance cover the hospitals, which may be out of network? Do you have the money to be med-flighted back home? If the unthinkable happens, do you have the resources for your remains to be returned home? If you are out of country, do you have the means to pay cash up front before you receive treatment, even surgery, as some facilities require?
• Do you have a condition that could be considered pre-existing? Then you need to make sure any travel insurance you looking at doesn't specifically exclude pre-existing coverage, or that your insurance is purchased in time to waive the pre-existing exclusion a policy may have (some have it, some don't offer it; many have a "lookback period" of a certain number of days on such conditions).

There are a lot of differences between "supplier" insurance (offered by whatever travel company you are booking with -- Amtrak for example) and independent insurance companies.

• Be sure to read the DESCRIPTION OF COVERAGE carefully. It sets forth the provisions under which you'll be covered.
• Be sure to read all the REASONS FOR CANCELLATION AND INTERRUPTION in the Description of Coverage. For example, I just compared one suppler coverage that had 10 Reasons for Cancellation to an Independent option that offered 17 Reasons for Cancellation. If your reason for canceling your trip doesn't fall under that list, your ask may be denied.
• Supplier coverage will often only cover the trip components booked with that supplier. Let's say you use Generic Rail Vacation Company to book a package that includes Amtrak and a hotel and add their brand insurance, it will cover rail and hotel only. It won't cover tours your might book on your own, or air you might purchase to get to your rail start point. You may want to opt for independent insurance instead that would cover the Generic Rail Vacation Company package, plus your air, plus your tours all together. (Cruise line insurance is very much like this.)
• Independent coverage will often have higher coverage limits -- look for things like $50,000 medical on independent vs $15,000 medical on supplier. Which coverage would you rather have if you have a heart attack while traveling? Independent often has much higher coverage for medical evacuation.
• Independent coverage often will cover insolvency of the travel company -- if the tour company goes out of business, you can get your money back
• Supplier insurance may offer a "cancel for any reason" provision, but it comes with a lot of strings attached, such as a reduced-percentage travel credit that must be used within a year of cancellation. You can find independent options for CFAR insurance, but it's usually much much more expensive. CFAR can be used in instances such as -- I don't want to travel because my dog died, my girlfriend broke up with me, my kid has a soccer tournament I forgot about, I changed my mind, etc.
• Some independent coverage may be "primary" insurance, while supplier insurance is often "secondary" insurance, which means you have to submit bills to any other insurance you have first before the travel company will pay. That's an important question to ask if you don't want to submit 2x paperwork.
• Independent insurance pricing is often based upon the age of the traveler and the cost of the trip components together. Supplier insurance is usually only based upon price of travel. Note: Sometimes you can combine the two insurance options if independent has really good medical, for example, but Supplier has a pretty good CFAR option.
• Compare trip delay and baggage delay provisions: they will differ as to how long you are delayed before reimbursements kick in. I've seen some with a 5-hour trip delay and some with 3-hour trip delay before coverage starts, some longer. I've seen some with 12-hour baggage delay and some with 24-hour baggage delay before you'll be reimbursed. If you are flying somewhere to board a train or a ship, you'd prefer to have 12-hr baggage coverage so you could get insurance reimbursement for clothes / toiletries before you board. Of course you hope your bags go with you every step of the way!
• Some cheapie supplier insurance relies on you accepting it without research: "Add travel protection for just $20, just click here during checkout." I would avoid that without having time to dig into it. No thanks.
• Some travel companies require you to add insurance with deposit, others by final payment. Some independent companies will allow you to add insurance up to the day before departure. Some give you a "free look" period after purchase during which you can receive a refund; after that it's non-refundable.
• Some options may vary by the state in which you live.
• Some credit cards offer travel insurance but there is fine print there as well. Can you pay just the deposit for the trip on that card, or does the full amount have to be put on that card? Do all trip components have to be charged to that card to be covered? Same points apply as above for amounts of coverage, pre-existing, does it cover non-cardholders traveling with you, etc.

Other points:

• You can't buy hurricane coverage after a storm has been named, and you can't buy coverage for an illness after someone comes down with cancer or is already in the hospital. Buy your insurance early.
• If you are concerned about cancellation due to family members who are not traveling ("Grandma is very sick and we may have to cancel,") call the insurance company and ask if pre-existing conditions of non-travelers are an issue. It may be a factor for some companies and not a factor for others.
• If you are booked to travel as a double, but one person cancels under insurance, will your insurance step up and cover your increased single fare?
• Often overlooked is the personal effects coverage -- lose, damage, or have stolen your camera, iThing, cell phone, suitcase, expensive stroller, etc, and it may be covered by your travel protection plan. Some have optional business equipment (i.e., personal computer) coverage for an additional fee.
• Don't buy on price alone, as you can see from above it's not always apples to apples when comparing. Sometimes you do have to dig into that fine print to find the differences.
• Don't under-insure.
• Document everything. Keep receipts and invoices, you'll have to submit them.
• If you are traveling on points vs cash, look for a $0 trip cost option on insurance, or minimum amount coverage if you just need hotels or tours covered.

All of these items factor into pricing for trip insurance and whether something will be covered when you file a claim.

Again, I'm not an insurance agent, but I deal with this frequently. Call the insurance co before purchase if you have detailed questions that aren't answered by the fine print -- don't take the word of a random stranger on the internet. Most travel insurance policies aren't that hard to understand, but you do need to read what you're buying to make sure it's going to cover what you need at the levels of coverage you need.

Thanks...useful info. I'm getting to the age where trip insurance is a consideration.

 

[RSG]

Aside from Dixie's most excellent advice, I've used travel insurance in the past to insure rental car coverage where my personal auto insurance was lacking or there would be some question that any claim might be covered. In many cases, travel insurance with a rental car rider is cheaper than buying the insurance or waivers that the rental car companies want you to purchase, and is often more comprehensive. This is more valuable now that auto insurance companies are treating all claims, regardless of fault, as evidence of insurabilty worthiness and as a factor in driver rating.

The advice about point-of-purchase insurance ("decline" or "accept") is well-made. It's why I find Amtrak's upselling attempt to be rather odious, as not only is the extent of coverage not disclosed, but there are better policies available independently from the same underwriter. Yet, the language makes it seem that most calamities mentioned will be covered when in fact I would imagine most would not be.

 

[Asher]

DA, I know you asked me this question four years ago, but I missed it. :lol:
Just curious, just as there is a time limit on insurance claim, is there a time limit on a reply to a post in this forum. ☺