Travel Insurance (eg, Trip Cancellation/Etc...)

[Brainonska511]

My wife and I are planning our honeymoon, and I was wondering about trip cancellation insurance.

It seems like I could get coverage for a relatively small amount, considering the cost of the trip. My only question is - when do you buy it? Since you might not book everything all at once, and most search engines ask for the total cost of the trip.

I've also looked at my CCs, but the benefits have gotten stingier of the years (none of mine offer it anymore) and I probably won't be opening another card.

 

[purbeast0]

I've never once used travel insurance and have traveled a bunch.

That said, I've read about a lot of people using it on forums and stuff. Most people don't get it directly through the websites that offer it. There are 3rd party travel insurance companies and it sounds like those are the ones most people use. Again, this is just from reading on tripadvisor and stuff but I do recall pretty much everyone that talked about using insurance, did so via third party and they all used the same company so I'm guessing a google search would pull up the best ones.

It seemed that most people who did it were old people who could have medical issues come up, and some people talked about having used it before.

As far as CC insurance, I've never seen ones with travel insurance, but most have car rental insurance. So never get insurance with the car rental agency if you want to use the perk with your CC. I've actually filed a claim with Chase when my wife back into something in Grand Cayman, and the process couldn't have been easier. It was basically send them some paper work electronically and wait. Then after like 3-4 weeks we were reimbursed. I paid $1600 in Grand Cayman out of my pocket and it ended up being $1300 in repairs, and the people in GC gave me $300 back, and I got $1300 from Chase.

Me personally, I think it's a huge waste. I mean if you cancel your honey moon, chances are you are losing a ton of money because you probably canceled your wedding too.

 

[Brainonska511]

Me personally, I think it's a huge waste. I mean if you cancel your honey moon, chances are you are losing a ton of money because you probably canceled your wedding too.

Yeah, I was only thinking of it in terms of something crazy happening in the lead-up, like someone gets injured or weather causes a significant delay

 

[Captante]

Yeah, I was only thinking of it in terms of something crazy happening in the lead-up, like someone gets injured or weather causes a significant delay

Or like a plague maybe? Nah never happen...

 

[purbeast0]

Yeah, I was only thinking of it in terms of something crazy happening in the lead-up, like someone gets injured or weather causes a significant delay

Only you can decide if that is worth the $$$ you pay for insurance.

 

[Brainonska511]

Only you can decide if that is worth the $$$ you pay for insurance.

From what I was looking at, it seemed like it started at $100 for a trip costing a few k. Just wondering if anyone had any experiences to share. I would never buy the extended warranty on an electronic, but those generally don't cost the same as a trip to Europe.

 

[K1052]

I book everything on my Chase and Amex cards which have some automatic protection for events like a serious illness or weather event. As bonus Amex has a global assist hotline who will help you out if something goes really sideways (major injury out of the country, lost passport, local legal assistance, etc).

I've only have one major trip implode in the last 15 years but the reasons I couldn't take it wouldn't have been covered anyway.

 

[Brainonska511]

I book everything on my Chase and Amex cards which have some automatic protection for events like a serious illness or weather event. As bonus Amex has a global assist hotline who will help you out if something goes really sideways (major injury out of the country, lost passport, local legal assistance, etc).

I've only have one major trip implode in the last 15 years but the reasons I couldn't take it wouldn't have been covered anyway.

I think many cards used to have that, but Chase and AmEx have cut back substantially on those benefits. Only their top tier cards, which I don't have, seem to offer those benefits.

 

[ponyo]

I think many cards used to have that, but Chase and AmEx have cut back substantially on those benefits. Only their top tier cards, which I don't have, seem to offer those benefits.

So get a card like Chase Sapphire Reserve. Book all your honeymoon trips using it. Cancel the card next year at renewal. Might cost the same or less than travel insurance.

I don't bother buying travel insurance because I use CSR card to book everything. And if it's not covered by CSR, I just self insure. If you're not buying nonrefundable big vacation package and self booking, your risk is really low since most things like hotels and rental cars can be canceled with little or no penalty. Airfare is really the only thing you might take small hit on but even that shouldn't be much.

 

[Brainonska511]

So get a card like Chase Sapphire Reserve. Book all your honeymoon trips using it. Cancel the card next year at renewal. Might cost the same or less than travel insurance.

I don't bother buying travel insurance because I use CSR card to book everything. And if it's not covered by CSR, I just self insure. If you're not buying nonrefundable big vacation package and self booking, your risk is really low since most things like hotels and rental cars can be canceled with little or no penalty. Airfare is really the only thing you might take small hit on but even that shouldn't be much.

I'm already leaning against buying the insurance. It was just a passing thought overall.

 

[Exterous]

This site comes up time to time on flyertalk but I've not used it so YMMV: https://www.insuremytrip.com/

Personally I've just relied on my chase sapphire preferred and Amex included coverage

 

[brianmanahan]

i used to buy it, but just rely on my CSR credit card to cover it now

 

[sdifox]

LoL reminds me of my crazy honeymoon plan.

Cathay unlimited flight passport for a month.

Toronto - HK
HK - Bali
Bali - HK
HK - Taipei
Taipei - HK
HK - Toronto

Of course it got cancelled because Bali bombing happened a week before I flew out.

Was able to cancel everything except never got my refund from Bali. No travel insurance.

I figured hotel was hurting badly so I didn't bother chasing them for the money.

 

[Brainonska511]

Small update: with all the stuff going on with coronavirus (and on and off travel restrictions that seem to pop up), we ended up just following the recommendation from Wirecutter - an any-reason cancellation policy through Travelex. It seemed worth the small amount to provide some coverage for all the non-refundable costs.

 

[DigDog]

<THIS GUY works in travel insurance. I'm going to cite EU packages but i dont think US packages should be terribly different, possibly a bit more expensive and with a bit higher excess.

1. your excess should be reasonable. unless you plan to never claim, such as motor insurance when you KNOW that you are mr slowpoke could kill a turtle with boredom von captainslow. In which case high-excess policies make sense.

2. you MUST buy the policy at any point BEFORE you travel. How much sooner, does not matter. 1 year, 1 month, 1 day.

3. in order to claim on cancellation or curtailment, you need to have a demnstrable case as described in the policy. For example, at this time we still do not accept cancellations for travels to italy - despite the 2000 CV19 cases and 80 deaths. Of course this can change at an hour's notice.
Airlines tend to be more reasonable with cancellations and rebookings, hotels not much.

4. most travel insurance requires that you MUST have a return ticket.

5. curtailment (stopping a holiday because of serious reasons such as your injury or a familymember's illness back home) are much easier to trigger.

6. your first point of recovery will always be the travel provider - airline, hotel, etc. Only after you ahve cancelled with them, you can claim on the remaining loss.

7. be 100% sure that you complete your medical declarations and that you are within the maximum TRIP limit as described by the policy. (annual policies DO NOT cover your for 365 days of holiday)
8. google NAME OF POLICY + "POLICY WORDING" + 2020

(AmEx Platinum and Centurion have very extensive insurance. So do many bank accounts, such as Lloyds International, Barclays, Halifax, etc)

 

[killster1]

was forced to get travel insurance went with same as my blue shield medical plan, was 30$ for 30 days in europe across 5 countries. (they forced us to get it before we could get a visa to each place) its cool because it covered lost luggage and was like 1 million if died during the travel

 

[Six]

(AmEx Platinum and Centurion have very extensive insurance. So do many bank accounts, such as Lloyds International, Barclays, Halifax, etc)

Barclays LOL. It's not even close to being in the same league. Any kind of protection from Barclays is as good as no protection. They'll string you along asking for additional irrelevant info, playing phone tag, and playing email tag...in hopes that you will give up, despite the overwhelming evidence that any common person can see. I told one of the rep I will go the small claims court route, and her replied "yeah, I know...if it was me, I would too."

 

[DigDog]

Unfortunately, as not only i currently work in travel insurance, but actually have worked in Barclays as well, and i accept that that's probably accurate. Barclays are very large and not very well organized when it comes to dealing with regular customers.
They will gladly do backflips if you are a millionaire, though.

 

[Captante]

They will gladly do backflips if you are a millionaire, though

Unfortunately the same can be said for many large financial institutions.