GillyGray

We will be traveling to London and Belgium for 11 days in September. How necessary is it to purchase travel insurance? We've purchased airfare from Delta, booked our hotels and a Eurostar ticket for the chunnel. We are not renting a car. Any experienced advice appreciated. Thanks!

annhig

ideally you should have travel insurance to cover you from the date that you make your first payment, in case of cancellation. [you're only covered in case of emergency of course, not just whim].

then you need it to cover your hospital expenses &/or repatriation, [if you're from the US, you're not entitled to free medical treatment in the UK or Belgium] delay caused by force majeur/airline incompetence, etc. etc

Why wouldn't you need it?

thursdaysd

I don't buy trip cancellation/interruption insurance, but I do usually book hotels I can cancel without penalty. I self-insure the rest (i.e. I'll eat the cost).

You do need medical insurance that covers you for emergency care abroad (note that Medicare does not), and medical evacuation and repatriation insurance. I buy mine through Seven Corners.

thursdaysd

ann - travel insurance is more expensive in the US than the UK.

annhig

but that doesn't mean that you don't need it, thursdaysd!

in the past, UK hospitals have been quite lax about charging "foreigners" for medical treatment, but there are noises being made about enforcing existing rules, and if one is really ill, there is the cost of getting back home, etc, plus all the knock on expenses for travel companions.

even a US insurance policy must be worthwhile to cover those sorts of risks, surely?

ChgoGal

Hi, GillyGRay.

For my fall trip, I plan to insure with AmEx travel insurance. They have a $59 plan that covers up to $1K in losses. I have my own medical insurance and ad&d so that is less of a concern, but there are unavoidable b&b deposits and rail tickets that are not refundable that will be lost in the event I have to cancel the trip. My parents are elderly and you just never know when your own health may be compromised.

In the larger cities, where I had a choice, I did opt to book hotels I can cancel about a day or two in advance.

The $59 premium for $1,000 coverage is just about the amount I feel comfortable and secure with. For full coverage, my premium goes up to around $160, so at that point, it doesn't make as much sense to me.

I'm not sure if the insurance will cover my theater tickets that I bought, though. And for my last trip last fall, I had to cancel because my pet was ill, and no travel insurance would accept that as a valid reason.

Good luck finding the right policy!

bilboburgler

why is US insurance so expensive? No competition?

LSky

"I had to cancel because my pet was ill, and no travel insurance would accept that as a valid reason"

There are policies that insure cancellation for any reason. Next time I will call them ahead of time and ask about my dog needing me. It's a fact of life.

Thanks for the heads up, I hadn't thought of that chgo.


http://www.insuremytrip.com/cfar.html

LSky

"I had to cancel because my pet was ill, and no travel insurance would accept that as a valid reason"

There are policies that insure cancellation for any reason. Next time I will call them ahead of time and ask about my dog needing me. It's a fact of life.

Thanks for the heads up, I hadn't thought of that chgo.


http://www.insuremytrip.com/cfar.html

ChgoGal

Also, I learned that job loss is a covered reason for job cancellation. That was a reason I hadn't considered.

thursdaysd

ann - you must have missed where I said that medical and evacuation and repatriation insurance were necessary. It's the interruption and cancellation that I think are optional, depending on your situation and your trip - sick relative, insure; expensive cruise, insure; otherwise, maybe not.

bilbo - I think US travel insurance is more expensive because a smaller percentage of the population travel abroad. And when you think about it, medical insurance of any kind is ridiculously expensive in the US!

bilboburgler

thursday, thanks I was slowly coming to the conclusion that it might be lack of demand and you confirmed it.

"medical insurance is expensive", looks like a position in the market is open. All you need is cheap Mexican Doctors and away you go. ;-)

thursdaysd

bilbo - I see you're in the UK. I was just listening to a program about the Affordable Care Act finally going into effect in the US - sign up for the new exchanges starts Oct 1st. Looks like that may actually bring the average costs down - not to mention covering a lot of the uninsured. I went on Medicare last year (getting old...) but before that I had retiree coverage through my previous employer and between the company subsidy and my contribution it cost over $10,000/year to insure one person! And that was for group coverage, buying in the individual market was just unbelievable for anyone used to single payer coverage. (Give thanks for the NHS.)

uhoh_busted

I usually buy trip insurance (cancellation for any reason) if the trip is going to cost us over $5K in nonrefundable air and/or prepaid lodging+ (such as on a safari or for a rented flat). You can sometimes get a fairly inexpensive cancellation/interruption medical evac plan when you buy airfare, but I've had good luck with the InsureMyTrip website. In 2009 we were set to leave on a lengthy OAT African safari trip, when our daughter was diagnosed with Phase 3 Melanoma and we decided we needed to be there for her. Every penny of our international airfare and prepaid OAT tour costs was refunded to us within a week.

annhig

ann - you must have missed where I said that medical and evacuation and repatriation insurance were necessary. It's the interruption and cancellation that I think are optional, depending on your situation and your trip - sick relative, insure; expensive cruise, insure; otherwise, maybe not.>>

thursdaysd - i think that our posts crossed! [quite often I look back up thread for some reason and see a post that wasn't there when i wrote mine as we have been posting at virtually the same time].

I do understand that most americans have medical insurance and that travel insurance is expensive in the US. I've probably said before that when brits started going abroad in the 60s and 70s, we all went on package holidays [so that we could pay for virtually everything up front to avoid the rules about not taking much currency abroad] and one part of the deal was compulsory travel insurance. so we all got into the habit of having it, and it is pretty cheap - approx £100 pa for both me and DH for world travel. we have very rarely claimed, but i still wouldn't travel without it, AND [though don't tell the insurance company] I'd be prepared to pay quite a lot more for it.

thursdaysd

ann - "most americans have medical insurance"

Err, actually, not so much. See my post above about the expense. More accurate to say that many employed Americans have medical insurance tied to their jobs. However, it often doesn't cover them abroad. Mine did, for emergencies, but it was a "cadillac" policy. However, the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), should be (fingers crossed) about to change things.

(I remember those currency controls - my passport from that era has a record of the currency I was taking abroad.)

Underhill

LSky, last time we traveled I hunted all over to find insurance that would cover cancellation because of a pet's illness. Zilch. If you can recommend a policy/company, I'd be extremely grateful.

mokka4

I usually purchase enough to cover my flight ($1100 or so). Anything more than that, I'll eat the cost or be sure that landlord will refund.
My dad needed unexpected (emergent) heart surgery (many policies cover immediate family and pre-existing conditions)and I had to cancel 9 days before a trip. Travelguard reimbursed without problem. So, that's ANOTHER facet to consider: do you have frail or medically-iffy family that you would cancel for?

mokka4

Underhill:
Many of the underwiters in www.insuremytrip.com
offer a 'premium' policy choice for "cancel for any reason".
As best as I could tell, this is the only chance for getting reimbursement when foregoing a trip due to pet illness.

nytraveler

Depends on your travel plans and health/insurance plans.

Our hotels and car can all be canceled until the last minute and we can change flights for a small charge. And our health insurance covers us anywhere in the world. So we see no need of travel insurance.

If you are paying larger amounts that are non-refundable (cruise, apartment) and rely on Medicare - you will need both health and trip cancellation coverage.