Go to either Squaremouth.com or Insuremytrip.com to see the various traveller insurance plans offered and compare to see which offers the plan best suited to your needs; Do it within the two week period since you booked your trips and only list the price of the tickets (even if you have only paid the fees for using frequent flyer miles). You will be charged a small premium, but you will now be covered and have the pre-existing condition coverage. As you do additional bookings and have a better idea of what the costs of your trip will be, you can just add those costs to your coverage and the insurance company will increase the premium to cover these additional costs. In other words, you DON'T have to know the complete cost of your trip when you take out your insurance. You can keep adding to the coverage as you pay for your trip over the next several months.

When you use either site (Squaremouth or IMT) you can call a representative to go over this method. Representatives at each site will walk you through it.

Thanks very much 520. I called insuremytrip last night, and they said exactly what you just suggested.

We don't buy trip insurance unless there are non-refundable deposits or something that we would lose if we had to cancel.

In your case, flights with miles and hotel reservations (with cancelation policies, I am sure), it doesn't seem like you would be out much if you had to cancel. The train tickets seem like the most expensive thing if those are non-refundable.

We never bought trip insurance until my husband became very ill, and we had to cancel a trip to Croatia. Now because of health concerns, we like knowing we have medical evacuation, etc. Plus, most of the hotels we are booking require large unrefundable deposits.

We always buy a travel medical policy since our regular insurance doesn't cover us out of the country, and the policies we buy always include the medical evacuation.

For trip cancellation, that is smart if you will have anything substancial that is non-refundable.

The cost of the trip are the parts that are prepaid or that you lose if you don't use..
Ex. airfare change fees/fare changes for rebooking, hotel penalty fees if you cancel too late, train tickets you can't use, etc.
You don't include the cost of sightseeing, meals, transport passes and so on because you won't be spending that money if you don't go on the trip. If you don't know exactly how much your train travel will cost, still guestimate it.

I don't think you can guestimate. I recently read an article by Christopher Elliot on Frommers about how you have to state the exact cost of the trip. A woman had rounded up her costs to an even dollar amount, and her insurance was invalidated.

If you do need to file a claim, you will need proof of the costs (receipts, credit card bills, etc.) you put in a claim for.

I always provide a 'rounded' estimate for my trip costs, and have made claims 3 different times with successful outcomes. The issue is, you can never claim more than you estimated for the cost, but your premium is based on the cost (and your age). So you want to provide a fair estimate so your potential claims are covered, but not cause your premium to be more than necessary.

To get pre-existing coverage, you must purchase an amount of coverage that equals ALL prepaid non refundable payments applicable to the trip.

This website gives some good information on travel insurance -- how to choose the right coverage, what loopholes to look out for, etc.

http://www.travelinsurancereview.net/travel-insurance-101/

Bettyk--thank you for that website. I will check it over.

Travelut--I just reread the Christopher Elliott article, and the woman whose claim was denied actually rounded her cost down by only $2.50.

http://www.elliott.org/blog/travel-insurance-claims-can-hinge-on-the-tiniest-details/

yes, I did say the costs you provide for the quote should 'cover' any claims that you might need to make, and I understand they will deny claims that exceed your coverage (the entire claim, not just the amount above the policy).

right dignbydog - you TOPTALLY misread thee whole article! She was penalized because she DIDN'T insure her whole trip - she "rounded down" not "rounded up"

Still......

mztery--if you look at my post of Aug. 6, I note that she rounded her cost down. Travelnut said that you couldn't claim more than your cost. According to Elliott, you also can't claim less. All I'm saying is that it looks to me like you have to be exact and not do ANY rounding if you want to be assured of being covered.

digbydog ,you're kind of missing the point. The issue is rounding down, not rounding up. If you round UP you can only be reimbursed for the actual cost of the losses, but you can't be denied because you round up the amount.

I am not too smart on this insurance stuff--hence the reason for my initial post. However, if you will only be reimbursed for your unreimburseable, prepaid expenses, why would you want to pay for more insurance (rounding up)? And if you could be denied completely for rounding down by only $2.50, you obviously don't want to round down. To me, the only reasonable option is to figure out your actual expenses. Am I missing something?

Normally, you can insure all or part of your prepaid, non refundable expenses and the insurance company doesn't care because they will only reimburse you for an amount up to the coverage you paid for and no more.

But, for certain types of coverage such as the preexisting condition waiver, you are required to be accurate or risk having your claim denied. Therefore, you might want to round up by a few dollars to make sure you have covered everything.

When calculating insurance costs, and you can try this yourself by going to squaremouth.com or insuremytrip.com, normally there isn't much difference in premium if you purchase $2200 in coverage or $2400.

If you don't need the preexisting condition waiver (or other coverage that requires you cover the entire cost of the triip), then you only need to insure whatever amount you feel necessary for your own piece of mind.