My wife and are are traveling to Egypt and
Israel (and briefly Jordan) on a tour arranged
by Tours-in-Isreal May 20 through June 6.
The recent outbreak of swine flu makes me wonder
whether I should buy trip insurance.

We are in our late 50's/early 60's and in good health.

Advice?

If we should buy it, in what form and from what company?

Thanks for any assistance.

I advise -no- don't buy insurance.

regards - tom

You can compare plans, coverage, and prices at www.insuremytrip.com. If you can afford to lose the money you're spending on the trip should something happen, then you may not need insurance. However, you should medical evacuation insurance at the very least. I have a plan through AMEX that covers that. Also, you can check out www.medjet.com for medivac coverage that covers you for an entire year, not just one trip.

if your only concern is the swine flu, i agree with Tom, don't bother.

Also as far as the trip insurance i have for my Africa trip you need to purchase the insurance for the cancellation insurance portion with 14 days of your first payment.

amy
enjoy your trip

If it's just swine flu you're worried about, put your money towards Purell instead of insurance.

As a side note, I've heard that quite a few travel insurance plans have to be purchased very soon after making arrangements (within 30 days or so).

You can purchase insurance past the 15- or 30-day window, the only issue being that some of the coverages such as "cancel for any reason" aren't in force. I'd still say that anyone traveling overseas should have medivac coverage of some sort.

Different insurance policies would also likely treat something like swine flu differently. Are you cancelling because you have it? your travel companion has it? your mother has it? you heard there are cases at your destination? Would be interesting to know how for example travel insurance companies are treating trips planned to Mexico at the moment or how they treated SARS before. I understand airlines are allowing rescheduling for current Mexico trips but not sure about other travel companies such as cruise or tour.

Not everyone can be as cavalier as cary999

If you've prepaid for your trip and loosing what you've paid if you have to cancel is no big deal, then you don't need cancellation insurance.

That said, what if problems arise once in-country, whether H1N1, an accident, other illness and you have to interrupt the trip? The insurance would cover. An accident, whether young or old, can happen to anyone anywhere, then it's nice to have the insurance to cover extra seats on plane, i.e., a broken leg/cast.

But, if none of this matters, at least consider medical and evacuation.

You can purchase medical and evacuation separately, which is found on the www.insuremytrip.com site. In fact, there's an 800# to call to speak to an agent and see what they've planned for this current H1N1 issue!

Reminds me, when back in '98, the insurers weren't certain how to handle "terrorism."

In my earlier travels, when I was younger and did little prepaying other than plane tickets, I did not purchase insurance. Having reached your age bracket and prepaid for several cruises and safaris (which especially tend to be fairly expensive), I have purchased insurance. If you've prepaid a large amount, the insurance will be a small percentage of the total cost and the peace of mind, to me, has been worth it. It seems to me that if you can afford to lose what you've prepaid, you can afford the extra bit for insurance and NOT lose what you've prepaid should something force you to miss the trip.

Another site to check is http://www.squaremouth.com/?qti=trav...rance_match.pl

You can compare plans and prices and decide which provides the level of coverage you're comfortable with and which best meets your needs.

Good luck, Steve

hi ftizgibbon,

I'm always surprised at the cavalier [good word, sandy] attitude so many US travellers have to travel insurance. hardly any brits would travel without it, even within europe where we probably don't need it. but for Egypt, where the medical facilities may be less than stellar surely it's a [horrible phrase] no brainer. do you want to be treated in a public hospital in Cairo? probably not. would you like to be repatriated if you suffer a serious injury? but have you got $50K?

IMHO it's a false economy.

regards, ann

as sbd2 says - "peace of mind"
That is what sells most insurance.

And as to no longer appear "cavalier , my lecture on insurance. Insurance is to protect you from losses you can not afford to lose. Insurance is a gamble and you have the odds stacked against you because the insurance company makes the odds. Most insurance is sold/bought because it makes the buyer feel good. Not because of a rational cost analysis.
Do not insurance something (anything) if its loss will not greatly impact your life. For example, if my luggage is lost the $$$ value of it is not significant in my life. Even if my $5,000 trip were canceled what I have actually lost is the trip. The $5,000 was spent/gone/lost the day before I started the trip. While if I had a medical problem and had to be flown back home that could cost $50,000. Causing me to lose my house, I hate when that happens.

regards - tom

Read carefully what sandi wrote. Insurance companies like to EXclude certain types of coverage. And you don't know it until you make a claim. Will the H1N1 "issues" be excluded from coverage from a policy you buy?? It may be already excluded in an existing policy you have? Do you know? If that's important to you, double check it.

"Feeling good", "being safe than sorry", "peace of mind", is just that - a state of mind and feeling, a personality trait. Often has no rationality to it. I'll say again, insure only what you can not afford to lose.

Do I buy travel insurance? I have medical evacuation, only. That expense if required is one that would severely impact my lifestyle. Yes, I'm very cavalier when it comes to losing my luggage. And so are the airlines

regards - tom

Glad to hear you have medivac insurance, Tom! As I said, I think it's smart to have that at a minimum. Beyond that, it's definitely up to the traveler as to how much they think they can afford to lose (as with all insurances.)

Insurance, any kind, favors the insurance company! That's their business and hope to profit from it, or do something else.

For Trip Insurance, on average costs about 6% of what you're insuring. Also note that policies these days go by the age/s of travelers, thus higher for those over 50, 65, & up! Just the way it is.

While lost bag or your clothing is usually covered by your home owners or renters insurance, even in a comprehensive plan that covers: cancel, interrupt, flight/baggage delay, baggage loss, medical & evacuation - the lost bag/clothing is a very small percent of the premium and few will extract this from the overall policy.

As replies above, if prepaid and you can't afford to loose... then buy the comprehensive insurance. Otherwise, at minimum have medical and evacuation.

I normally do not buy insurance, but almost learned the value of it in Egypt this past week. On the day before we were to fly home I became horribly ill with some type of food poisoning and/or parasite. I did have Cipro with me and was well enough to fly home (I was very weak and it was tough), but had I not been able to do so I took comfort in the fact that I did have trip insurance and if I needed to stay and extra day to recover I could do so without fear of high fees re-booking.

you can find un insurance for travel on http://www.mawista.com for germany and teh schengenstates