Travel Insurance?
 

I was thinking about buying travel insurance from Travel Guard. What do you think? Am open to any suggestions.

wassala

What do you want travel insurance for?

You can buy any kind of coverage you want, including lots that you probably don't want or need. Start by deciding what you want covered: cancellation? trip interruption? baggage? Payment of medical expenses? medical evacuation?

What kind of insurance do you already have? Does your medical insurance cover you in foreign countries? Does your medical insurance cover med evac? Does your credit card provide some kinds of insurance?

Once you decide to buy insurance, read all of the fine print.

we carry only our regular medical insurance and a flight evacuation insurance from DAN, the divers group, which kathie had suggested to us originally...

for bangkok you really do not need anything as they have world class hospitals there and they are cheap...

I always buy trip insurance if I am on a tour or if I have expensive, non refundable airfare or hotel reservations. Medicare does not cover any medical expenses outside of the US. I think it is a small price to pay for piece of mind. I hope I never have to use it. I did make one claim for travel delay (overnight at a hotel) which was paid promptly. If you buy now, make sure it covers pandemics (swine flu, possibility). Some companies do and some do not.

I get medical and evac/repatriation insurance from International SOS.

I don't go on tours.

I don't buy flight insurance if the airline is one that I will be using again. I usually fly United and don't get insurance for that. I will just pay the change fee and get a credit for the remaining amount of the ticket. I definitely would be able to use the credit in the future.

I did get flight insurance once. It was for domestic New Zealand air travel. We would not have much use for a credit on Air New Zealand (brother and I both live in the U.S.).

Hello, wassala, you might want to go to this very reputable website which a lot of Fodorites use. You can choose which company will insure you for the coverage that you want and need.
http://www.insuremytrip.com/

The first piece of advice above is the best--first figure out what you already have insurance for, then determine if you need insurance for the rest.

Another piece of advice: READ THE FINE PRINT. For example, most people think that evacuation insurance means returning you to your home. In most policies that will be one of the options along with "evacuation" to the nearest medical facility to where your injury or illness started. If you read the fine print, you'll find that, in most cases, you get only the least expensive of the two options, in other words, evacuation usually means an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital or clinic in the country where you are injured or become ill.

Some sort of travel insurance is a good option for some people, not for others. We don't buy travel insurance as our medical insurance covers us worldwide and we've never had enough money in non-cancellable items to make insurance worthwhile.

Wassala, I see from an earlier post in 2008 that you comment "We're 70 and 80 years old." Choosing medical travel insurance becomes a different issue for you than for people in their 20s. As someone approaching your vintage--well, at least the lower threshold--I would suggest that you investigate carefully what coverage exclusions on the basis of pre-existing conditions might mean for you. Obviously, too, what would have been a minor fall for you 40-50 years ago could be a major medical event today. When we travelled to Thailand this past winter it was reassuring to know that we had thorough coverage.

You definitely have to read the small print particularly concerning pre-existing conditions. Also there is a difference between evacuation and repatriation. When I fell in Japan and broke my foot, I was able to get the $1500 in additional fare that it cost me to go home because my policy had repatriation which did not call for me to have been hospitalized. Usually evacuation is when you are hospitalized. Needless to say I had no idea of this until I got home and read the policy - sometimes ignorance is bliss. ;-)

If you have a Visa C/C, they have a v. good policy. It is one of the only ones I could find that not only does not exclude countries on "terror watch lists," but offers some compensation to victims of same.

We have had Mastercard insurance on a rolling basis from year to year for some time. I have from time to time read the small print and notified the Insurers of things that changed. However you can never hope to remember or even sometimes understand all the exclusions,. Recently an insurable risk occured which meant we had to change our holiday. The exclusion however meant that anyone diagnosed with cancer in the last year was excluded. As our policy had run for perhaps 10 years I'm not sure how this works as it means they could pull cover upon any such eventuality.

I *used* to have Trip Cancellation & Trip Interruption Insurance as well as Travel Emergency Medical Insurance with my Gold VISA card. But both these kinds of coverage get dropped once you turn 65. I suspect this kind of exclusion is fairly widespread. Such credit card insurance wouldn't do Wassala any good either (see 4 posts above).

Hi. Any travlers aware of what type of travel insurance I would need to cover a missed flight ? I'm on a Princess cruise arriving in Sydney at 6:00 AM and have a flight at 10:00 to Auckland. Not sure if the ship will clear customs / security by 8:00 AM to give me enough time to mke a 10:00 AM flight. SYD International airport is 7 miles from cruise terminal and ship is set to dock at 6:00 AM, but Princess tells me disembarkation is between 2 -3 hours. So, if I miss my nonrefundable 10:00 AM flight I've got problems. Any ideas on whar type of travel insurance would cover this mishap. Most policies I've read don't seem to allow for this type of missed flight. Also, anyone experienced with cruise disembarkation in Sydney (Princess line)would appreciate your insights as well. Thanks !

Have you booked the flight? If so, getting insurance now is unlikely. What's the airline's policy--i.e., will they get you on a later flight if you miss the first one?
Assuming this is an international flight, you don't have sufficient connection time given the cruise line's estimate. Seek advice from the airline.

Bkmk