filmwill

I feel like I always have to have a topic about insurance at least once a year, so here goes again...

I still -- even after getting it a handful of times -- don't completely understand the logic behind what part of the trip you're supposed to be insuring when you purchase travel insurance.

All signs point towards the 'non-refundable' aspects of your trip...so, anything you'll pre-pay by the time you leave that you risk losing completely if you have to cancel.

That all makes senses, but talking to TravelGuard last week I was a bit confused about their tactics on how to go about this. They seemed to indicate that I should purchase a policy as soon as I pay my first pre-paid cost (that would be one hotel, in our instance). It was important time-wise if I recall to do this within a certain amount of time of the first payment for the trip. But obviously there will be many more pre-paid costs to be incurred for our trip in the coming months and before we leave in December. Their response was to just keep 'adding on to the policy' each time we have a new prepaid cost.

That, obviously, seems weirdly inefficient and sort of silly to me. But wondering how others have handled this.

What's clear is that we're only really paying to insure prepaid costs and not, for instance, hotels that are cancelable 24hrs in advance.

Thanks in advance for any advice and/or first-hand experience here.

crosscheck

Travel insurance is a great thing - sadly we've had to use it several times for trips canceled because of illness/injuries and also interrupted because trip family members' illnesses back home.

The only reason to purchase insurance way in advance is if you want to cover pre-existing medical conditions. If that's the case, you need to book within two weeks of the first payment of the trip and you can guesstimate what the insurable portion will be (you can then tweak right before you leave - no reason to keep updating). Otherwise you can wait until you know the exact cost of what you want to insure.

We only get insurance way in advance if we're putting down a sizable deposit for something like a safari or a villa. If we're just talking about hotels, 2-3 weeks before the trip (or whatever the deadline for their 100% refund window) is fine. We always compare policies on insuremytrip.com and choose the policy with the highest med evac payment (our primary reason for getting insurance). We rarely get insurance if we're going to Europe and staying in hotels but I do get med evac for remote places, even if I'm going for work.

We usually get away with slightly underinsuring. When we canceled our Peru trip because our son broke his finger the day we were leaving, some hotels and all of our guides waived their cancellation fees, so our claim was less than the amount we had insured for.

northie

Travel insurance must work differently in US . In Australia we insure for the area we are travelling to (highest cost US ) and the number of days away. Extra costs are added if you want to be covered for pre existing . Sounds like you can put a value on what you want to cover!!

filmwill

crosscheck, indeed we will be putting down a full prepayment for one of our hotels in Thailand well in advance--in about a week or two (as it's in high demand over New Years at the beach, so no surprise there). That cost is completely non-refundable, so there's a high risk on this amount and I'd feel better if it was insured. I may even need to look at a 'cancel for any reason' policy. And those, like pre-existing conditions, I believe, need to be insured within 2 weeks of the payment. Hence the reason for looking at insuring early.

So I guess you've validated that it will end up being somewhat like they described...keep adding on. We can obviously wait until closer to departure to add on to the policy once we have a better idea of what the final costs will be.

Luckily the only costs we'll have on this trip that will be non-refundable will be one or two of our hotels and a few internal flights, at most.

crosscheck

In that case, insure just for the the amount of the hotel now and and adjust later. Also, if you're an Amex Platinum card holder, check with them - you might be already covered for cancellation/trip interruption, even if you didn't use the Amex card to book. Yes, 'cancel for any reason' does require insuring within two weeks of the first payment, but most policies only return 75%.

lcuy

I book immediately after making my first reservations whether it's air or hotel. I use the amount of that reservation for my initial estimate, then shortly before the trip will increase the amount to cover only the non-refundable items like you've mentioned.

I've noticed some policies have coverage for work related cancellations. They seem less expensive than "cancel for any reason", and wouldn't illness, death or an inability to leave your jobs be the likely reason you'd cancel a trip?

I always get a policy with pre-existing medical waiver due to my various health issues. But even if you are in perfect health, it doesn't cost much (if anything) more, and it eliminates you having to provide past medical records should you need to file a medical claim. Even if you don't have any medical "history", I've heard they drown you in paperwork to prove it. With pre-existing waived, I've just had to provide the receipts from the hospital or doctor, and it was paid.

annhig

I agree northie - our UK system works the same as yours.

the american system seems much more complicated, and, I suspect, much more expensive.

northie

Interesting annhig - it's great for us travelling to UK though our medical is covered by your health system . We got something out of being a Commonwealth country and having HM as our head of state hehe

filmwill

lcuy,

that's EXTRAORDINARILY helpful!

do you think it ends up being the same cost -- when you add bit by bit over time (vs. what you would pay for that total amount if you were to pay for it at the outset)?

i just worry that insurance companies, by definition, are always looking to charge customers a higher premium.

as for the pre-existing condition stipulation you mentioned, i noticed that travelguard includes that in all 3 versions of their policy. the only caveat is that you need to add the amount to the policy within 2 weeks of when you've paid it. i guess my question to you here is: what is the benefit of this pre-existing waiver for someone with no pre-existing conditions at all? just the lack of paperwork, should a medical issue arise on the trip?

crosscheck

We rarely buy within the two week period and have never needed to show paperwork when filling out claims. For cancellation or trip interruption, we've produced some very funky foreign doctor and hospital receipts which have never been questioned. For medical costs, they just want to make sure you haven't collected through another policy. For hotel and tour reimbursements they need to ascertain that you haven't received a refund. And for lost luggage I received a $1000 or $1500 credit while still on the trip, even though my luggage was eventually recovered.

As far as I know insurance is highly regulated and the cost can't change if you buy all at once or add on. Our insurance is always quite inexpensive for 2-week trips, even with luxury villa rentals, Galapagos cruises, safaris, etc. If you're being quoted a high rate, you should use insuremytrip.com to compare quotes.