Travel Insurance for Italy
 

I am looking for advice regarding purchasing travel insurance for a trip to Italy. I have put down a deposit on a trafalgar trip and they quoted me $379 per person, which seemed a bit high to me. But I don't have any knowledge about this. They said that it includes trip cancellation, trip interruption, trip delay and medical coverage.

This is our first international trip so I am in uncharted waters at this point.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I have to have something in place in two weeks.

Thanks!

That is high but I guess depends on number of people. First thing you need to do is check your credit card insurance. A lot of credit cards offer it if you put the flight or flights + hotels on the credit card.

Travel Insurance typically fluctuates given the costs of the trip. Since you've booked through a group tour. Is this through what trafalgar offers of a separate, independent company? If through the tour, it does not surprise me that it is high. You might want to look into insuremytrip dot com for other options. I think there are other resources but the names escape me at the moment but I'd suggest searching the forums for those.

What the plan you mentioned covers is the baseline. If you need something more specific, check the other options. Be mindful of the preexisting and other limitations clauses as well, regardless of the plan you purchase.

I don’t know where you are based but assuming the US so try insuremytrip.com.

I have been booking guided tours like trafalgar so have have been getting mine from there. I normally don’t buy insurance but I don’t fully trust tour companies because when you start reading what kind of help you get when something goes wrong, doesn’t sit well with me. That is why I won’t buy their insurance. It wasn’t covering what I thought as theirs only looks out for their best interest not mine.

Thanks! I will do some research on-line. Thanks for the info!

Thanks for your response. I am based in the US. I will try that website that you suggested!

I used InsureMyTrip.com a long time ago, but have been using SquareMouth.com ( https://www.squaremouth.com/ ) for the past 4 or 5 trips.

Insurance premiums differ greatly depending on whether you choose to cover trip cancellation or not. And "Cancel for any reason" coverage usually comes with a high premium.

OMG. THAT was the other site I was thinking of! So glad you responded!

I also usually call insure my trip or square mouth and discuss what I want covered and what is not necessary. The agents seem to have quite a few different policies they can issue.

That seems high to me, too, but it really depends on the price of this trip. I don't pay more than about $100 but that's because I'm not covering hardly any costs at all (I don't do hardly anything nonrefundable, so that cost is maybe $200 I'm covering for a few tickets, etc). I mainly get it for the medical and cancellation, lost luggage, etc. What drives the cost is the dollar cost of what you say you want to cover, not those other things which are standard for everyone.

If you are covering a tour cost, however, and that tour is worth say $4000, then that price is pretty normal, I think. Those coverages are perfectly normal but I bet the cancellation is for illness, etc, not just because you want to cancel. When I buy mine for $100, it has cancellation in also, but only for serious things. ANd that cancellation is related to the amt you said you wanted to cover. Mine is cheap because that part of mine is very low.

Is that amount for two people? If so, and depending on the cost of the trip, it might not be that bad.
I have also used Squaremouth. You can check the things you want covered and it will give you a list of options to choose from. The price will depend on what you want covered and the cost of the trip.

I usually travel independently but have done a few tours with Gate 1 to places where I wasn't comfortable wandering around on my own. In those cases, I did buy their insurance. It wasn't that high, and I was very glad I had it when I stumbled and ended up in a Thai hospital for nearly a week with my leg in a cast! Gate 1 took care of getting the paperwork going, brought my stuff to the hospital and were a big help.

Like the others i check prices through insure my trip and square mouth. Seems like I always end up with Allianz plan.

For me, the cost is usually around 5% of the trip total cost, and as Christina said it all depends on what costs you want covered. For an older person, say in their 80s, the cost can increase 2x or 3x. Some people think they need a huge $ for medical evacuation. For a land trip (not a cruise) I'm wary paying extra for a large medevac coverege, as it covers evacuation to the nearest qualified facility - local hospital in Italy. It does not (generally) mean flying you home to your home hospital....

All of the plans seem to cover medical in addition to trip cancellation or interruption. since my health care covers me worldwide I'd love to find a plan that only needed the trip related costs. Not sure it would save much in premium though. All of the plans I've purchased state they secondary medical coverage, so they know that their own $ risk is lower...

An intersting thing I recently discovered about airfares as well - which for me tend to be the biggest non-refundable cost. Some airlines may have a refundable fare at a higher price point, that might still cost less than buying insurance. We've run into that with an elderly relative who will be flying business class across the pond. Paying slightly more for a refundable biz class seat was waaaay less than buying trip insurance....

This is a very important point to everyone reading this. Even if one has coverage through their credit card or overseas medical coverage via an insurance plan; generally speaking all ambulance benefits (either air, land, or sea) will be to the nearest facility that has the proper level of care you might need. It rarely will provide coverage for travel outside that closest facility.

Always read your coverage documents thoroughly and really read the verbiage used.

I also use Insure my trip or Squaremouth. I also call both as I find their experience and knowledge quite useful. I do not cover my international airfares as my fares can be used as credit for a year if I have to cancel. I do cover my Airbnb and VRBO reservations. I do not cover hotels that can be canceled within a reasonable amount of time. I often do not cover smaller things such as theatre tickets and inexpensive travel within a continent. I do cover things like health as my insurance coverage is only 25K overseas. I do look for decent evacuation coverage in case I need to do a medical evacuation home. I look at decent baggage delay. Two years ago United lost my bags in LHR and I did not get my bag until I returned home so I had to buy shoes and clothes. Travel delay may be important if you have additional train or flights not covered by your intercontinental tickets. Lastly you can input different numbers into the web sites to see what your costs will be and how much you want to pay for your insurance vs taking some risk yourself.

I should add that one needs to check your credit card benefits. AMX Platinum for example gives $250 per person for missed connections or delay, $1000 for luggage delay of over 4 hours, $250K for medical expenses, $100K for medical evacuation and good car insurance for something like $20 per car rental. Chase reserve gives travel delay of 6 hours $500 a ticket, Trip covered cancellation of $10K per person, Baggage delay of 6 hours $100/day for 5 days, lost luggage up to $3000 a person, and Primary collision damage waiver of up to 75K, and emergency evacuation $100K a person, $2500 for medical coverage. What's difficult is to align your credit card coverage with addition coverages. Someone should design an AP.

Opps AMX platinum also covers Trip covered cancellation of $10K a person.The problem with credit card insurance however as it covers the primary card holder, usually spouse and dependent children but not others. You need to read the fine print