My husband and I are going to 5 countries in Europe in May. We purchased our plane tickets with miles in January and booked our first hotel in January. We paid the flexible rate so we can cancel hotels up to 48 or 24 hours in advance. We will be in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Bruges, Brussels and Berlin.
We are in our mid 60s so we have medicare which isn't covered in Europe. My main reason for wanting travel insurance is that I have elderly parents so I need to know that I can cancel if a situation arises.

Here's my question....When do I need to purchase travel insurance? Can I wait or do I need to purchase it within a certain amount of days of 1. The purchase of the plane tickets (done with miles) or 2. The purchase of the first hotel we booked.

Also, most travel insurance asks "What is your destination?" It only allows for one country. Does it matter what country I put down?


Thanks so much!!! Your insights are appreciated!!

Marla

The first question you need to ask yourself is whether you want to buy the insurance or whether you will self-insure. If I'm using miles to book my flights, and have hotels reservations that can be cancelled easily with no charge up to a day or two before arrival, I self-insure. So walk through the possibilities. You are in Amsterdam and get a call that one of your parents has taken a turn for the worse. What do you do if you don't have travel insurance? What would the travel insurance buy you? What is the cost of the insurance vs. your costs to cope with the emergency without insurance?

Since you are covered by Medicare which does not cover you outside the US, you need to think about your own medical coverage. What does your supplemental policy cover? Many do cover you outside the US. But you need to check on this.

You have to purchase it within 14 days only if you want it to cover a pre-existing condition you have.

If it was me, I'd call the insurance company to ask questions. Yes, many people here can give you information, but we aren't the insurance company. I'd want the answers from who would be paying for any claims.

Kathie has given you some great advice!
I'll just add that if you haven't already seen them, insuremytrip.com and squaremouth.com both allow comparison of different travel insurance options.

Look at insuremytrip.com for options. We usually buy just enough insurance to cover what we aren't comfortable losing if we were to cancel our trip due to health or other covered reasons. Since your hotels are cancel-able you probably don't need to cover them. Also - with using air miles, find out if that is refundable and what the cost would be. In your situation, be sure the coverage includes cancellation for family emergency. My experience has been that the insurance agency wants to know all the countries on one's itinerary.

Regardless of how much coverage you choose, most plans offer medical coverage, as well as evacuation to a good hospital. Traveling in the places you will be visiting, the hospitals will all be first world, so you shouldn't have issues if you get sick or injured. Look at the levels of coverage. You can compare lots of various companies, and look at customer reviews on the website I cited: https://www.insuremytrip.com/

Generally you need to purchase the insurance within a couple weeks of making your first payment on your trip.

Thanks for the reminder. I have not insured my May trip. I compare three of the lowest quotes and pick the one with most money to get me home in case of a medical emergency. I don't insure us for the true amount the trip is costing us. I just go around 2,000 to keep the cost low. I have only used once and it was when buying a ticket because of older parents. I was told by Allianz not to do that because it really only covered flight. I did get the price of the same day flight covered but now want medical coverage and evacuation cost covered.

I wouldn't buy travel insurance if it weren't for the medical insurance, as my policy doesn't cover me abroad. When I was much younger, I didn't even give that a thought, even though of course anyone can have an accident or some unexpected thing. Anyway, that's the only reason I buy it because I rarely prepay anything on my trip, other than the plane tickets, of course. And even those, you can change with about a $200 fee. So for me, all of that is within a reasonable risk chance given the cost of it, which is about 10 pct of your trip cost.

The trip cost you put in the box affects the cost the most, you aren't supposed to put in what the trip really costs you, just what the cost would be of your losses that you are trying to insure. You would never put in the value of hotels that you can easily cancel with no fee, for example. For air tickets, I only put in the value of the change fee.

In any case, I know from checking rates that the rate never changes based on what you put in as the amt you want to cover, whether you buy it 2 months in advance or one week. The only difference is the preexisting condition time period, which isn't covered after a few weeks (varies by policy, and some never waive them).

You could easily check this yourself by looking at a quote and changing only the dates, keep the destination and everything else the same. I don't know what you are looking at to find quotes, I just use insuremytrip.com so no insurance plan is changing the quesitons I'm asked. The website asks you the dates, amts, and country. It explains what to do, I believe it tells you to put in the country where you will spend the most time. This is exactly what insuremytrip.com says

If traveling outside the United States, enter the country where travelers will be spending the most time. If spending equal time in multiple countries, choose your first international destination. If taking a cruise, enter the first international port of arrival as your destination.

>>> When do I need to purchase travel insurance? Can I wait or do I need to purchase it within a certain amount of days
You need to read fine prints that come with EACH different insurance policy relevant to YOUR state of residence. Like any other insurance products, they prevent you from buying insurance products when you already know you would need to use them.
The timing has to do with pre-existing conditions. If you want pre-existing conditions covered, they give you a time window to buy insurance with that feature. Those kind of policies are usually their higher end products, meaning, higher premiums. How that time window is computed depends on what each fine print says.

Thanks Kathie! After I posted this I started to realize that I might not need travel insurance except for medical. So thank you for confirming this thought! I will call our supplementary insurance company to see if the policy can cover medical expenses in Europe.

I started buying trip insurance when my parents got older. My father unexpectedly required open heart surgery one week before a departure to Germany. Because I had purchased my travel insurance WITHIN 14 DAYS of my first trip payment (insuremytrip defines that as the date of your FIRST charged trip payment), for the policy I had chosen, my flight cost and nonrefundable hotel night was reimbursed in full.

Note that you need medical evacuation as well as medical. I almost always self insure for cancellation/interruption (I might consider insurance for an expensive tour or cruise). I have once needed medical evacuation insurance (at the time my employee medical insurance covered the hospital). I usually check prices at the websites already listed, and then buy from https://www.sevencorners.com/#start as usual. For a shorter trip I would use https://travelersemergencynetwork.com/.

I just went and bought for our May trip to cover myself and husband. I bought tickets in Sept but still have last payments to make on three apartments. I put in the cost of our trip at 2,000 and got three rates. I chose Nationwide and it cost me 99.00. Medical was 75,000 and med evac was 250,000. 500.00 for dental. I played with it a bit and when I put in 3000 it went up 40.00. We are 64 and 65. I know it gets more expensive as we get older. My friend had to have open heart surgery two days before a trip once and I got her fare reimbursed but that was all since we had bought the insurance with the ticket. I had bought tickets from DUB to EDI on Aer Lingus and they would only give back the tax. It was a separate ticket we bought for the middle of our trip. The insurance company made the Doctor sign paperwork saying it was emergency surgery. My Mom died when I was in Rome and I did have to send in every receipt and death cert. Keep receipts.