Thoughts on Trip Insurance?
 

Hello, I am considering purchasing trip insurance for an upcoming trip to Greece. The entire trip will cost about $5,000. For those of you who travel often...do you recommend it? If so, what companies do you recommend?

Always get it independently. quotewright.com insuremytrip.com
top 2 comp sites best service prices currently for me Patriot/
IMG or Amex Global Travelshield. Pay $25/$1000 well worth it
has saved my posterior times Iceland Volcano especially.

Do not buy what your company offers almost always more costly

You want company with AM Best A rating only.

What kind of insurance do you want?

I "self-insure" plane and hotel costs. I generally self-insure tours, in the rare cases I take one, although Rick Steves' tours include cancellation/interruption insurance in the price. If you couldn't afford to "eat" any costs for travel or accommodations that you couldn't cancel without penalty you should consider insurance, but read the conditions carefully and don't buy from an outfit that is providing the service you're covering.

I make sure my medical insurance covers me abroad (if you are a US senior be aware that Medicare does not), but ALWAYS take out medical evacuation insurance. Lately I've been dealing with Seven Corners for that.

We've taken trip insurance for our last 4 trips due to the advanced age of my mother in law and the fact that we aren't getting younger either.

Sure enough, in 2010 my husband came down with pancreatitis and we had to postpone our European trip. I paid less than $200 for medical and trip cancellation insurance to cover the prepaid costs of this trip with TravelSafe, purchased through www.squaremouth.com.

We were reimbursed $250 per person to change our tickets as well as a $350 copay per person for one way upgrades to Biz Class on American and $150 pp to redeposit the miles for the upgrade. All we had to do was provide the required documentation and an Attending Physician's Statement and received a check within a couple of weeks.

I guess we could have "self insured" but we'd have been out $1300. And, since my mother in law is still with us at 90 yrs old, we will continue to take out insurance on future trips. It gives us peace of mind which is why you get insurance in the first place.

I agree that if you are going to insure your trip, you need to look at the risk vs. cost - how much money would you lose if you cancelled and are you ok with that, versus how much the insurance would cost.

For me, the math hasn't worked out - we have never prepaid enough to warrant buying the insurance.

We do buy a travel medical plan because our primary medical doesn't cover us out of the country.