Maggi

My husband and I are in our 60's and have booked a cruise and stays in Australia and New Zealand. Most of the expenses are prepaid. I've never before taken out travel insurance. My travel agent recommended Allianz or Travelex for $1450 for both of us. Has anyone had experience with travel insurance and/or either of these two companies? I need to make a decision before the deadline 6/4/13.

thursdaysd

Where do you live? The insurance situation and likely cost varies depending on location. If you are in the US I would check insuremytrip.com for competitive quotes. I have not used the companies you cite, and suggest you do some searches here - and on the web.

bettyk

$1,450 seems high to me but it depends on the total cost of your prepaid expenses.

We usually buy insurance when we have any prepaid expenses through squaremouth.com, which is similar to insuremytrip.com. We really liked TravelSafe because when my husband came down with pancreatitis right before a trip, they paid all of our claim expenses without any hassle.

november_moon

I always go through insuremytrip.com for travel insurance. I always buy a travel medical plan. I haven't insured a trip itself before since I've never had a lot of non-refundable costs, but they have plans for both.

bettyk

As a further note to my post above, we just returned from a river cruise/tour where we had prepaid expenses of $8,500.

Our trip insurance policy cost around $350 and it was a basic trip cancellation policy with $10M in medical coverage. That's why I feel your $1,450 quote is high.

Maggi

Thanks for the replies! Our pre-paid expenses will be in excess of $20,000 for the two of us. (This is our bucket-list trip so we are going all out.) That is why the cost is $720 per person. My husband has a pre-existing heart condition and I don't want to take any chances in case something goes wrong halfway across the world. Also my mother in law is very elderly. I will check out insuremytrip, thanks!

janisj

That doesn't seem excessive for that much coverage plus a pre-existing condition. W/o your husband's health issues the insurance would probably have been much cheaper.

bettyk

Agree, that doesn't seem bad for $20K worth of coverage. I didn't realize you had that much in prepaid expenses. Sounds like a great trip.

Maggi

Thanks all, I checked out insuremytrip and squaremouth.com and the amount I paid to Allianz today is within range of the other insurances. It's a comfort to me to know that just in case something goes wrong I have something to fall back on. My half-sister visited from Germany and fell down a flight of stairs, breaking her wrist, seven ribs and her tailbone. She had travel insurance and a doctor was flown here to accompany her back home, accompanying her first class back to Germany.