The Necessity of Travel Insurance.

[Joanandjoe]

Always get insurance unless I book short term. I have bought cruise airfare on ocassion but generally it's cheaper to buy it on our own.

We booked a cruise last December three weeks in advance, and nearly had to cancel (and probably should have cancelled) because I had an emergency appendectomy five days before the cruise. So even short term is no reason not to buy trip insurance. What would J Bond have done if he had booked the Barcelona cruise a few days in advance, and decided that trip insurance wasn't worth the cost?

[sailingrose]

I'm talking about 4 days ahead.........cheap 3 day cruise. We've only done it once but the fare was only 250 per person.

[hazelson]

Always use travel insurance!! Never had to use it but you buy car insurance and home insurance in the hope you never have to uses them either :o)

Can't blame the cruiseline for what a hurricane causes!

[Shari2]

We have used the travel insurance for the last three cruises that we booked. We were glad we had it for a cruise that we had booked last September when my dear mom had her heart attack and died. We had booked our own airfare, but we got that back, too. We always get the insurance now; we will still book our own airfare if we can get a good price. We got some great prices for San Diego coming up in three weeks. We took a chance on some of our earlier cruises, but they were only 7-day ones... and we were younger then...

[Peddler]

Always, With my Mom's age (86) and my health issues ( Heart pacer, and C.O.P.D.) it just makes good sense.

[cruisetarp]

Never travel without it now. A few years ago we spent the day in Puerto Rico and came back to the ship and spent some pre-dinner time with some friends without going to our cabin until after we sailed. When we got to our cabin we had a message that Jim's sister had passed away. Fortunately it was our last port but it took us 2 days to get home. My point is that if we had gotten the message earlier we would have had to fly home at out own expense. Ever since then we just consider the insurance part of the cruise fare.

[JoeyandDavid]

we just consider the insurance part of the cruise fare.

excellent way of looking at it!!

[jbond]

What would J Bond have done if he had booked the Barcelona cruise a few days in advance, and decided that trip insurance wasn't worth the cost?

He would have been a very unhappy person who learned a lesson the hard way. One way airfares are quite expensive and it was comforting to know that we had insurance. We also incurred a $140 phone bill that RCI reimbursed us for.

[JohnG]

Karen and I have annual agent policies because we cruise so often, 4-5 times a year. On our last two cruises the luggage was late in arriving and the insurance company tracked it down and rode herd on the airlines to get it to us, and reimbursed us for any clothing expense incurred if the delay was over 2 days. I've had customers fall and hit their head a week before cruise, and one who over night was diagnosed with a heart blockage and had bypass surgery the week before the cruise. He'd had no forewarning. Moral of the story, I strongly recommend the optional insurance to my clients. And not all insurance is the same. The cruise line insurance is not always the most comprehensive or as high limits as others, and some of theirs only reimburse you in future cruise credits instead of cash. I prefer a non-cruiseline insurance.

By the way, most US/North American health insurance policies do not provide coverage outside the US. Another reason to purchase travel insurance, because it does reimburse you for it.

[zebra]

Thanks John for that great info.