What is the Best Travel Insurance for Rick Steves European Tours

Honestly, I don't think there is a "best" insurance. I usually go with Travel Guard or Allianz BUT I've never had to make a claim and that is where the rubber meets the road.

I'd look at what you want to insure.

• You will want to insure the cost of your tour and possibly airline tickets (unless you are doing that separately).

• It sounds like you want medical coverage as your Medicare will not cover in Europe although your Medicare Supplement might (you'd want to check and see). Do you have pre-existing conditions?

• Do you want med-evac insurance where the company would fly you home if something happened in Europe? I usually get $500,000 of coverage but I'm very risk averse.

• Do you want CFAR - Cancel For Any Reason? This can be tricky as it's not actually ANY reason but for reasons specified by the company so look closely if you decide this is necessary. Many policies only will refund 60-75% of what you've paid too so many just go with self-insured.

I'd recommend going to one of the websites where you can compare policies - Squaremouth or Insuremytrip are 2 and there are several more. They generally link you directly to the company to buy.

We had a good experience with Travelguard the one time we had to use insurance. Whatever company you choose, make sure you keep all your receipts and boarding passes, and any other documentation, as you go along...just in case.

My friend and I had bad experiences with TravelGuard so I will never ever use them again. I have used Allianz and Medjet annual policies, but have never filed a claim. So when you ask which company is best, it's all subjective. You can sort through policy information to help you decide by using https://www.insuremytrip.com/ or https://www.squaremouth.com/single-trip?aid=100 Go to the search feature on this website; there are lots of threads about travel insurance.

We've had one or two claims with Travelguard and have no complaints. The main thing to do before making your decision is read the fine print. Things covered in the details are usually the source of disputes.

Jrouse705, I came here to ask the very question you posed about travel insurance. I would, as I am sure you would, appreciate hearing from anyone who has had experienced filing a claim and what that experience was like (i.e. was their claim answered in a timely manner; was the company easy to reach by phone and how satisfied overall were they with the whole experience. We travel often and always buy insurance and have used some of the familiar companies. But we have never had to make a claim. When I read the reviews on some of the sites, it is disheartening to hear what some people have to go through to make a claim. So many hoops to go through, many times only to be denied what one might have assumed was a legitimate claim. And the insurance is not cheap. We are willing to pay the price for peace of mind but reading the reviews does not give me much peace of mind that after shelling out a good bit of money, I might still loose more by buying the insurance! Thus my wish to hear from anyone with an experience or company they would recommend due to a good experience.

You can read about our experience on a RS Tour and with TravelGuard Insurance here. There is link in that post to a previous post with more detail as well. We were on the RS Sicily tour, and got COVID...

With all due respect to Horsewoofie, her circumstance was a very rare and unusual one. Her travel provider was a fraudster who took money for tours from customers and then never actually bought the tours. You can imagine how awful and traumatic that was for Horsewoofie. It was adding insult to injury when her travel insurance did not pay under the circumstances. I can totally understand why that left her with a bad taste in her mouth about that provider. However, I wonder if any travel insurance would have paid out in such circumstances? They are very strict to cover only what they say they will cover.

I have only ever had one travel insurance claim for trip delay. It was paid quickly and without difficulty by Allianz.

You say you are Medicare Eligible. Does that mean you are over 65 , but aren't on Medicare? Your wording is a bit strange. What medical insurance do you have?

We use Divers Alert Network (DAN). We have found their prices are competitive and you don’t have to be a member. They have paid two claims without a problem but keep your receipts.

We purchased trip insurance from Allianz before a RS Ireland tour last fall, and for travel after the tour ended. I was thinking primarily about medical evacuation, bought it just before our trip (we’d never bought trip insurance for prior trips), and didn’t give it another thought until my husband contracted Covid three quarters through the tour. We left the tour, staying in the tour hotel for a week, then cut our trip short and returned home. I filed a claim with Allianz…easy to do…it took a bit longer than I expected, but we received our payment and we’ll be purchasing trip insurance from Allianz for our return trip in May. We usually self-insure, but because we won’t be on a tour, we’ll be covering just airfare and anything that might be non-refundable.