Trip Insurance...again

The most important part of travel insurance is medical evacuation. This part of the insurance will pay to transport you to a medical facility and then home - things like a special medical flight, an accompanying nurse, etc. These costs can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ve heard of cases where people have had to mortgage their house to pay for this kind of thing. While you can likely recover financially from cancelling a flight or tour, you may never be able to recover from the cost of a medical evacuation. Look at Medjet if this is the only part of insurance you are interested in.

As far as trip cancellation or interruption, you only need to cover any costs that are non-refundable. If you would get a refund or credit, you wouldn’t need to insure those expenses.

I believe that Rick Steves will only refund $200 a day if you leave the tour because of Covid, not for any other reasons. I actually had this experience and received this refund, but the actual cost per day was much higher. My travel insurance paid the difference.

We just returned from France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Part RS Tour, part on our own. We didn't buy travel insurance for this trip; but we always buy medical insurance for international travel. We use GeoBlue, but there are others such as Allianz. You can also look into MedJet for medical evacuation. These are the concerns we have rather than a non-refundable airline ticket, which as you said results in a credit.

It sounds to me as if you are concerned about having to return home in the event your elderly parents needed you. It's hard to imagine that any travel insurance covers something like a situation like that.

PS. We are in our 60's as well; and always assume we will be physically fine. But there was an unexpected foot injury on our trip this time. You just never know. The costs for care were reasonable, so the insurance was still more expensive than the medical costs we had, but you just never know. It's all a gamble; and if something bigger occurs we are glad to be covered. Of course you mentioned that you have medical coverage; so I guess I'm just trying to say you weigh the risks and decide about travel insurance or any type of insurance.

Ask yourself, how are you going to afford medical and med evac if you have a major medical issue and want to be evacuated home? Like all insurance you’re betting the odds that something won’t happen. But they do.

My risk tolerance is low. For this year’s trip I bought basic Allianz trip insurance to cover most pre-paid trip expenses. And will be buying annual GeoBlue medical and annual MedJet Horizon to cover this and next year’s trip. Next year’s trip has a separate basic Allianz policy because date-wise an annual policy didn’t work.

FYI I’m in my early 70’s, travel solo on a RS tour sandwiched with independent travel for about a month.

Make sure to really examine any possible coverage you already have. Our health insurance does cover medical evacuation from anywhere in the world. Our air travel is always changeable. Then look at accommodations and the cancellation policies.

We have only purchased trip insurance twice. For a Viking river cruise we did and an upcoming Viking ocean cruise. We did not have travel insurance for the RS tour that we did (preCOVID)

I'm not sure about your comment with your credit card not covering "anything". Are you sure that the air and tour have to be on the same credit card? When I purchased the most recent policy for the Viking cruise I did not cover my air, because my air is changeable. Further, I covered the cruise only, not the travel before and after it.

It sounds to me as if you are concerned about having to return home in the event your elderly parents needed you. It's hard to imagine that any travel insurance covers something like a situation like that.

But trip cancellation insurance DOES cover that—-the sudden death or serious illness of a close family member (like a parent). Read the policy terms carefully to see the exact terms, but it should be there.

If they are paying for a tour, whether Rick Steves or other, they need to insure the non-refundable cost of that tour if they want to recover their money in the event they or the elderly parents become ill.

Even people in good health can have a sudden injury or illness that prevents them from getting on that plane for the trip. We are fit and active seniors, but last year my husband tore his hamstring while exercising, just 3 days before a trip to Banff, Canada for hiking and cycling. We had to cancel an expensive non-refundable backcountry lodge, but our travel insurance provided full reimbursement. This year it was an attack of shingles, and we had to cancel a trip to England. Again, our trip insurance provided full reimbursement for the non-refundable walking holiday we had booked.

I always make sure our travel insurance policy includes good medical and evacuation coverage, but the cancellation coverage is the first thing I look at.

Many policies will only evacuate you to the nearest facility that can treat you. The devil is always in the details.
Regardless of the company, read the fine print!. That's why so many people look to MedJet Assist for evacuation insurance.

Every Canadian I know in my life wouldn’t dream of leaving Canada without travel health and trip interruption and cancellation insurance.
From what I’ve read here over the years, Americans seem to roll the dice more and some just don’t want to pay for it
Yes, it’s expensive…..$800 CAN. a year for me for multiple trips up to 30 days each in that year.
I have used it twice for claims, once when my husband became ill and we couldn’t travel, and once when I got Covid in Italy and had to stay extra time there till I was well enough to travel home.
Each time I was reimbursed for what I had paid for the trips.

Doesn’t matter how young, fit, etc. you are….
…..I think the question is: “Do you feel lucky?”

Perhaps Canadians do not have health insurance and evacuation outside of Canada? I don't feel like I'm rolling the dice, I'm fully aware/prepared for contingencies. Why would I have trip cancellation/interruption when I can change my air travel and I reserve accommodations with liberal cancellation policies?

The question should be, "what coverages do you already have?"

I am sure I am overthinking this but don't want to pay another 5-10% if not needed.

trip insurance only costs this much if you cover the trip costs. But as an earlier reply pointed out these can be dwarfed by the costs of medical care and evacuation/repatriation, unlikely events but potentially costly.

You can buy a policy at your ages covering just medical care and evacuation/repatriation for under $100 per person, probably closer to $50. Go to a site such as squaremouth.com and decline the trip cancellation coverage during the quote process; on other sites you enter $0 for the covered amount. Or although I've never used them I've seen several positive reports from people that have called https://tripinsurancestore.com/ where you talk with an agent. TBH I'm going to call them for my next trip because the repatriation coverage has always been a bit murky to me.

...priced it out for an upcoming trip and it was $400...

Not a sales rep for them , but to look at it another way, an individual under the age of 74 can get a five year deal for $1,150 that equates to $230. per year. If you take two trips a year for five years, that's only $23. per trip. A one year deal for the same person would be $315. but If you only take two trips per during the the year thats $157.50 per trip. A family deal for a year is $425. For four people that's less than $107. each. Four trips a year is less than $22. each. And you don't have to be abroad to use it. As long as you or a family member are at least 150 miles from home you're covered. Just a different point of view.

It seems that some of the responses are ones doing the over thinking, talking about evacuation and medical coverage when the question was about cancellation insurance, with an eye to elderly parents who could have a health crisis and need them to come home. And they didn’t mention their own risks but there are good examples of that in a post above.

That are taking an RS tour which costs what , $10,000 for 2 people? The payment is non-refundable so if they get sick or injured right before the trip and can’t go, that lose all their money. Or if one parent becomes ill or worse yet dies. It is only prudent to insure the tour cost in case of cancellation. A bonus is they get the medical and evacuation insurance along with cancellation in a standard travel insurance policy.

All they need to insure is the non-refundable tour cost. Then choose a policy with the amount of medical and evaluation coverage they deem necessary. It won’t add much to the basic policy cost if they want a bunch.

Above all else-medical evacuation. Chances of ever needing it are slim, but one never knows. All the rest on our policies is if a reservation that is refundable when booked will go to non-refundable by the time we need to travel, so there is a space in there where we would be out those dollars if something happened at home. Any prebooked train travel and hard to get prebooked sites we want to see (Cenacolo Vinciano, St. Marks Cathedral, etc.). We are in our early 70’s and healthy, but stuff happens.
As with any insurance, you are paying for ‘just in case’. You need to be comfortable with your decision and insurance is one of those that is controversial. Years ago we wouldn’t have thought of buying trip insurance. Now, we won’t travel internationally without it.

I believe the OP also asked "What DO you cover when considering insurance?"

It is only prudent to insure the tour cost in case of cancellation.

Another point of view is that it is prudent to insure against costs one is unwilling to bear.

For someone who has scraped for years to save $10K for a trip it may make sense to pay an extra $500-1000 in insurance so they get to go on a trip eventually. Others may find the loss of $10K painful but be willing to take the chance and save the insurance premium.

On the other hand few people are willing to risk $20-50K in medical costs and perhaps more in an evacuation flight to a hospital so medical coverage often makes sense even if the trip itself goes unprotected.

The context of “ What DO you cover” suggests they are asking what expenses one should cover—- they talked about airfare, hotels, etc. Health concerns are mentioned in the context of maybe needing to cancel due to elderly parents. They themselves are in “fairly good health” and their own health insurance will cover them in Paris. Their big concern is cancellation because their credit card will not cover the trip.

So the answer I gave to “What DO you cover” is the non-refundable cost of the RS tour. Since the cost of the trip insurance is based on the trip cost being insured, you don’t want to include unnecessary expenses. Such as airfare since they would get a credit towards a future flight. They understand that is not a non-refundable expense and pointless to cover as a cost.

Medical and evacuation coverage is INCLUDED in most trip insurance at the same level no matter what the trip cost is. There may be an adjustment for the length of the trip, but that is minor.

They can choose level of medical and evac coverage they want when they pick a policy. A website like insuremytrip. Com will offer a range of policies they can compare, ranging from Basic ( maybe $25k medical with $100k evac coverage to Premium with $50-$100k of medical and $500k to $1 mil of evac. That last figure looks impressive but I wonder how many people actually need that much.

To repeat, the answer to the question of “What DO you cover” is pretty simple: your non-refundable trip cost, which here appears to be the cost of the RS tour. They don’t have to “cover” any cost for medical and evac as that is included as part of the package.

My wife fractured her hip while we were in rural Sicily. She was recommended 30 days need rest by the physicians there. Our travel insurance covered the full medical repatriation. The air ambulance itself would have been over $200,000 out of pocket.