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Question about Travel Insurance

I'm looking for some guidance from anyone that has dealt with Travelguard. When I'm getting quotes for travel insurance, there are so many options, I'm getting paralysis by analysis. There are preferred, essential, deluxe, and multiple other options. I just really need travel insurance in case my wife and I get covid on our tour in September and have to stay in whichever country we test positive (we're doing the "my way" Alpine tour, so Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and France).

Am I basically just looking for the "Trip interruption" part of the quote? We're both very healthy so I'm not too concerned about reimbursement for hospital costs, etc. Just reimbursements for hotels, food, and transportation costs to get back to the states.
I appreciate anyone's experience and opinions.

Posted by
8261 posts

You have already figured out the key issue that you are only interested in trip interruption. This makes comparing the different policies easier since you are looking at the main feature that interests you.

Are you set on Travelguard? The link below compares plans.
https://www.travelguard.com/travel-insurance/benefits/compare-travel-insurance

Would you consider Allianz?
https://www.allianztravelinsurance.com/find-a-plan/onetrip-basic.htm

Do remember that if you test positive and leave the RS tour, you will receive a pro-rated refund of that part of the tour cost that you were unable to use. Those funds can be put toward the cost of lodging during isolation. What you need to focus on is the costs that you think could exceed that refund.

Posted by
2699 posts

Go on insuremytrip.com. You’ll have many choices. If you can’t figure it out call. The customer service reps are licensed insurance agents. They are independent, not beholden to any specific company. They will get you the coverage you want at the best price.

Posted by
296 posts

I was checking out travel insurance for the very same reason you stated. It was expensive and had limits. The limits were laughable. The hoops to jump through ridiculous.

I found that travel insurance emphasized health insurance costs and other superfluous things where the likelihood of an event was low. If you wanted additional travel health insurance -- Independent health insurance plans are easy to find ( I bought a policy through my travel agent that was $35 for the entire 2 week trip).

The policies I checked out capped "extension costs' or " trip interruption" at $1000-$2000 But the premium was $800-2000 depending on the coverage because you have to buy insurance on events you may not want or need.

Bottom line-- I didn't think trip insurance was worth it for having to extend or get interrupted. Trip insurance did not offer very much leverage on the dollar spent. Now that the US isn't requiring a negative test to re-enter the country, that took alot of anxiety away.

I also use American Express travel and they are very helpful in helping cardmembers who book through them. I know they have my back if we encounter a situation.

Posted by
1060 posts

We're both very healthy so I'm not too concerned about reimbursement for hospital costs

Here's an alternative view, maybe it makes sense to you and maybe it doesn't. The expenses you talked about wanting insurance for ( hotels, food, and transportation costs to get back to the states) most people going to Europe could afford. Nobody likes having to buy a $1K walkup ticket but you won't be bankrupt if you have to. Hotels are under $200 a nite, again something you could afford. And to me insurance is for large expenses, not ones we could afford perhaps with a grimace. That's why we carry large deductibles on our collision and homeowners.

What makes a serious difference in travel is hospital and medevac. You're enjoying a gelato when someone plows into you with their moped (when you go to Italy you'll understand what I'm talking about) and you break your leg. The costs for the flight home could easily be $50K, I don't know what it costs to have a orthopedic operation in Italy to set that leg but I imagine it ain't cheap.

We set $0 to the trip cost on insuremytrip.com and squaremouth.com to get the medical coverage, don't care about the rest.

Posted by
5 posts

While on a Mediterranean cruise that included Alexandria, my wife and I opted for a two day tour to Cairo and Giza. Three people on our tour suffered a broken ankle, cracked clavicle and a broken wrist from uneven ground and just plain looking up at the sights and not paying attention to where they were stepping. They made it back to the ship but had to disembark at the next port to receive treatment at the hospital. Don’t know if they had insurance but the remainder of the cruise was spent on board. So you never know.

Posted by
155 posts

I agree with John and Nancy about the essential reasons for buying travel insurance. In doing my research I learned that most claims relate to accidental falls like Nancy described. We just started buying travel insurance and realized that to us what is most important are medical costs and repatriation in the unlikely event we need coverage. The trip interruption and trip delay reimbursements are minimal but to John's point, those costs aren't really the core coverage of travel insurance.

Trying to read and understand all the policy provisions is as much fun as sticking a needle in my eyes, but I found it helpful to use the sites mentioned earlier for comparison purposes. Also, try to find out customer satisfaction with the different carriers (especially those who have filed claims, not just purchased policies and never had claims). It's not realistic to expect travel insurance to cover all the cost associated with quarantining and returning home (flight changes, etc.).

That said, we purchased an annual policy (multiple trips) from Allianz which had a pandemic/Covid rider to reimburse up to $250/day for a maximum of 10 days for lodging if we are quarantined. Since most countries are dropping requirements for isolation/quarantine and the US has dropped its requirement for a negative Covid test before returning, this rider is essentially not needed (for now, anyway). The annual policy was affordable, under $500 for both of us.

I hope this is helpful.

Posted by
3961 posts

When this subject comes up on the forum I like to share a story about a nurse colleagues son. Many years ago her son was studying abroad & he had a catastrophic accident. He did not have medical evacuation coverage. He spent months in a hospital to stabilize until it was safe to transport back to the U.S. It ended up his parents paid hundreds of thousands dollars to transport home. As the aforementioned- “So you never know.” Good advice up thread to understand policy provisions that meet your needs. All the best.

Posted by
1 posts

Personally I am very much in favor of buying travel insurance. I also had a travel mishap - not an accident, but just as annoying: contracting Covid-19. I went on a trip to Dubai to visit my husband who had been away at sea for several months and was stopping over in Dubai for several weeks. When I bought my plane tickets, I didn't see the point of taking out an insurance policy as nothing had ever happened to me, and I don't know anyone who has ever had anything serious happen to them during a trip. I quickly understood my mistake: after the second day of my stay, I started to have the symptoms of Covid-19, so I went for a test, and the test was positive. No doubt about it. While I was negative when I left Switzerland... I tried to contact Air France immediately, thinking that everything would be fine. What a shame! 3 hours to get someone on the phone, who is unable to tell me how it will work for me. In the end, I had to extend my stay by a week to stay in quarantine, the expenses of course at my expense, and I had to buy a return ticket at the same time... my wallet was not happy.
We plan to go to my husband's family in Vietnam at the beginning of 2023, and this time I can tell you that we will look at travel insurance covering Covid-19. On this site you can compare covid travel insurance for the whole world, it's pretty well done. However I really don't want to make a mistake, would anyone have any recommendations for me?
Thank you very much in advance.

Posted by
1 posts

Hi there,

I think it is a matter of opinion, but I personnally think one has to travel with a lot of caution with the Covid still very much circulating around the world. I recently came across a study showing that travel insurance is still mandatory in 43 countries, which shows we are not back to pre-covid times still.

In your case, I'd take a "full coverage" travel insurance, to make sure all your expenses are covered in case your trip is interrupted because of the Covid or any other hazard. I am convinced that it is better to pay 10$ more / month to get extra coverage rather than going to the cheapest and risk to pay a lot in case something occurs.

Well, that's my advice, even if some people may not agree. In any case, enjoy your trip, and have fun !

Alex

Posted by
5 posts

While I don’t have specific information on Travelguard, I have been very happy with Trawick International. I too take the position we are healthy and no worried about health insurance but after a friend got in an accident overseas and was all but held hostage until the medical bills were paid made me rethink insurance.

My partner and I leave for a 17 day trip in mid-September to Europe with stops in multiple countries. We obtained a policy through Trawick underwritten by Travelers that includes medical coverage (500k max), trip delay coverage (4k max), emergency evacuation (100k) and some other basic benefits such as lost luggage, etc. the policy max is per person and the entire premium for two is $169.00. The deductible is $100.00. This does not included trip cancelation. We are over 50 so considering our health insurance won’t cover us overseas, we won’t lose sleep over worrying about unexpected medical or delay costs.

Trawick will direct you to insubuy.com. Very easy form to fill out and you can click boxes on coverage you do and do not need.

Posted by
4 posts

We recently travelled to Europe (in June) and had our trip interrupted in the middle with Covid and had to quarantine for 6 days. We were traveling with family who went on without us. We had Allianz insurance that paid up for 250 a day for up to 5 days of trip interruption.

It was a pain to file the claim, you needed a lot of documentation, but today they paid out everything we filed, 5 nights of hotel and a train ticket that had to be rescheduled. It was worth it for us and overall a pretty good experience.

Good luck!