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unusual travel insurance question for September RS tour Switzerland

Posted by (Kalamazoo, MI, USA) on

Starting to look into travel insurance for upcoming RS Switzerland trip in Sept. We have fully refundable air and RS is refunding and/or allowing payment to go to another trip if Covid or other major reason prevents or interupts trip. Chose not to purchase at time of deposit as did not feel we needed cancel for any reason due to cost being refunded if needed. I need health insurance, (mine does not cover out of country), partners health insurance covers out of country. We both need Covid coverage for trip delay due to staying if either test + and medical evacuation.

Anyone have experience with only needing to cover medical for one, evacuation and Covid for both (not cost of trip)? Yes I have looked on square mouth and insuremytrip, just thinking some on here may have pearls of wisdom for me. Correct me if I'm wrong on not needing to cover the other expenses.

Posted by
20085 posts

Looking at a trip next January and have gotten a quote for Medevac plan that covers health costs, emergency evacuation, up to $750 living expenses for quarantine in case of testing positive for Covid while in Europe, as well as up to $500 airline rebooking fees.

Posted by
454 posts

RS policy is to refund the full cost if a tour member is prohibited from joining the tour at the last minute because he/she tests positive when taking the test that is required within 48 hours of the tour start date. Or, there is a pro rata refund if a tour member gets Covid during a tour and has to drop out. Otherwise, the company is not refunding payments. If you have to cancel for another reason and the company considers it to be a creditable event (eg house fire, serious accident or illness) you’ll get a credit toward another tour. If your cancellation is in the 30 days prior to the tour start date, it’s just a 50% credit, not 100%. Taking these policies into account, we bought cancellation coverage for 50% of the cost of our tour.

Posted by
2731 posts

Nothing unusual about your question at all. I've looked at insurance plans since booking my trip last June. I didn't want to buy then because I want annual insurance to cover both this September trip and next June trip. It seemed cheaper than buying two separate policies but there are limitations so read the policies carefully. What I gave up is pre-existing conditions coverage by not buying within most companies' -/+20 day window .

Because my Medicare supplement Part F includes out of country medical and the reviews on the forum have been good, I finally decided on Allianz Premier Annual for additional medical, covid and trip interruption/delay, increasing the cancellation/interruption amount. I am also going to use Medjet Horizon plan for evacuation since it will get me home easier instead of to the nearest facility. My September plane tickets are also refundable and RS has a very generous Covid trip policy.

Other plans I considered were GeoBlue but decided I didn't need the additional medical. And Nationwide but their Covid, medical interruption/delay clauses were not as good as Allianz'.

There has been lots of discussions about insurance since RS tours opened up. If you want to look at previous threads use the search function at the top of the page. Choose which insurance works for you not someone else's favorite. Hope this helps you a bit.

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