Cancel for any reason insurance

I can't help with specifics because every policy is different. I highly recommend you read a policy carefully to make sure it will cover you for reasons you may be concerned about because "cancel for any reason" does not actually mean that. I quickly brought up one company (CAA, which is the Canadian equivalent to the AMA) and its cancel for any reason includes 37 reasons you can cancel, and it states if none of these reasons fit your needs there is also "cancel for any other reason" insurance, which actually doesn't include every other reason. With either, any medical reason still requires proof from a doctor.

Those policies are also expensive and only cover a portion of the costs. Normal travel insurance booked immediately on booking a trip or annual policies cover cancellations for medical reasons for self and immediate family. And sometimes a few other reasons. One way to think about it is 'if I can afford the trip, I can afford to lose the cost of the trip.' Losing a cost you have booked is annoying, inconvenient and aggravating but it won't bankrupt you. You could after all afford the trip.

On the other hand, having to be airlifted home due to serious illness or injury can cost over 100K and can be a serious financial burden. I knew someone who had to second mortgage their home to be able to fly their college age daughter home from Egypt after she was hit by a car and badly injured; she had no insurance.

So I'd err on the side of making sure this kind of cost is covered (there are policies that just provide air transport home from hospital abroad to your local hospital) and then have normal insurance for the trip.

As Allen noted, CFAR insurance isn't exactly that. Plus, you usually need to take out the policy within a given number of days of making your bookings, and need to cancel before a given number of days before departure. Further, payout is not 100%, even for covered reasons, and may only be 50-75%. It's all in the details. You need to go through any insurance policy with a fine toothed comb BEFORE you buy it.

The ones I have seen are about 25% of the trip cost and you get 75% of the cost if you cancel for an uncovered reason. Pretty pricey if you ask me.

I bought it one time. I was going to Europe while my husband was in memory care. Now, as someone else mentioned, I concentrate on the evacuation insurance. I am much more likely to need that at age 80 than I did when I started traveling to Europe at age 54. I will say that my husband and I made 19 trips to Europe starting when we were in our 50s and never once purchased travel insurance. And we were very lucky in never having had a major problem that travel insurance would have helped. We would have been in trouble if we had ever required evacuation, but I guess we were too stupid to think about that.

When I started traveling solo, I began to insure my trips.

Ask questions! Know your options. I found that the reasons I would have to, or want to cancel, are usually covered events in the standard policy anyway. The cancel for any reason is what I would classify as “adverse selection.” You are paying higher rates for flakes that decide to cancel due to superfluous reasons.

Janet from Boise -- we also made trips for many years when we were still working and never bought travel insurance except eventually Medjet Assist till we aged out of that. I figure the savings of not buying trip insurance for all those years paid for at least one of our trips. Our workplace insurance covered medical emergencies abroad and we didn't think it important to cover airline and luggage costs.

Now we have both lift off and annual medical/travel insurance. Hope not to test it again.

Check the insurance you already have; many policies cover emergency travel medical costs.

I am 75 and have been traveling once a year to Europe. Six years ago I changed credit cards because it carried good trip insurance, yes, cancellation for any reason. This past fall we had booked 5 nights at a B&B in New York and needed to cancel to a family death. Thought not a real test of cancellation, I had no problem being reimbursed for the 5 nights from my credit card. The insurance company my credit card used was Allianz

In the past I have purchased insurance directly from Allianz and they too paid up when I caught Covid in Europe.

In any event, hold on to all receipts as you must have those to claim.

They could call it “ Loss Reduction” coverage because I don’t quite think of it in the same light as insurance. The problem with CFAR policies is they cost an arm and a leg to buy— and then you only recover 75% of the money lost on what it covers. Seems like a big loss when you buy it and again when you file a claim.
Maybe it should be called “ Lose-Lose Insurance.”
www.InsureMyTrip.com

While I prefer a third-party insurer, in case of travel-provider bankruptcy, I think it is easier to get the equivalent of CFAR from a Cruise Line or Tour company that is providing the services. The coverage is usually "any other available tour in the next 12 months", or something like that, rather than CASH back. Of course, if you are an Independent traveler, this is not helpful to you.

It is important to read every word of every policy before you sign, so you understand the limitations. It's typical to have to buy the insurance with 10 (?) days of the first payment of any of the insurable costs of the trip, in order to get Pre-Existing [medical] Conditions waived. Likewise, you need to learn the exact definition of Pre-Existing Condition.

Third-party travel insurance gets more expensive with increasing age. Cruise Company coverage is less dependent on that, I think.

FWIW. the one time I needed insurance - a broken elbow with hospitalization and surgery in southern France I had Allianz trip insurance and they paid the hospital directly and reimbursed me for the follow up costs in Paris which helped save the last 5 weeks of my trip (and saved them having to arrange a flight home). We now have an annual policy with them which we hope to never test.