Travel Insurance

Yes and No. In general, if you buy your travel insurance within 15 days of your first purchase many insurers will cover pre-existing conditions. That is the best time to buy. But you can buy it almost anytime, with conditions. We always go to Squaremouth.com and input the parameters of our trip, and then pick the policy that meets our needs, being careful not to double up on insurance that we may already have from another source ( VISA cards, etc.) If I buy my insurance within 15 days of my 1st purchase, I usually never know the extent of my possible full losses, because I have not yet done all of my lodging bookings, or interconnecting flights etc. They have a question that they ask when you are buying the insurance "do you still have additional part of your trip to purchase" , or something like that. So all that I do is "guestimate" how much money that I would loose if I could not make the trip: ie how much I have pre-paid, or what cancellation fees will be, etc. There is no need for an exact amount; what you are trying to do, for the trip cancellation part of your insurance, is just to make sure that you have enough coverage to pay for most of your expenses. In fact, most of the time, I underestimate my total exposure, just to keep the cost down. There is a lot more to trip insurance than just "cancellation coverage", and that is where you must decide what other types of coverage you want in a plan. In general, I want coverage if we get sick, have an accident, and may need a special medical flight back home, if my wife looses her job, if one of us gets run over by and elephant prior to our trip, if the volcano blow up again, etc. The neat thing about using Squaremouth or Insure My Trip is that you input your data, and then get to compare all types of policies at one time, and pick the one that meets your needs.

Thanks, your post was really helpful

Thanks Margaret,
I did use TravelGuard for a Cruise once which was easy as I only had one price to insure. Thanks I will check them out.

You are more than welcome!

We use TravelGuard insurance for our trip insurance. They have a great web site, and they are super helpful by phone, too. Here's what you do: you insure only the money you are out of pocket, then you "add" to the policy as you pay more. There is no up-fee to add. So, when I make a deposit, say for $500 per person, I take out $1,000 in trip insurance, then when I buy airline tickets, I would add to the same policy the amount of unrefundable airfare, same with tour costs, etc. The key advantage of making that initial insurance purchase within a certain period of time, is that it locks in your coverage for certain otherwise excluded items, such as pre-existing medical coverage, OR should a strike (that might later be excluded) is anticipated. But, in that case, since you insured your deposit, you are covered in most cases. Check out TravelGuard, and they can even send you comparisons of their various policies. We always go with the Gold policy.

When buying your travel insurance, if you have not paid for all of you trip, always "guesstimate" low. You can always increase the amount of coverage you have with your travel insurance, however, it's a lot harder to decrease your coverage.