Travel Insurance

$261 for a one week trip is a rip-off. Don't even consider it. We, too, are on Kaiser Sr. Advantage. They will cover any necessary medical treatment. Yes, it's a reimbursement; but is it worth $261 to you for the convenience of not waiting? I am less clear on whether they will cover the cost of getting
you home if, for example, you break a leg and need to fly home in business class so that your leg can be elevated.. (VERY IMPORTANT) Easy to find out. Give them a call. As for the other facets of insurance - - I suggest you first check the credit card you used to pay for the trip. Some of them include insurance for trip cancellation, lost luggage, etc. Also, check your homeowners' or renters' insurance for the latter. Finally, look at the website www.squaremouth.com. They list many, many companies with a huge variety of policies. You can also talk to an agent there, who will help you select a best value policy. Last spring, we paid around $50/pp for a four week trip.

{EDIT}
Are the chances of a flight or cruise being cancelled or delayed more prevalent, today?

There is an active volcano in Iceland that delayed flights to/from Europe. It can start spewing again at any time.

Re: Baggage . . . {If} you pack light & plan to do washing periodically, you take your bags into the airplane cabin with you.

Someone will come behind me to clarify that last statement.

A Medevac policy from Travel Guard which covers medical expenses while away and transport home if required. Its based on age and days away. For you, it would be $45 for a trip of 11 to 22 days.
$261 for Travel Guard would cover a $4500 trip, so your quote is not outrageous. It just covers everything under the sun that I would never think of paying to cover, like dings in my luggage, having to pay an extra night lodging for flight delays. If you are worried that illness or emergencies would cause you to have to cancel, it might be worth considering. 6% of the trip price is in the ballpark for comprehensive coverage.

Insurance is all about individual risk tolerance. I only mention Travel Guard because I am familiar with them and their pricing levels. You can check others at www.insuremytrip.com.

Please check again with Kaiser because I do not believe they will cover you for a trip in Europe. Kaiser senior advantage is a Medicare-based program, and Medicare does not cover you overseas. I am a retired Kaiser employee and have verified that for myself and my husband. We always buy insurance through Travel Guard and have, thank goodness, never had to use it, but are confident that it will meet our needs should they develop. It will also cover your flights, if they are canceled or postponed for long periods. Well worth the expense.

My wife has a Medicare supplement through my employer, and I checked into their coverage out of the country. She's covered on a reimbursement basis.

I would suggest you check with your company or read your policy/documentation to verify coverage. If not, you'd want to get travel insurance anytime you leave the U.S--including Canada or Mexico.

Some travel insurances are slanted more toward medical, and some are slanted toward trip cancellations, family problems, etc.

My wife has a Medicare supplement through my employer, and I checked
into their coverage out of the country. She's covered on a
reimbursement basis.

Reimbursement is all well and good for the small stuff, but what about the big ticket items? For instance in Switzerland you are charged separately for services such as ambulance, med evacuation in the mountains and so on... The ambulance alone could hit $2,000 - $3000 in no time and a short med evacuation usually comes at about $30k, which is why most of us Swiss have extra insurance to cover it.

We're on Kaiser Senior Advantage and they have been paying for our medical care needed while in Europe for several years now. We do usually have to pay the hospital/doctor and Kaiser reimburses us. We've always been able to use a credit card, except in one case where the hospital said they'd send us a bill. They did, and Kaiser paid it.

this summer a 60 yr old friend (in good health) became ill suddenly, had to leave European tour group and be hospitalized. she had trip insurance which did buy the aforementioned very expensive first class ticket home because she couldn't sit upright. I think she got some settlement for the unused portion of the trip. the other thing insurance covered that doesn't sound like is a factor for the OP is that insurance paid for a hotel for my friends husband, and I think even meals for him (he had trip insurance also and had abandoned the tour as well) I would encourage you to think about a policy, perhaps a cheaper one, that would at least pay for a new plane ticket home.

Thank you everyone for your input.

To answer some questions, I have called Kaiser and they DO pay for the medical payments; although, they are reimbursements. To the person that said my trip was 11 to some odd days, my trip is ONLY 7 days. I've been thinking of this over and over, since I will be on my own with flight transfers and all, UNTIL I meet up with the Cruise Ship and join the tours that it will provide.

Wish I could have the responses in front of me, so that I can make sure I've cover all the additional questions I have for people.

Thank you Roslyn, I will do that.

Colette, I will be nowhere near the Volcano in Iceland.

5 to 10 days is $40 at Travel Guard.

Hi Sam, and that is JUST for medical or is that for medevac?

2 - Dee,

{EDIT}
I take it you would be flying from North America to Europe. Airlines take advantage of the earth's curvature on their routes. This involves taking a northerly route, and flying over Newfoundland, then close to Greenland (or over southern Greenland), on to the south of Iceland, then south- east to London. (This is only approximate.)

Here is a report from 2010 on what the Icelandic volcano did to air travel. {The ash grounded air traffic in & out of Europe as well as stranding travelers - the point I was making.} No telling when it could erupt again.
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/538500

{My husband (78 yrs) & I (62 yrs) are in good health & have paid $261 each for comprehensive travel insurance for a trip to Europe next year. We prefer to insure against the unknown that could interrupt the trip. We get comprehensive insurance each time we travel. Our trips are for 10 days.}

{Congrats on your achievements. May your future travels be incident & injury free.}

{Happy Travels!}

Colette, I will be travelling from San Francisco, CA to Paris, FR, where I will transfer planes to go to Nuremburg, GER.

The article you post is from 2010 and was updated in 2011. Is the volcano active? I have actually had some experience with a volcano when Mt. St. Helens in Washington state decided to blow after being dormant for so many years. We weren't on a plane, but we drove, I know first hand what these pilots dealt with trying to clear off their windows. I have stories.

Someone mentioned Switzerland, and I travelled there in 2007. Parasailed the Alps at age 60 with no injuries and no incidences. Went to Italy on the same trip. No problems.

Believe me, I am taking all your suggestions to heart.

Rosalyn, I have checked my Homeowner's and the agent said because my deductible is $2,000 it wouldn't help. I, also, checked with the Visa, whom I purchased my trip, and they will not cover trip cancellations and/or trip delays.

Sam, how do you find out this reduced price that you are quoting me? I can only get a quote on full coverage. My main concerns are trip cancellation/trip delay due to the fact that I will have to make separate connections (not linked into the cruise) from my home and flight.

I agree that the OP quote is entirely reasonable. Each company is different, but at Travelex (my usual choice) the length of the trip is totally irrelevant, (as is my subjective opinion of my own good health) but the trip's dollar total and the AGE of the insured are tremendously important. Saying that $261 is unreasonable is applying an emotional feeling about "value" to a situation that is not about buying a TV at Walmart. Insurance is calibrated to protect against chosen risks, without losing a profit-making company money. $261 is too much in comparison to ... what?

It is risky to talk about travel insurance without specifying exactly what has been bought. For example, is there full pre-trip cancellation coverage? In order to "get" that, it isn't enough to check a box. You may have to (if you file a claim) prove that you specified an amount of insurance (i.e. affecting the premium to pay!) that completely covers all of your exposure. If you low-balled the amount, and they find out, they could limit your recovery to even less than you thought.

Likewise, did you meet the requirements for "Waiver of Pre-Existing Conditions"? Even a healthy person might have pre-trip treatments that could disqualify them from recovery. You have to read every bit of fine print, and call the company for an explanation. In other words, if your doctor told you to take Ibuprofen for bursitis, and you dislocate that shoulder out the day before the trip ... you could have a problem. No matter how envious everyone in the Senior Center is of your vigor.

It hasn't been mentioned that this insurance might well protect against the financial failure of the cruise company, the failure to board the ship before departure (due to weather that the airline doesn't even have to pay for a hotel for you!), lost luggage, repatriation of remains (!), flying someone over to be with you in the hospital ... the list goes on and on. Our limo company once got caught in a two hour jam on the Garden State Parkway. Missing one hotel night (even if the airline gives you a pass on the flight change ... and there are seats to be taken) is a loss of a different scale than missing the departure of the cruise. We normally fly to arrive the day before, just for that reason, BTW.

Hi Tim, thanks for your reply. My concern IS the fact that I am being driven by a company (yes, traffic is a concern for me, but the people whom I'm working with have assured me I'll get there in plenty of time), and the fact that I will be flying by myself (not with the tour) and then meeting the ship. I have never bought travel insurance for any trip before, but I'm feeling this one I might just for those reasons.

trifusionone, there's an Old Saw that "Insurance is sold, not bought!" But, as I wrote, when there actually is a risk for which protection is desired (as opposed to, say, manufactured by a salesman ... )

I am not criticizing your decisions, which are now water over the dam. But if you met with a bricks-and-mortar travel agent, it sounds to me like you made cost-conscious decisions that, while quite reasonable, were not entirely in your best interest.

For example, (referring to your discomfort over the "unsupervised" portion of your trip), you could have bought the air tickets from the cruise company. Then, they would have thrown in your airport transfer, (in their annoying bus or van), and they also would have given you a phone number to call if one of your flights was cancelled. However, that would also have produced a commission for the travel agent, and "hidden" several charges for your trip that are now fully "exposed" for you to study and decide on. In case I'm not being clear, I'm talking about European airport transfers, air re-routing in case of flight snags, and most likely (I didn't read the brocure) taking you to the second city of the boat if you fail to board through no fault of your own.

Again, I'm not berating you for your choices - you may not even be aware that you "made" these choices. Now, you have the option to buy insurance against most of these "perils" (as they say in the insurance business.) In a way, you're better off, because by using a third party, you have protection against the bankruptcy of the cruise company or the airline. (I'm not saying that happens a lot, I'm just listing "perils".)

One reason I buy travel insurance is because my mother is 88 years old. Because I have read the boring, 20-page brochure from Travelex, and called the 800 number to clear up a fuzzy statement, I learned that the health of someone in my immediate family who is NOT going on the trip is NOT a bar to the "pre-existing condition" exclusion! That's good news for me. HER bursitis isn't a problem for MY travel insurance. Other companies may write their policies differently.

Wow, Tim, I don't know what to say. I am more confused, now, than ever!

The touring company is Roaming Boomers, who I had to pay a fee for (not happy about that, but it is what it is). They seem to have arranged everything through AmaWaterways (the cruise line). I was told that someone from AmaWaterways would meet me when I get off the plane in Europe and take me to the ship.

Tim, I will be the only one travelling and as far as I know, I have no pre-existing conditons.

I'm really sorry I confused you. Some of the previous post by me is incorrect. This is what I read in your recent post:

I am being driven by a company (yes, traffic is a concern for me, but the people whom I'm working with have assured me I'll get there in plenty of time), and the fact that I will be flying by myself (not with the tour) and then meeting the ship.

I took that to mean that you were responsible for meeting the ship. You have appropriately, corrected me on that score. I assumed that you went to a travel agent in an office, like I do for cruises, but I was wrong.

I will now guess that you were responding to a paper flyer that came to a group you belong to, or that was distributed somewhere you go, like the public library. The travel agencies that package those trips tend to be reliable, and Avalon Waterways has been around a long time. I happen to have river-cruised only with Viking Cruises. If you already have airport transfers arranged, you have little to worry about.

But there is (I am sure) a long, small-print disclosure of things that are not included, on the flyer, and on the invoice you paid. And those flyers always say something like, "We recommend that you consider a travel insurance policy from our preferred partner, So and So, or the insurance company of your choice." That is good advice.

Because we only know what you tell us, we cannot be certain exactly what perils (technical term) you might need protection from. I still think that I made reasonable comments, based on many past purchases of Travel Insurance. I hope they were helpful to you. Even if you wanted to take my mention of a specific vendor on faith, it would still be unwise for you to blindly purchase the policy without reading about the details in advance. No one can do this work for you.

Edit: This concludes my participation in this thread.

Oh, believe me, Tim, I have been doing a lot of research on travel insurance and a lot from people I know who travel frequently. I, unfortunately, do not, but hope that will change. :)

I found the Roaming Boomers on the Internet. I have corresponded with them through many e-mails, and have talked to them personally on the phone. My cruise is from Ama Waterways, not Avalon. They have recommended Travelex, but it seems, if I am reading this correctly, that Travelex only covers $500 for trip cancellation and $500 for trip interruption. If this unforunate event happens, I would want my entrie trip covered!

What if it is not MY doing for the trip cancellation or trip interruption? Will the airline and cruise line pick up the tab? Oh, and I'm flying Delta, which on the way will transfer to Air France in Paris.

I wanted to do the Viking Tour, but they do not waive the single supplement, Ama Waterways, does; although, I didn't see that much savings, but I was already committed.

You have received some excellent advice ,but there is a big difference between Travelguard and Travelex I think. We always get insurance through Travelguard . If you are near a AAA branch they can fill you in on Travelguard... We get this every year when we travel but I believe we have only a certain amount of time after we buy our plane ticket to get the insurance. Once years ago I became ill right before we went and we got a lot back from them.

Dee,

You don't know what to do, the end of November is fast approaching, & it is your decision. The travel company is not forcing the comprehensive insurance on you. It is offering it to you at (possibly) a less expensive rate than if you were to go on the open market & find it yourself. If something should interrupt your trip or go awry, they are not responsible & they have their money.

It is something you can disregard as an expense & go on your trip. Should you go without insurance, be prepared to pay more than $261 if something does not go right with your trip.

It baffles me that being on a retirement income and being able to afford say a $3,000 to $4,000 trip, you balk at paying $261 (6% of the travel pkg) for comprehensive insurance b/c you: "parasailed at age 60 over the Alps with no incident"; "have no preexisting conditions"; "have never taken out insurance before".

You are willing to:
* take the word of "the people whom I'm working with" that you will meet every connection.

"What if it is not MY doing for the trip cancellation or trip interruption? Will the airline and cruise line pick up the tab?"
Probably not. That's what insurance is for.

• take the chance you will not incur some injury that needs medical attention the cost of which will come out of your pocket, even if you will be reimbursed. One can slip on snow & ice on a shore excursion, & end up with more than a bruised ego.

• Take the chance your trip will not be interrupted by an act of God.

I know an American tourist who was in Europe, & ready to fly home at the time of the Icelandic volcano eruption. He did not expect the eruption, or the ash that was spewing to blow into the air flight lanes which in turn grounded European air traffic.

He had proper insurance that helped him find & pay for a place to stay as well as pay for meals. You may not be going to Iceland although your airplane will take a route south of it. (I am citing a past incident. No one on earth knows what the future will bring.)

Now listen to Tim's first post about all the what if's & make up your mind. The decision is yours!. This forum can only provide you with our personal opinions based on our knowledge & past experience. If you go by the saying "God will provide" (faith), remember "God
helps those who help themselves." (Benjamin Franklin)

{Edit 11/10/2014 - 2306 hrs:This concludes my participation in this thread.}

Colette,
I haven't disregarding anyone's advice. I am weighing it very careful. I just need to know all about the insurance so I can pick the right one for me!

Jane,

Have you used both Travelex and Travelguard? Does one have to be a member/customer/client of AAA in order to buy the Travelguard Insurance? I will check into this, thank you.

I am deciding between four different insurance companies: Travelex, Allianz, TinLeg, and Roam Right. Has anyone used any of these and what has been your experience?

I used Allianz for cancellation insurance for a Med. Cruise last May. As it happened I did have to cancel and did get the cost of the cruise paid. It took lots of paper work but it did get paid. Keep every piece of paper work regarding your trip and/or any possibility of cancellation (I.e. Doctor appointments, diagnoses for you or companions or family member, etc.)

I have gotten my insurance from World Nomads. I have not had to use it but i feel better knowing I have it.

We bought from Roam Right through www.squaremouth .com. They were by far the cheapest and have a very good rating. Our need was different from yours - - traveling independently so no big prepaid items. Our main target, medical evacuation and repatriation was bundled with some other features that didn't interest us so much, but might, you. Sorry, I looked for the policy but must have tossed it after our return, so I can't be more specific. I'll, again, suggest you give squaremouth a call. Talk to an agent, explain what you want, and get a quote. We paid approx. $50/pp for a four-week trip.

Jane,

My AAA does not carry TravelGuard. They use Allianz and have used them since 2005, according to the lady whom I talked with. Very helpful.