When buying travel insurance (basic trip interruption insurance plus medical add on), what do you calculate into the cost of the trip in order to receive your quote. So far I have flight, hotel, and car rental, divided by the four of us to consider per person trip cost. But, since the hotel and car rental under under my name, should I calculate that total cost just for me, and then only flights for my kids and husband since their name is attached to the airline tickets? Would you add any additional items that I have not purchased yet (i.e., advance tickets to sites, etc.), or just leave those off. I'm feeling like my questions are a bit silly, but want to double check with folks who have purchased travel insurance in the past to avoid any loopholes. I have traveled to Europe many times before, but it is the first time I am buying travel insurance (gasp!). I suppose I can call the companies, but trying to avoid what I anticipate is long costumer service hold times.
Posted by
San Franciso Bay Area, USA
952 posts
I would recommend that you call the company and ask their policies. I did that for my Italy trip in May as I was booking for myself and my husband along with two friends. Based on that discussion, I had my friends purchase separate policies and calculate the total costs only on what my husband and I were spending as we were the ones covered on my policy.
The other thing that I didn't know until I called (TravelGuard) is that in order to be covered under the medical, including per existing conditions, you had to have the accurate costs for items on your trip, really the ones that you are going to lose money if you had to cancel. There is an option after you get a quote and book to change the $ amount of the coverage, so I didn't have to be too precise. I did want to book early so that I could get the pre-existing medical conditions covered.
I didn't have a long wait time and I was glad that I called.
Posted by
Olympia, WA, USA
6522 posts
Good question about splitting the costs among different people, I haven't thought about it since my trips are either with wife or solo. Policies generally cover losses involving travel partners as well as yourself, e.g. if your spouse gets sick you're both covered for the cancellation or interruption or delay. To determine the "trip cost" for insurance purposes, I ask myself how much money I'd lose if I broke my leg the day before starting a trip. So airfare and any prepaid tour costs would be included, but refundable hotel costs, meal costs, taxis and such wouldn't. Then I subtract from that "trip cost" the amount that I could handle losing without insurance (say $1000), which gets my premium down a little. In effect, it's a self-defined deductible.
I suggest you peruse Squaremouth.com and/or Insuremytrip.com for a lot of information about this subject and good search tools to shop for a policy. That will enable you to ask better questions if you need to contact an insurer before buying a policy.
Posted by
Atlanta, GA, USA
2745 posts
I’m going to be honest when I was buying for just one trip I self insure for just about everything but medical care which means I basically don’t add any of the costs. on the plane tickets, I know that if I have to cancel I’ll get a credit and I can use that later. I only book refundable hotels. I would be giving up some pre-paid tours, etc. but that’s immaterial so what I do is put in a very small amount and then make sure I have good healthcare insurance on it. That’s what I’m basically buying. Now this Jasmine that I might have some higher expenses that would not be covered if I did have a problem. And I’m OK with that. I can afford a plane ticket home on a normal circumstance, etc. What I want is medical evaluation if that was required or major surgery I don’t want have to pay those.
I’ve gone to an annual policy so I don’t have to go through all these hoops, it does insure a lot of the stuff that I would not cover normally, but it was still cheaper so if you do travel more than once a year, maybe to Mexico or someplace, you might look into a annual policy