travel insurance recommendation

Haven't used that one, but I use http://www.squaremouth.com to select the product that best suits our trip.

There is also insuremytrip.com which allows for comparison of polices.

I used insuremytrip to a policy for my most recent almost-trip. I chose Travel Guard, a company I had used a few years before. Last year, I bought a policy from someone that Delta Airlines had some type of affiliation agreement with. Because I had never made a claim on either of these trip insurance policies, my experience wouldn't be much help in deciding what insurer to use, but in a month or so I should be in a much better position to give you the benefit of what happens when one does make a claim. You see, I had tickets to fly to Tokyo, Japan on Saturday, March 12th, the day after the 9.0 earthquake. After much agonizing and scouring news and Internet reports about aftershocks, electricity outages, and problems at nuclear generating facilities, we decided not to go. I made a claim under my policy and am awaiting Travel Guard's response. There are several policy provisions that should apply. I am curious to see if Travel Guard agrees. Insure My Trip sent an email very soon after the earthquake offering to help, which I thought was a nice touch.

Paul,, all things considered, I guess it's good you weren't flying on the 10th or 11th of March! It will be really interesting when you hear if your claim is approved by the carrier. This is such a unique event and (working from memory here) if I remember right, a lot of insurance carriers will not pay when they deem it "an act of God", hope things work out for you and look forward to hearing the outcome. For them to contact you right after is a positive sign.

Barry, we agree. We were grateful we weren't in the air when the earthquake hit or were just arriving. It may have made for a very interesting trip, but not by any means a stress-free one. We are really, really saddened by all the suffering that the Japanese are experiencing due to all this. Our hope is to make this trip as soon as things are somewhat back to normal, and we hope that is sooner rather than later. As far as the policy goes, it covers a trip that a traveler cancels before departure due to unforeseen events, including the Insured's destination being made uninhabitable by natural disaster, which includes earthquake. Destination is defined as "any place where the Insured expects to travel to" on the trip. Uninhabitable includes when there are "immediate safety hazards (that) have yet to be cleared" and when "the rental property is without electricity or water." If that definition isn't met by what has happened, then travel insurance isn't worth much.

Paul, DO check with your airline; many are now starting to give refunds or will reschecule for free, now that the horrible situation is more clear...

Yes, we used Insuremytrip and from that chose HTH. We were primarily interested in medical coverage and, it's a good thing, because my husband got sick and was hospitalized in France. Overall, we are pleased. Part of a refund came right away and the rest of it took a bit of "discussion", but it worked. We were reimbursed for most of the expenses we incurred, so it turned out fine.