trip insurance

Well, maybe. Depends on what you want to insure and what the company is willing to do. The. Best resource will be a customer service representative at insuremytrip.com. When we travel it’s not so much the cost of the trip we worry about but medical and evacuation coverage. For medical you need to insure within 10-14 days of your initial trip deposit to cover pre-existing conditions. For most policies, in order to file a claim, you need to insure all the trips non-refundable costs. So, this is where things get complicated for you. You’ll probably need two policies, one for the before days, one for the after, both of which include your airfare, so you’ll be paying twice. (Maybe the service rep can get around that, that is where they come in handy. They are all insurance brokers so they know their stuff). If it’s just medical you are after this might be easier. What would have been much easier is to forego the policy offered by the trip operator and insure your entire trip under one policy. Do that next time.

As far as I know, RS doesn't sell trip insurance. He does include information from Travel Guard insurance, but you buy it direct from Travel Guard. You select the type of coverage and the dates to be covered and dollar amount to be covered. That is what I have done, including the tour dates and my own time pre and post tour.

insuremytrip is a good source, but we have found success with using our options with American Express and we get sky miles.

I always buy medical coverage as well as medical evacuation with AmEx. We do trips of about a month and cost usually runs about $50 to cover myself and my wife.

The standard trip insurance for trip cancellation is more expensive, usually costing about 8-10% of the trip cost.

I have extended my coverage with Travel Guard when I was on a Rick Steves tour and had independent time before and after. I usually call and talk to them to discuss.

I do a number of tours with Road Scholar and usually still get coverage with Travel Guard rather than the company Road Scholar uses.

I'd recommend you call and talk with the insurance company you've signed up with to see what they can offer.

I have not found insurance to be worthwhile in cases where you can reserve hotel rooms with cancellation privileges.

Many thanks to you all for your most helpful guidance. I am also 73 so trip insurance is more costly but then the chance of cancellation also goes up with age and health. I will follow up with all the advice offered and speak with the companies suggested. Thank you again. Monte