Travel insurance

If you are a Costco member, you can buy travel insurance thru Costco which is very cost effective. In order to do the purchase, you will need to rent a car or stay at least one night in a Costco booked hotel during the travel period. For instance, you can rent a hotel room for one night before the trip, and include that hotel rental timeframe in your trip insurance. The price is great, and the coverage is good.

Try a site like Insure My Trip. You can comparison shop based on your needs, ages and state of residence. Any questions and you can use the chat function for clarification.

Lots of into here, including the 2 comparison sites mentioned at the bottom of the box on the right.
https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/trip-planning/travel-insurance

There are so many types of insurance and so many different needs to consider and your question doesn’t explain why you want insurance.

• How old are you?
• How is your health?
• What are your concerns?
• Are you driving a rental car?
• What is your risk tolerance?
• Does your health insurance provide coverage for care when you travel to Europe for less than 60 days
• Does your credit card take care of a collision damage waiver (CDW) if you rent a car on that card?
• When you got your airline tix, did you get flight insurance?
• Are you checking your bags, or taking them on-board the plane with you? If the latter, will you meet the size and weight restrictions that the airlines you are flying have, or will you then be forced to check your bags?

I never really worried about insurance when we travelled internationally in 1999, 2003, 2005, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2023 or 2024. THIS YEAR, I finally decided to worry and look into this. Why? Because we are in our 70s and we will be cycling in Europe. Last year when we cycled in Puglia we both fell on a wet road (without any injuries to speak of, fortunately). Also, we have friend who needed to get hospital care and extend her stay in France for several weeks until she could safely fly.

Trip cancellation insurance looked spendy and not worth it … as far as my own, personal risk tolerance to expense ratio is concerned.

To my pleasant surprise, thanks to recommendations on this forum 1-1/2 years ago when I was simply concerned about auto insurance, I checked our credit card and learned it will cover the CDW on a rental car. This year, I checked our Medical Supplemental Insurance (supplemental to Medicare) and learned it covers $50,000 for a European trip up to 60 days.

What others on this forum got me to look was medical evacuation coverage, especially since we will be biking 13 days of our 30-day trip next month. That is the one potentially huge expense, not already largely protected.

Someone (LizinPA) suggested the RS article, on-line. It’s an OK start and I think it may be better now than it was 6 months ago. But my own journey through this forum and the kindness of others who responded to my query might also help you. See https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/travel-in-urance there are lotsa links in there.

(The forum somehow changed in$urance in my topic title to in-urance in the link)

The forum is searchable, so you can look in the upper left corner of your screen and find the search feature. Many others have asked about insurance and many have given good advice.

Happy - and safe - travels.

Do not ever purchase IMG (International Medical Group) travel insurance as they will for months put obstacles in your path to get you to give up so they can avoid paying you. Here are some of the obstacles: They don’t have a clear policy about how and where to file the claim. The staff lie to you- we were told we had to wait 3 weeks for a claim to be posted and wasted that time waiting. Not only was that false, but IMG had lost the claim we had filed online. We then had to complete a written form and return it to them. Although we traveled together our claims were dealt with separately, which made it much more difficult. We ended up having different claim numbers, different agents, and had to submit each document twice. No matter how many times we submitted a document, they claimed to not have received it. We cannot count how many times we submitted the same paperwork over and over. After almost 2 months we finally contacted the broker who sold us the insurance. They finally intervened and several weeks later (after we submitted all the supporting documents to them) we got paid. One of us was paid about 2 weeks after the other. It is very clear this company does not operate in good faith and their goal is to make it so hard to actually get paid that you will give up in total frustration.

I have, for years, examined SquareMouth to compare policies & have used maybe 4, 5 or more from their clearing house offerings. The entry by l.boruszkowski has me thinking as I selected IMG for my RS London Feb 26 trip.

I had to cancel an RS Roma trip in Sept 23 due to some acute heart problems. Nationwide was my carrier & they delayed payment for 3-4 months: SquareMouth (which will remove companies if the companies do not respect/pay legitimate claims) acted as an intermediary w/Nationwide & ensured my documentation deserved payment. SquareMouth kept me fully informed of their "near-demands" that Nationwide quit delaying & pay the claim.

My 2nd surprise was in March 2024 when my appendix burst in Latvia. SquareMouth facilitated thru my selected policy, payment/hotels/air (business class tix $8500!!) for my claim.

When reviewing travel insurance for my Feb 26 RS trip, I used SquareMouth & also examined the RS insurance site. ab

Regardless of the company you chose, be sure to read the fine print. The devil is always in the details.

For example, some med evacuation coverages will only get you to the nearest suitable facility. Others will return you to your home if you need to be in a hospital.

All insurance is the one thing we buy but hope we never have to use. If, however, you do experience an event for which you need to make a claim, document everything. Some companies are reasonable with regard to documentation, while others are a real pain in the anatomy and try their best to not pay a legitimate claim.

If you haven't looked at travel insurance posts from the forum, here's a link to the search feature. There is a lot of information and reviews. List is posts for the past year:
https://search.ricksteves.com/?button=&date_range=1y&filter=Travel+Forum&query=travel+insurance

If you can give a bit more information about what you're looking for, it'll help. Medical? Evacuation? Trip cancellation/interuption?
If you have pre-existing conditions, you may not be covered if you put money on your trip and 14 days has passed. Read the insurance docs carefully. Does your medical insurance at home cover you out of the US? If you are on Medicare, it will not cover you out of the US, but your supplement may have limited medical coverage.

I would agree, you really need to first what you are spending that may require coverage. Yes, for the RS tour, you should have insurance that covers the cost paid to the RS company. "Trip Insurance", in general, bases the premium on the trip cost, however it does not reimburse you for cost that are refundable, or never spent. But your situation adds some wrinkles.

First. airfare, if you buy refundable tickets, then no need for insurance on that amount, even then, many airlines now issue you a credit if you do need to cancel, great if you plan to travel in that time frame, not if you can't travel.

Then the independent portion. Do your hotels have free cancellation? No need for insurance, Meals you were going to eat? You never spent or lost money. Other costs also come down to what you are actually out if you cancel. As an example, for a 4 week trip on our own, my wife and I may spend about $10K, but if I had to cancel the week before, I would be out less than $1000.

Then of course consider Medical, will you have coverage there? (Many Medicare plans do not cover) Evacuation is always a concern and expensive. You might consider looking at a separate medical plan, and a "trip" plan to cover travel costs and interuption.

I really like my annual policy from Allianz. I like knowing that I can go on as many trips as I want and only pay for one premium each year. I also combine this primary coverage with credit card trip insurance coverage and MedJet medical evac. insurance.

I've only ever filed one claim with Allianz for trip delay, but it was paid promptly and without any hassle.