I know some people fully insure for total cost of cruise while others never insure (except maybe for MedJet). I have a question for those in the middle; i.e., sometimes they buy insurance and sometimes they don't.

What goes into decision on whether to purchase insurance? Length of trip, sick family members, distance from home, karma? Do you usually insure for the full cost (possibly including air) or do you only partially insure?

We are trying to decide whether to get insurance for PALM. It would be between $450 and $500 to cover the $9800 net cost of cruise after KLT Rewards (the max loss if we cancel right before sailing). On our last cruise my workplace health insurance paid full cost so I never had to make a claim with travel insurance; I think that was a fluke but could happen again. We have easy flights into and out of Miami with no stress on connections. Delta has never lost a bag in quite a while and the worst that can happen is a bag showing up two days later in Nassau. If we need to be evacuated; most of trip is in USA with only three days in Bermuda; we can stay on board for that period of time and get to hospital in Virginia.

If ever we were not going to purchase insurance; this seems like the trip.

So, I am looking for insight from others that make the buy/no buy decision on each cruise.

thanks,

Marc

Marc:

I once sat down and figured out all the insurance I had paid for over time. Since I have never canceled after the deadline, all that money was a sunk cost. (and rather profitable to B&K or all other travel agents) So, I now self-insure. Sure, it will hurt if I ever face the penalty. But, I figure that in the long run, I will be ahead.
As an aside, I looked into this after I had an issue on a minor claim. Had they paid the $200 or so, I would have kept buying. Penny wise, etc.
Happy holidays to you & Arlene. Doug

We go around in circles on this one every time I book a cruise. I used to insure every cruise and never made a claim. We could probably have a free cruise for all the money we have spent with CSA. Now we only insure for very expensive cruises. We had to make a claim for a canceled safari last year and thank heavens we were insured. However, they do NOT make it easy and practically drove my doctor crazy. I also cancelled a cruise this year for medical reasons before final payment. I didn't feel it was worth the trouble to try to get my downpayment back.

For our recent Panama Canal cruise I got a different kind of insurance. I can't remember what it was called, but it was through CSA. If we had canceled we would have been out of luck, but it insured us for evacuation from the ship and then home unlike Med Jet which requires a hospital stay.

So, after all that, the short answer is.....I would not take insurance for PALM. Hope this helped.

Maybe we're weird; but we find that trip insurance is worth it for peace of mind. We've had one trip that was cancelled due to a kidney stone 3 days before the trip, and we were reimbursed in full. We had another trip where we were foolish enough to go despite an appendectomy a week before the cruise. We should have cancelled and used the insurance. Instead, I ended up in the emergency room in Barbados on my first day of the trip (the one we should have cancelled); so we still got our money's worth from the insurance.

If you need one medical evacuation, that will cost you far more than the cost of the trip.

We are extremely risk averse, and would rather pay for trip insurance than take the risk of a cancelled trip or the cost of a medical emergency while on the trip.

To us, "no insurance" is penny wise and pound foolish.

I always buy trip insurance. Usually from CSA. I buy it not so much because of what might happen while on the trip, but because of what might happen just before the trip that would prevent us from going. I buy it not only for cruises, but for any trip of length (ski trips out West, scuba trips, etc) for which we have non-refundable prepaid costs that we'd lose if we had to cancel (for a covered reason, of course).

I can't add much to this since we have never insured any trips (including 2 world cruises). Knock on wood, we never would have had a claim if we had insured. Like Doug said, I guess we've been self insuring and saved $$$ through the years not insuring (we have always had Med Jet).
.....but for the first time we did insure our upcoming trip to Antarctica. It is so remote and so expensive should anything happen on or before we leave, evacuation was our particular concern.

We have worked with Steve Dasseos, the owner of http://www.tripinsurancestore.com who is fantastic, very attentive, patient and knowledgeable. Any questions you have can probably be answered on his website or a phone call.

Hopefully, we'll never need it but this go around it is giving us peace of mind.

We have always insured because my mother in law is 94 years old and we are always concerned that we would have to cancel should she have an issue. However I have made 3 claims over the years and only one was related to her.

Our first claim was after 9/11 and we were stuck in Vancouver for 3 days. The last claim was last year after I got sick in India and had to cancel our cruise and come home. I will add that each claim we have made was paid promptly and without too much hassle after the initial paper work. I would be uncomfortable traveling wo it.
I think it is very much dependent on your personal circumstances and your comfort level.
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Helen

We tend to insure expensive cruises and safaris lately, mainly because Brad has had a few bad cases of impacted kidney stones. Up to about 6 years ago I pretty much never bought it at all. And I would say its also location dependent - the more remote the destination, the more likely I am to buy it.

I never include the air since you can get a credit for most of that or redeposit your miles. I also don't insure the value of any independent land trip we might do before and after since I figure I can cancel the hotels without much penalty.

We've never canceled, or had any claims (so far), but as we get older I think its a good idea to just go ahead and buy it.

One interesting thing I just noticed - I just bought one of our nieces a Delta frequent flyer ticket to join us on a ski trip this winter. I transferred points from Amex since we're AA flyers. The terms on the ticket are that you can't redeposit the miles if you cancel within 72 hours of departure. That's a new one for me.

Leslie - Here's The Points Guy's article from when Delta instituted that policy. I think he's right about why.
Delta's 72-hour award change/cancel policy

Insuring trips that involve timeshares, hotel points stays, and airline award tickets are tricky!

Thanks Kim - they've had that policy since 2011!

My Chase Sapphire Visa card has substantial coverage($10,000) for trip cancellation, interruption, etc. So, why purchase additional coverage out-of-pocket as long as the exposure does not exceed $10,000? Am I missing something? Perhaps the CC coverage is more restrictive?

Good Question. Maybe all major credit cards have some type of coverage. We use our Starwood AmEx card on all our cruises to get the Shipboard credit. Reading AmEx coverage I ran across this which can be a biggie for disallowing a claim:

To be covered, you must pay the Entire Fare** for travel on a Common Carrier (e.g. plane, train, ship, or bus) with your eligible Card. Entire Fare** means the cost of the full fare for a Covered Trip on a Common Carrier. You can use your Basic or Additional Card Member’s American Express Card, American Express Membership Rewards® Points or a combination of both for the entire fare. But if you use another form of payment or frequent flyer miles or points from another program to pay for all or part of the fare, you will not be covered, except for New Hampshire residents.

Good point, Marcie. This might be a little off topic, but it is also an AMEX policy I was not aware of. We booked our entire Panama Canal cruise with AMEX. However, when booking our shore excursions, I booked a fishing trip for Al in Cabo with my MC. Didn't find out 'til we were on the ship that this caused us to lose our $300 on board credit. Lucky for us we skipped the port due to Hurricane Linda, they credited my MC and Ngaire worked her magic. Lesson learned - read the fine print!

Getting back to Marc's original question, we've had health issues and now always insure. I do wish we'd have just put the money we've spent on insurance in the last 15 years in a separate account and self-insured.

HOWEVER, we're aware that in most instances, you must insure all (or at least all non-refundable) costs of the trip to insure coverage if something goes awry. KLT has real experts on this, including Ngaire herself but now almost all questions go to Jennifer or in her absence, Julie. I've always gotten real solid information and the best prices from B&K/KLT, even using them to insure trips we've booked elsewhere because they don't sell that particular line, event or tour.

I hope this helps.