Travel Insurance
Travel
Should you get it? (yes!)
If you’re on the fence about buying insurance for your trip, let me try to help you out a little bit to let you know why I think travel insurance is so important.
You have insurance on your vehicle, your house, and your body. Why do you have the insurance to cover these things? Because the bills to fix anything that goes wrong is usually very high and cost more than most people have in the bank to replace everything. It’s the same concept with a cruise.
A lot of people think trip insurance is just in case you miss your ship on embarkation day. That’s simply not the case at all.
Did you know that if you need to have a medical evacuation on a cruise ship, it can cost around $10,000 just to get you to the nearest hospital? That hospital will probably be in a foreign port.
Then you will need to have transportation back to the United States because your ship is not going to wait on you in port. That medical transport can easily reach $30,000. Right now you’re at least $40,000 in the hole just on flights, not including your medical bills. If you need intensive care transfer, you’re looking at over $100,000. Also keep in mind that most insurance carriers in the United States do not cover you if you’re out of the country.
All of these fees were obtained from the United States Coast Guard.
66% of all passengers buy cruise insurance. Regardless of if you buy it directly from Carnival or through a third party, they all make it very easy to buy a short-term policy.
Some credit card companies will provide you with a certain amount of coverage if everything is paid through them.
You can use the graph to decide which is best for you and your family but definitely “think outside of the box”.
Sure it’s easy to click the “add vacation protection” button when booking your Carnival cruise, but you’ll likely be paying more for worse coverage if you do this.
Hopefully this will help you in your decision whether to buy trip insurance for your vacation, and help you make the correct choice.
Medical Care
This covers you in case you slip or fall during a shore excursion, on the ship, or anywhere really. It could also be a heart attack, heat stroke, unexpected illness, excursion mishap or anything.
This includes the services of a physician, hospital charges, anesthetics, x-rays, ambulances, drugs and therapeutic services. You should have a minimum of $50,000 in coverage. I would never buy Carnival insurance for the simple fact they cap at $10,000 on your medical care coverage.
Medical Evacuation
This covers you in case you slip or fall during a shore excursion, on the ship, or anywhere really. It could also be a heart attack, heat stroke, unexpected illness, excursion mishap or anything. This includes the services of a physician, hospital charges, anesthetics, x-rays, ambulances, drugs and therapeutic services. You should have a minimum of $50,000 in coverage.
Trip Cancellation
If you get called in for jury duty and cannot get an exception, cannot get off of work, or a death in the family, then you will need to cancel your trip. This also covers sickness/injury, flood/fire/hurricane/military duty, laid off from work.
Vacation Interruption
If a hurricane forms and a portion of your itinerary is cancelled, you’re sick/injured, or weather causes you to miss 50% or more of your trip.
Travel Delay
If you lose your Passport causing a delay in departure, or your trip is delayed for some other circumstance whether it be the airline rescheduling, or some other delay reason.
Lost Luggage
If the airline or cruise staff loses your luggage or they’re lost in a flight transfer, or simply stolen.
Baggage Delay
If your bags are delayed for some reason you may need certain things such as medicines, clothes, toiletries, etc. This should give you enough money to replace the item(s) needed until your bags arrive.
Primary cruise insurance
vs
Secondary cruise insurance
Primary insurance policies begin the date you enter for your trip insurance policy and last until the end of your trip.
The primary policy will cover things such as delayed flights, vehicle troubles, missed cruises, etc.
Secondary insurance policies only kick in after you’ve filed claims on your primary insurance policy. If you have a medical emergency while on your cruise, you would need to file with your regular insurance company first, then your secondary policy. This can be a nightmare because your primary health insurance likely does not cover you outside of their network or outside of the United States.
I recommend
insuremytrip
You can input all of the riders and exclusions you need for you and your family, then compare policies side by side to see which is the best option for you. Then purchase your policy directly from insuremytrip.
Click for free quote
