NF&B: Travel Insurance necessary?

[jchokie79]

Another wedding related question. We'll be traveling from the East Coast to Maui next month for two weeks. With prepaid resort and flights, we stand to lose a chunk of change if we had to cancel for whatever reason. Also god forbid but if either of us got hurt on the island, we would have out of network medical expenses. That said, travel insurance is around $350. Should we get it? I'm torn, the stingy side says no but the realistic and cautious side of me says yes.

[preppy]

I have never bought travel insurance.

[misshark122]

I have bought travel insurance twice and used it both times! However, we had military reasons for cancellation, so we got 100% of our money back (it was for a safari trip to Africa and also a trip to Malaysia/Australia/NZ/and the Cook islands.... we would have lost a LOT of money without it!)

However I think you need a REALLY good reason to cancel, like someone can't just be sick, but, must be in the hospital, that kind of thing. I always used travel guard so I'd call them up and find out exactly what cancellation reasons would qualify and then see if you think it's worth it.

[lostarz]

I got the travel insurance for our honeymoon (it was only like $125 though) and thank god I did! Our resort ended up being evacuated due to a hurricane. So we got all our money back except for the travel insurance fee. Now, I'm not sure what would have happened had we not had the travel insurance (if it would have been harder to get the money back since it was a weather thing) but I think I'll always get it in the future.

[cransplash]

So exciting Jenn- so soon!

Ours provide worldwide medical coverage (up to a pretty high $ amount), so we feel comfortable paying out of pocket. We do, however, always get medflight. This includes flying myself (and D) back to the States should anything drastic happen and we need significant/extensive medical care back home in the US (vs wherever we are vacationing). Med flights are incredibly expensive (not sure for HI), but it is hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have stomach issues so this is a necessity for us just in case (and it is relatively inexpensive to get), and is more for a peace of mind for us. The chances of me needing extensive medical care that they’d need to medflight us back home is very rare, but again- it’s for our peace of mind.

I’m not sure how much your out of network coverage covers you until, but you never know if you may get food poisoning, broken foot/leg, bug bites, anything “mundane” can happen overseas.

As for “cancel for any reason” insurance, I was under the impression that you if you booked “cancel for any reason” travel insurance within 2 weeks of booking your trip (whether it is flight, hotel, etc), it is much cheaper than buying it afterwards. I know you’re just looking into it now, but thought I’d throw it out there for those who are considering it for future travels. (I may be wrong, but that’s what I remember from talking to a rep… regardless, we have never gotten this.)

We have always heard Travelguard as being one of the top travel insurance companies. Another one is called insuremytrip.com (where you can place certain criteria and it will populate certain travel ins companies for you). I believe the 3rd reputable company I’m always hearing about is World Nomads, and I believe Lonely Planet is a partner with them.

Did we get it when we went to HI for a few weeks? No. Knowing what I know now, I would. But again, this is just me.

[hz80408]

Wow Lostarz! Good thing! That's worth it!

We don't get insurance. I've heard it said that often times if you absolutely had to cancel a flight and paid with Visa in the fine print there's ways to get your money back; but I wouldn't quote that