Practical Travel Advice – Trip Insurance

I normally purchase trip insurance through my travel agent (a close friend) when big ticket vacations are booked – such a river cruise or other cruise travel.  The insurance has some trip-wires, but in general it will refund some or the majority of your investment for the trip if, for some reason, such a health or death in your close family, prevents you from travel.  I had never thought about the cost of the insurance, since my agent did this at very modest cost.

Today I read that the typical cost is between 4% and 10 % of the trip, which is a good  bit more than I have been paying.  And I read that it is probably best to buy the insurance directly from the cruise ship company or from an on-line provider such as “Insure My Trip” website suggests. (see  http://www.insuremytrip.com) 

If your travel agent that is new to you, and offers trip insurance, perhaps you should recheck their price against buying the insurance directly from the provider (say, a cruise line). There is a possibility the agent commission can approach 50% of the actual insurance cost.  And of course most travel agencies of all types probably lay off the risk by buying the policy (wholesale) from some insurance company that is in that kind of business.  You would end up dealing with the 3^rd. party insurance company, not the travel agent, in case of a claim.

Some high level credit card owners can get special travel insurance that will even do medical fly back to the USA should you encounter a problem in a foreign country.  Sometimes by private jet, with a doctor on board (if, for example, you had a heart attack in a 3^rd. world country). I have heard of one friend of a friend who had that happen, and got the free flight back to a USA hospital for heart by-pass surgery.