Any advice on the best trip insurance to cover airline tickets. We are planning on flying to London next June and will be booking our tickets soon. I have an older parent and never know when I may need to cancel a trip. What would be the best insurance to cover the cost of our tickets if we needed to cancel our trip at the last minute. We can cancel the hotel up to the last day, but once we buy the tickets they would be non-refundable. Thanks for your help.
I have travel insurance through my job so I don't buy separate policies, but my in-laws recommend InsureMyTrip for comparisons of the costs and benefits of various policies. Travel insurance policies vary in cost and coverage, so you'll need to look at the terms of each to see what best suits you.
As I recall, most policies only cover cancellation due to a family member's illness if it is life-threatening (as certified by a doctor); if that isn't flexible enough for you, you might want to consider "cancel for any reason" policies.
I usually buy refundable tickets. Yeah, it's going to cost more but it seems the likelihood of something happening might be quite high (implied from your post). Or, buy tix cheap enough to throw away.
Personally, I find insurance policies (for this type of insurance) too limiting.
The best insurance would be refundable tickets because you are sure they are covered.
You need to compare policies to see what they cover (insure my trip is a great place to do that). Many of them will require the family member to have something life threatening or something needing your care or be hospitalized. Some don't cover family members at all, and some will do a reduced benefit (say 75%) for cancel for any reason.
If your parents are currently ill, some policies may consider that pre existing and not cover you.
Speaking as someone who has sold all types of insurance for over 35 years, there is no such thing as "the best insurance to cover (fill in the blank) "
That said, the replies that state that the best idea is to purchase fully refundable tickets are 100% the only "best" answer.
For me, it's usually a date change and I just pay the change fee and apply the remaining credits next time. Fees can be $150+, but it happens rarely so it balances out with purchasing insurance.
Yes, I would just need to change the date is necessary. Refundable tickets are twice the amount, so I would be better to just lose the original cost of the tickets instead of paying double for two of us. I would still like to purchase some type of travel insurance to cover any medical needs and covered trip cancellation. We usually buy through our cruise line, so any suggestions on a brand would be great. We are not going through a travel agent to plan our trip, so I will be buying the insurance on our own.
Anyone know if a company in the United States that sells "European" style travel insurance. i.e. an annual policy that covers multiple trips and pays for things like lost baggage, medical evacuation, etc?
The cost will be the same be it through an agent or online, if you have an agent you like the company will give them a few pennies of the price. You pretty much fill out the exact same form, the only difference is they have a box for the agent number on it.
You can get annual trip coverage from a few companies in the states, HTH I know offeres it, I had that for a while, want to say it was like $350 for the two of us for a years coverage.
Google Annual Travel Insurance and many companies will come up.
