AJCU

Hello FTers,

I am starting to look at annual travel plans for myself and girlfriend. We have several international trips coming up over the next year, and after all the cancellations I have had this year, I would like to invest.

Does anyone have any recommended companies or plans? something that includes "extreme sports" would be nice because a lot of our trips are for skiing. We are both US residents.

Thanks in advanced!

Big4Flyer

What would you like to be included and what are the reasons for the previous cancellations?

I ask because there are a wide variety of travel insurance products and corresponding prices. Also, I can't think of any that offer cancellations for no reason. I find the coverage offered by certain high-end credit cards to be acceptable for your typical trip cancellations and expenses. For example, the Sapphire Reserve offers $1500/year in emergency medical expenses, which we used while we were in New Zealand. The Amex Plat offers emergency medical evacuation coverage. The CSR and Prestige will both reimburse you non-refundable expenses if you have to cancel in event of illness, job loss, etc. Those might be worth looking into.

obscure2k

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Obscure2k
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RevJim

I've never heard of an annual insurance plan that covers trip cancellation. Usually annual plans cover things like overseas medical and emergency repatriation. They cost roughly $200-500/yr depending on what is covered.

The plans that cover trip cancellation will charge a percentage of your trip cost. And even then, as mentioned by Big4Flyer, they don't pay when you voluntarily cancel a trip. They might pay if unavoidable flight delays cause you to miss your cruise, or something like that.

I would take a look at Global Rescue and International SOS. Both of them offer a variety of annual and single trip plans, individual or family. Both are very reputable and cover (most?) extreme sports. Just make sure you understand what coverage you are buying.

There's an interesting Wired article about Global Rescue here.

HTH

1Bag1World

I have an annual travel plan with Allianz Global and a separate medical evacuation with Medjet Assist.

Medical evacuation is important should you get hurt and need to get taken to a non-local hospital. Most companies will get you to the nearest facility that can help. Medjet Assist's policy will take you to any hospital anywhere, even home, and in a private air ambulance if necessary.

backprop

I use an annual plan from DiveAssure. It includes both primary medical as well as dive insurance, and trip cancellation/interruption coverage. You choose the amount of coverage you want to have when you buy the plan, and that amount will apply to each trip regardless of the cost of each one. I don't know if it covers other extreme sports. It's also not cancel for any reason (and I'm not aware of any that are); covered reasons only, including weather, illness, etc.

Also, Dive Assure plans cover ONLY international trips. I know you said you're doing international, but just be aware that they won't cover domestic (USA) only.

squeakr

“Cancel for any reason” including voluntary was too pricey, but we feel pretty confident that any time we would have to cancel a trip especially an international trip would be for one of the covered rreasons. But we also like the evacuation insurance as well.

squeakr

Erg finger slipped –

Take a look at Square mouth – it’s what we used to use before we bought the annual policy. I believe they cover things like extreme sports etc.

AJCU

Thanks for all the responses folks! Also sorry for the confusion of "cancel for any reason." I was talking more like cancelling due to weather and such. For example, the trip I was supposed to take this weekend to New Orleans would be covered potentially due to the hurricane. Things like this are not covered by CC's like the Amex Platinum and CSP because the flights technically weren't cancelled.

Also this past summer all of our travel was cancelled due to medical reasons. The airlines were pretty cooperative, and the CC's did work for the most part, but it would be nice to have something that offered a little more confidence and more of a garuntee if that makes sense.

Thanks again for the responses, and i'll do a bit of research!

AJCU

Are you happy with your Allianz plan overall?

1Bag1World

Thankfully, I've never had to make a claim so I can't answer the question.

nk15

I am bringing this back, as I have a similar question...For travel delays, etc., I relay on credit card insurance coverage.

For medical I have been using the Trekker Choice from GeoBlue that was recommended by Stefan, which works well with BlueCross BlueShield, my home insurance. It has global coverage and pretty affordable at $175/year. However, upon closer inspection I saw that the annual medical coverage limit is $250k and $500k for evacuation. Dental coverage is only $100-200/trip. These seem a bit low to me, although certainly fine for the premium paid. What do you guys think?

It also doesn't cover injury from terrorism in countries where there are US travel warnings, which is a lot of countries, like Egypt, hmm, hello, this is where you might need it, right?

aquamarinesteph

I recently acquired a credit card through Citi which has really decent trip insurance for covered reasons. Now it's insurance, so there are a ton of disclaimers, but I read on another forum that the same insurance through Citi that I have through an expensive card is available through the Costco card for only the price of the Costco membership. So that might be something to look at going forward.

Happy travels!

Deb Cummins

I can purchase AXA year insurance cheaply.
Found them very good and World Wide

Jeannietx

I recommend doing some comparing here, you can also call Steve and he can explain differences, etc.

https://tripinsurancestore.com/