Hi,

I've searched and found a few somewhat relevant threads, however most end up discussing medical travel insurance, which is not necessarily what I am interested in.

I have a trip coming up that will include 4-5 non-refundable one way flights within a fully refundable round trip. Most of the hotels will be refundable up until day of arrival as well, so I am really only concerned about the non-refundable flights, which will likely add up to $1000-1500/per person (family of 5).

I want to make sure that I am protected in case I need to cancel the trip due to family illness or death, including those not traveling. I have never purchased trip insurance before and have checked out insuremytrip.com, but the options vary so much in price and seemingly what they offer.

It seems like medical insurance/evacuation is a major factor in purchasing trip insurance, however I THINK that I am covered by the combination of my regular health insurance/purchasing the tickets on a Centurion card.

Does anyone have experience purchasing insurance in order to protect themselves in a similar situation? I'd love to hear your advice/experiences.

Regards,
Troy

Let's summarize what's out there in the Travel Insurance industry, and perhaps that will clear things up.

Contestant #1: Travel Medical Insurance, and its brother Travel Medical Evacuation Insurance: covers medical expenses, such as hospital costs, treatment, and possibly medication in the event you are injured while travelling. Medical Evacuation, possibly called Repatriation, gets you out safely by air ambulance if local facilities are insufficient to treat you. If you die while travelling, repatriation will cover the cost of getting your body back home.

Contestant #2: Trip Cancellation Insurance: covers the non-refundable costs you have paid, such as non-refundable, non-transferable airline tickets, prepaid hotel stays, and other such, in the event of a "covered event." No, "because you feel like it" is not a covered event. Examples of covered events are losing your job (where it became known after you purchased your tickets and insurance), death or critical illness of yourself or of immediate family, official travel warning (earthquake warning, terrorism warning) from consular affairs after you've paid for your trip and insurance, and flooding in your house, rendering it uninhabitable.

Contestant #3: Trip Interruption Insurance: covers the cost of getting you back home after you've started your trip in the event of a "covered event." Examples are similar to those of Trip Cancellation.

Contestant #4: Trip Delay Insurance: covers the cost of rebooking, hotels, prepaid event forfeitures, food, and catching up to a tour in the event that you misconnect a flight through no fault of your own, or even miss getting to the airport on time due to circumstances such as terrible unforeseeable traffic.

Contestant #5: Baggage Insurance: covers the cost of replacing critical items in your baggage in the event it gets lost or delayed. Examples include getting a new suit if you had a suit in your luggage and required it in the immediate term, such as a business meeting next day.

Contestant #6: Accidental Death and Dismemberment Insurance: pays out (notice that this is not "covers the cost") if you lose life, limbs, or sight while you are on a common transport carrier, such as a passenger plane where you are a normal passenger with a company that takes anybody that pays up. Taxis, for example, fall under this umbrella.

Separated post to actually answer the OP's question:

It is very likely that your Centurion card covers Trip Cancellation, Delay, Interruption, as well as Accidental Death and Dismemberment. Also likely it will cover Baggage, but that's not a certainty. Travel medical insurance may be part of your employment benefits. However, its coverage may not be enough in the event of a serious accident, such as getting hit by a car. For some reason, coverage of $10k USD seems to be the "normal" level when you purchase travel medical insurance at, say, worldnomads.com. Depending on where you're travelling, this could be grossly insufficient.

From a separate thread, it appears that most US credit cards (even Amex Platinum, for example) do not cover travel medical insurance.

It looks like you have an AMEX plat, as do I, and I believe they have travel insurance, but only if you pay with the AMEX plat. I'm not sure, so maybe you could make a post in the American Express forum.