so sad
we had scheduled (since March) the October (?19 )danube.. Budapest to Prague.. a big deal and special event for us.
When preparing we asked each other do we need trip insurance...(no... we are healthy we are young {ok...65}..never have any problems). But in the end decided whats another $600x2 in the scheme of things.
Well bing bang dontcha know...the Mr. ends up hospitalized TWICE in August (with a heart thingy){the guy rides his bike 25 miles a day!!}.
The trip was loomng out there.,,will he better or not? Do we want to have to be in a Budapest ..(or other foreign) hospital? I'm an RN and see a TON of people on vacation and IN a strange hospital.mine)
Long story short we pulled the trigger and made a claim...which is still in progress.
He's almost back to 100%
If you are on that trip I'd LOVE to hear how it is.
Ill keep you posted on how the insurance is.
When preparing we asked each other do we need trip insurance...(no... we are healthy we are young {ok...65}..never have any problems). But in the end decided whats another $600x2 in the scheme of things.
Well bing bang dontcha know...the Mr. ends up hospitalized TWICE in August (with a heart thingy){the guy rides his bike 25 miles a day!!}.
The trip was loomng out there.,,will he better or not? Do we want to have to be in a Budapest ..(or other foreign) hospital? I'm an RN and see a TON of people on vacation and IN a strange hospital.mine)
Long story short we pulled the trigger and made a claim...which is still in progress.
He's almost back to 100%
If you are on that trip I'd LOVE to hear how it is.
Ill keep you posted on how the insurance is.
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Comments
for 30 grand makes the insurance look pretty good.
On one of my Tauck trips, there was a discussion about insurance during one of the long bus rides. Turned out only two of us didn't buy insurance - me and an actuary. Though not in the field, I'm a math guy at heart and know that insurance has a negative expected value, as the insurnace company wouldn't be in business if they didn't make money selling it.
The way to look at it is assuming the premium is 10% of the trip cost, do you think the odds are greater than 1 in 10 that you will cancel your trip. If you have health issues that make that likely, by all means buy the insurance. Also, can you afford NOT to buy it, which brings in a statistical term called Certainty Equivalent.
Certainty Equivalent considers how it would affect your life. For example, suppose I offered you a bet. We'll flip a fair coin (50:50 chance of heads or tails) one time. I'll pay you $1.10 if it's heads, and you pay me $1.00 if it's tails. Would you take that bet? Of course you would! Now supposed we did the same coin flip, but instead, change the amounts to $1.1 million and $1 million. Despite having a significant edge on that bet, most people wouldn't do it because if they lose, it would have a significant impact on their lives. That's Certainty Equivalent.
A friend who had never traveled with Tauck before asked me and another friend to go on a Tauck tour, I would not go for several reasons, but she never gets insurance for anything. Wouldn’t you know that the other friend who did take insurance broke a shoulder there on the trip but did not leave the tour because the other friend did not take the insurance and did not want to spoil her vacation even though they spent most of the rest of the time in the hotel room. She says the tour director and Tauck were unhelpful, but I think she did not get the help she needed because she did not want to make a fuss. When she got back I made some suggestions and I think Tauck satisfied her.
When we went on our one and only and last trip with OAT, they charged us $1200each for insurance, we later found out that you don’t get the cost of the tour reimbursed if you cancel, they want you to book another trip, but I think it has to be within the year, which is fine except that if you have to cancel with something that means you will not be able to travel ever again or for a while, that is no good. And I read constant terrible reports of how people are treated on canceling plus any trips they do want to take being sold out. On our tour with them, one of the people who did not take the insurance ended up without a hospital visit, a very dirty hospital, the pot she had to use for a sterile urine sample was dirty. Anyway, she got treatment and lived to tell the tale. She records she can’t afford the insurance yet travels all over the world. This is one of the reasons I won’t risk traveling with that company.
When insurance is mentioned on the forum, I always tell that my father died unexpectedly while on vacation abroad, I can’t imagine the cost of repatriating without insurance.
They had to bring in a private jet from the states.
$12,000 each for insurance? Wow! That sounds very high.
Good comments BKMD. I too am good at math (though I live in Las Vegas, a city built on the concept that Americans don't understand risk and probabilities). Having now taken 13 trips with Tauck, I have now saved enough that if I had to write off a trip, I'd still be ahead. I find their insurance awfully expensive, especially when you consider the relatively short period that you are at risk for the entire amount (i.e. if you cancel before the final payment, you are only out the deposit). However, I do understand that there are good reasons why some people might want to take the insurance.
Let me also suggest an alternative. The Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card offers really good trip cancellation insurance as part of its package of benefits ($10,000 per person per year). It also offers $2,500 in emergency medical when you travel. While this card has a steep fee ($450/yr) you get 2/3 of that back in a rebate and 3% cash back on travel (including Tauck) and dining. The rewards increase by 50% more if you spend them on travel at their website. It also has other great benefits like airport lounge passes, rebating global entry membership fees and the best rental car policy I've ever seen. Anyway, it's a really good alternative to buying travel insurance, provided you travel regularly.
Disclaimer: I am not associated with Chase, except as a customer.
And they did! The cost of a three day delay in London was more than several thousand dollars, and they paid everything including compensation for the missed days of our trip. We were not staying in Motel 6, and we were not using taxis, and we did not have our checked luggage. (;-)
Oops, too many zeros, I corrected it!
I figured as much. ????
Now seeing (and hearing) the low water levels are impacting some of the cruises.
Perhaps there is a reason this happened to us?
Did Tauck put your insurance premium in a "Dream Saver" account?
AlanS, what is a "Dream Saver" account?
I'm not sure whether it still exists or under what circumstances it was/is offered, but in the fall of 2015 when we had to cancel our Best of Ireland tour due to a covered circumstance, Tauck put our Guest Protection Program premium in what they called a "Dream Saver" account which we could apply to the cost of any future trip taken over the next year (12 months?)- which we did! : )