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Trip Insurance
What sort of trip insurance do you all get? I always get the Tauck insurance, but wondered what you all might get instead of it, or even to cover trip delays/Covid mishaps/illness.
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What sort of trip insurance do you all get? I always get the Tauck insurance, but wondered what you all might get instead of it, or even to cover trip delays/Covid mishaps/illness.
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Because I made my deposit for my upcoming 2022 Z, B and SA trip in 2020 the Tauck Guest Protection insurance only provided $1,000 in trip delay/interruption. I upgraded to $2,000 for $49.00 by contacting AON travel. It is their TVPPLUS option. You will need your Tauck reservation number if you wish to buy this extra protection. aontravelproplus.com. Additionally, I purchased aTravel Select option from Travelex Insurance that provides me with $250.00 per day for trip delay/interruption. I think I paid about $100.00 for that. As you can see,I am concerned about playing COVID roulette and want to cover as many bases as possible. Have a wonderful trip!
I NEVER buy trip insurance.
I've told this story before, but on one tour, during a long bus ride, the subject of insurance came up. There were two of us on the trip who did NOT buy insurance - me and an actuary.
In mathematical terms, insurance has a negative expected value. That's how the insurance company makes money - by charging more than they historically pay out. There's another mathematical term called Certainty Equivalent. What it means is if you lose the bet (i.e., the trip is terminated for whatever reason), will you suffer a lifestyle change as a result of the loss?
In simple terms, I consider myself self-insured. I've never had to terminate a trip early, and I've paid for at least one trip just from the money saved by not buying trip insurance. There's also my credit card which provides some trip cancellation and medical coverage, which I've never used.
Always buy the Tauck insurance. I’ve had to use it twice and was very satisfied with the coverage.
Compared to other travel insurance, the Tauck price and coverage is very reasonable. We have used two other travel companies with similar tours which are cheaper but insurance was as much as double what Tauck charges. We have literally just booked a very cheap vacation, a river cruise. We searched for insurance, it varied in price a lot but still Tauck is cheaper. In the end, we took insurance just for the cruise but not the airfare, if we cancel, we can at least get vouchers so unless we are never able to travel again, we can use that airline for another Im depending trip. but the insurance included covid coverage, repatriation and medical. BKMD, I guess you are under 65, it’s different once you are on Medicare, no coverage abroad. And I’ve told this story before too, my father died on a vacation, heart attack out of the blue, many years ago, if they had not taken out insurance, I don’t know how we would have paid to get his body returned, my mother certainly did not have it and neither did we with two young children. Seriously, BKMD, could your family afford to bring you back, if they can, then no worries.
If you can afford Tauck, you can afford Trip Insurance. My brother was killed in a car wreck here in America when we were in Europe and our Insurance paid for last minute emergency flights back for us and reimbursed us for all lost expenses. We typically don't book with Tauck, as we find cheaper, more comprehensive insurance through USAA - they use Travel Insured and we have NEVER had an issue - they do provide Medical Evacuation. My friend is Travel Agent at AAA and they sell Allianz which she said is also good. As long as you are comparing apples to apples, and get something that works for you, I don't think you can go wrong. If you have access to USAA, I can't speak highly enough of them. I'd use Tauck without hesitation if we didn't have USAA access. But I'd also look at Allianz just to compare.
Terrilynn,
I am so sorry for your tragic loss.
Terrilynn, Me too.
terrilyn, how heartbreaking. Thank you for sharing your story. May his memory be a blessing.
Yes, just terrible.
So sad. I’m sorry for your loss. May his memory be a blessing.
Terrylynn, I am so sorry to hear about your brother.
We always take Tauck insurance and remember that back to back trips you pay the insurance just once so it does save money. If I remember correctly I think you are allowed ten days between the first and second trip to take advantage of the insurance.
@terrilynn What a terrible tragedy! Thank you for sharing it with us.
We always take the Tauck insurance. But yesterday I booked an AmaWaterways Egypt tour/river cruise. The Tauck trip wasn't on the December schedule which is when we wanted to go. The travel agent who helped me recommended Allianz over the Ama coverage. I have to say it is very nice. I think our trip will total around $17k and the insurance will be around $1500 for both of us I am attaching the highpoints.
So way more expensive than Tauck. So do you have to declare any pre existing?
So far, we've only taken trip medical insurance, through Travel Insured International (USAA). It's just a couple of hundred dollars. That's something you do really need because Medicare does not pay for medical services outside the US.
We have $20,000 of trip insurance coverage through our Chase Sapphire Reserve card (as long as the trip was charged to that card) but have never had to use it. But as BKMD said earlier, if we do have a loss, I expect that the money we've saved by not purchasing trip insurance will be more than the loss. And as he also said, we'd regret the loss, but it wouldn't change our lives.
You'd have to check your coverage, but some plans do not cover you if you come down with COVID a few days before the trip. Also note that essentially none of them cover you if the tour provider cancels the tour. They only cover you if you cannot travel for any of the covered reasons that are specified in their coverage document. If a cruise line goes bankrupt, as Crystal did, you get nothing from the insurance.
True, however, several of the Medicare supplement plans (C-G and N) do cover emergency care while traveling outside the US. In addition, your credit card that you used to book the trip may provide additional coverage.
The insurance I have for my non Tauck tour covers Covid. We used Sqaremouth to help us choose
We have separate evacuation insurance where we pay an annual premium, it’s fairly cheap and covers you anytime we are more than 100 miles from home
BKMD, you wrote “ True, however, several of the Medicare supplement plans (C-G and N) do cover emergency care while traveling outside the US”
Please show me where that is within Medicare in those plans? I’m confused. Medicare doesn’t pay for outbid country medical expenses. It also depends which state you live in.
You'll have to check the individual policy for precise verbiage and coverage, but here's a summary on Medicare's web site:
https://www.medicare.gov/supplements-other-insurance/medigap-travel
I just did some searching on the web. Looks like plans C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, M, and N pay 80% of the billed charges for
certain medically necessary emergency care outside the U.S, with a lifetime limit of $50,000. You're responsible for the other 20%.
Here's a document from Medicare about this.
One thing the commercial travel insurance provides is for the cost of repatriation, even if that requires a special flight with nursing care. That's pretty rare, however. I doubt if any of the Medigap plans provide that.
One thing that might be of real value is to allow Tauck to handle your airline reservations. That way, if a trip is cancelled, you'll get reimbursed for the airfare as well as the trip.
We had scheduled the Peru and Galapagos tour and got cancelled because of COVID. We had our airline reservations with LATAM (not through Tauck) and LATAM gave us a refund (not just a credit). I thought we were lucky.
Of course, as soon as Tauck was traveling again, we went on that trip and bought the tickets on LATAM.
As I understand it, Tauck insiramce does cover flights even if you don’t book them through Tauck. I have not tested this but I think Alan S did.
When Tauck canceled our Singapore tour before Covid and asked is to book a different date when they were consolidating, they gave us the $1200 it cost to change our flights. Then Covid came along and the tour was cancelled anyway. Tauck lost that money,
A lot of how the information is phrased in that particular document says that Medicare “may” (“may” being the buzz word) pay for this or pay for that. I would not take the chance to only rely on Medicare. The stress of not knowing would not be worth it. You would have read all of the loopholes within Medicare to remotely understand what is covered and what isn’t and when it is covered and when it is not. It’s not clear enough for me.
BKMD, I guess you are not old enough to have a Medicare?
Re: OurTravels34 - Yes, I agree. We always purchase trip medical insurance. It's much less expensive than full trip insurance and I feel better that if we had a medical emergency, we'd be covered. Medical expenses can blow up a lot bigger than you think.
For those who want to read the answers
https://www.medicare.gov/Pubs/pdf/11037-Medicare-Coverage-Outside-United-States.pdf
British - you are correct that Tauck insurance does cover airfare if you booked it on your own. This happened to me when I had to cancel my first try to go to Switzerland in 2019. We had to cancel a week before we were to leave covered under medical for a family member. AON reimbursed us for the cost of our flights w/documentation of course to back up why we had to cancel.
British - I started on Medicare earlier this year. I'm officially old now
I think some of you are confusing Medicare itself with the Medicare supplement. It's true that Medicare doesn't cover services outside the US, with rare exception (mostly relating to Alaska and being near the US-Canadian border and being covered if the nearest hospital is in Canada rather than the US). However, it's many of the Medicare supplement plans that do cover foreign medical services ($250 deductible, 80%, up to $50K lifetime benefit). It's one of the rare circumstances where the supplement covers something that Medicare doesn't cover.
And for those of you who are retired military with Tricare for Life (and Medicare), as far as I can tell you are covered, but I won't bet my life on it. Here is an official link: https://www.tricare.mil/Plans/HealthPlans/TFL/TFL_O and a non-official one (article (about Thailand): http://www.jusmagthai.com/rao_portal/FAQ.pdf
It appears that it is an after-the-fact reimbursement coverage rather than an up-front treatment, medical evacuation, etc. policy.
Alan - I looked into this a few years ago and was informed that we are not covered unless you live overseas, however, it could have changed.