Cruise Travel Insurance: Insure Your Dream Travels
Keith and Donna were excited about their luxury cruise trip to Galapagos. It was a dream that was coming true after a decade of planning. They were able to afford this trip after so many years of saving and a simple lifestyle. They had planned it as their second honeymoon. As the date of their departure approached, they received some bad news. Keith's mother was critically ill. She was diagnosed with a terminal disease and doctors were not hopeful that she would live too long.
The news was double-disaster—not only were they extremely saddened by the prospect of losing his mother to a grave illness, but they also discovered that their cruise booking, like most other cruise bookings, was 100 percent non-refundable: a large proportion of their saving was bound to be wasted when they cancelled the trip. Keith bitterly regretted not taking his wife's advice on purchasing cruise travel insurance.
You can use cruise travel insurance plans to reimburse trip costs if you cancel the trip before it starts. If one of the travelers is ill or injured and the trip needs to be abandoned midway, you recover your money through cruise travel insurance. Some added benefits that are part of this plan include reimbursement of medical expenses and evacuation of sick or injured travelers.
You can pick from several types of cruise insurance plans. These major differences in these plans are reasons they accept as acceptable for trip cancellation and the people that they cover as part of the plan. In some cases, the plan is limited to the travelers and in other cases, the plan covers the travelers and family members.
Plans that offer evacuation cover may pay for evacuation only to fixed local hospitals, or they may allow for evacuation to a hospital of the insured person's choice, within their home country. It may be possible to get a medical upgrade for the plan so that it covers medical expenses as well.
If you're interested in adventure sports and are planning to indulge in some of them, then do confirm whether the cruise insurance plan you intend to purchase covers any of the activities you're interested in. Some policies cover adventure sports like scuba diving and jet skiing and some don't.
Some trips may be cancelled because of problems that the travel provider is facing—either financial or otherwise. In such cases, certain cruise insurance plans may not cover cancellation costs. Some plans do cover financial insolvency, but you need to buy the policy within 21 days of paying the initial trip deposit. Some other plans cover financial insolvency even if you have bought the plan just 24 hours after the final trip payment.
Many cruise insurance plans offer coverage if the cause of trip cancellation is extreme weather conditions. However, cancellation due to terrorism is not within the scope of most cruise insurance plans. In some cases, the plan reimburses medical expense coverage ranging from $ 10,000 to $500,000, whereas evacuation and repatriation can be covered for up to $1 million.
About the Author
Adele Pitt frequently writes about travel and travel insurance. Want to find out more about Cruise insurance, then visit http://www.cruiseinsurance.org/
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