Trip Insurance That Will Cover COVID Resurgence?

[fmerkel]

Don't even think about it, unless you are willing to be very frustrated and potentially lose the entire amount. There essentially is no insurance for this.
Get creative with something personal and romantic. In the long run you may find it more memorable.

 

[ibj40]

I just turned 70 and retired from full employment, formerly with full benefits.

Now I am on Medicare, with a pretty decent Medi-Gap plan (F, if you are familiar with the various plans). Over the past 20 years, my wife and I have taken at least two dive trips each year, with the majority of them being outside of the United States.

Going international is important, as primary Medicare doesn't cover anything, but my Medi-Gap will cover up to $50K (lifetime benefit).

We are both in good physical condition, and neither one of us has been exposed to anyone that we know of who could/might have been COVID-19 positive.

Clearly, for us to travel internationally (although we love Puerto Rico, where Medicare is intact), we will need to acquire something that will cover me (she is not on Medicare yet) in case I might acquire the virus, or otherwise.

I'd be curious about getting information from insurance insiders who might view this discussion, if you might have any suggestions as to what we should do.

Thanks!

 

[wnissen]

We are mid-30s and planning on having a kid shortly after getting married, so a big trip would likely be either shortly after our wedding or 10 years from now...

I've never used trip insurance before. Just figured maybe someone would cover it for a bit higher premium. I'll just try and plan it out with a possible cancellation in mind...

Travel insurance is such a popular product to sell because it's very profitable. I have (knock on wood) been on over 100 trips for business and pleasure over the last 10 years, and only had issues on a handful. On one we had a job loss and had to eat the non-refundable portion of the trip. That hurt. But many policies don't cover job loss. On another we got hit by a category 4 hurricane after we had already traveled to Florida, and we got a refund on our cruise and turned it into a Disneyworld trip, basically a wash financially. We actually had travel insurance for that one, but didn't need it. Had to cancel a train trip to LA due to Covid-19 and eventually found the magic hidden link to get a refund from AirBnB. (Shame on them!) Had to call Amtrak eventually but got a full refund for that, too. My mother got screwed out of a trans-Atlantic business class seat for a lousy $300 voucher on a flight I booked, but again, travel insurance doesn't cover the airline being a schmuck. We did end up getting in a scrape in a parking lot and a semi-serious accident on separate trips to Europe, but the credit card insurance did cover us then. Props to Mastercard and Visa! That's a very small percentage of trips, maybe 5%. And none of the trips (knock on wood again) were a total loss. That's a ton of profit for the underwriter. Insurance is truly only worthwhile for expenses you can't afford to cover on your own. Hope you have a great trip!

Here's an article from consumer advocate Chris Elliott you might find helpful on the limits of insurance, particularly "cancel for 'any' reason" policies.

 

[RJMETZ]

You can buy insurance for ANYTHING. All you need is enough $$$.

You just won't like the cost is all.

Probably true. You used to be able to insure anything thru Lloyds of London probably less so today. Maybe a $15k premium for $18k trip. LOL!