Yesterday my youngest daughter and I made Beef Bourguignon for dinner. Amy read the ingredient list to me over the phone while I walked through Ralph's collecting the necessary items.Back home, we began peeling carrots, chopping onions, slicing mushrooms and browning stew-beef.
By the time all the ingredients, including a bottle of Temecula Valley's own Callaway Merlot, had been prepared, combined in the pot and simmered, it took about three hours.
Neither Amy nor I had ever made this dish, but we had the courage of our convictions, and it turned out great. The risk was that we might create an inedible meal, wasting about $20 of ingredients. In any case, we would have fun cooking, and I was able to do my high voiced impersonation of Julia Child.
When booking a vacation, the stakes are much higher. If you book the wrong trip for your family, you may not hear the end of it. You don't want to spend a miserable week away from home with unhappy family members. However, you have a friend in the travel industry who can help you avoid making the wrong decisions. That's me. If you share where you want to go and, more importantly, who you are and what you like in a vacation, we can deliver a wonderful trip and amazing memories for years to come.......
…....as long as nothing unexpected happens to ruin your plans. That's where travel insurance comes in. While I don't want to be pushy, the longer I have been selling travel, the more I have realized the value of insurance. As a disclaimer, let me state that I rarely buy travel insurance for my own family, but I understand exactly what the risks are. If I'm not able to go for any reason, I lose the money I paid for my trip. If I get sick on the trip, I have to pay the bills and then fight my insurance company for payment. If I lose my luggage...well, I simply don't give my luggage to anyone, carrying only one small suitcase no matter how far I go or for how long.
If you don't have insurance, then there's frequently nothing that can be done if something bad happens that forces you to change your plans. A few months back, you may remember the volcano erupting in Iceland that basically shut down air travel in and out of Western Europe. One of my clients who lives in Hawaii called a month before her cruise to ask what could be done. She hadn't purchased insurance, but she wanted Princess to allow her to move to a different itinerary. She reasoned that it wouldn't cost Princess anything to move her, since they would still keep the amount she paid for the cruise and probably even make a little more on the other cruise. As I explained, the cruise industry has built a high reputation for customer satisfaction and providing excellent value by adhering to their business model, and part of that is charging cancellation penalties beginning about 75 days before a cruise embarks to ensure that almost everyone who books goes on the trip. I counseled her to wait it out, because a lot can happen in a month, and sure enough, by the time her Scandinavia/Russia cruise came, she had no trouble getting to or from Copenhagen, Star Princess' home port for summer. However, it could have turned out differently.
The point is, none of us knows what potential problems the future may bring, whether it is based on weather, health, airline difficulties or other factors. However, we can bring that risk to a tolerable level by adding travel insurance for a small fee.
One of the easiest ways to add insurance is with the cruise line. Almost every cruise line has a unique policy, even if they are under the same corporate umbrella, like Carnival's World's Leading Cruise Lines, where Carnival, Princess and Holland America have radically different policies geared to their unique clientèle. To make a long story short, let me just say that cruise line insurance in general has become far more competitive in the last few years, with Royal Caribbean and Celebrity supplementing the standard 100% cancellation refund for serious health problems or death in the family with some independent air coverage and 75% future cruise credit for “any reason” cancellation. Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Carnival charge based on brackets of cruise prices, whereas Princess and Holland America charge percentages of the trip cost. It's complicated, but when it comes time to add insurance, I'm happy to explain it and forward information specific to that line. All have two things in common. You must purchase the insurance before final payment, and pre-existing medical conditions are not covered by the 100% cancellation coverage.
By pre-existing conditions, that doesn't mean that you can never have been sick. It means generally that no change in your medical condition has occurred in the past few months. If you had a heart attack two years ago and been on the same medication since, then that generally wouldn't be considered a pre-existing condition that would be excluded, but if a month ago your doctor decided to change your medication because your condition had deteriorated, then it would.
For that reason, many people with health problems prefer Access America insurance. Access America is a third party insurer, and they have the best coverage there is. However, their policies are based on age as well as trip cost, with percentages increasing with age, much like life insurance. For younger people, Access America is actually less.
By the way, in the twelve year interim since writing this blog initially --- I editing this blog on April 1, 2022 --- several things have changed, including the fact that as a senior citizen I now always buy travel insurance to cover medical while out of the country, and Access America is now called Allianz, but the basics remain true. I had to change the insurance company video at the top and am inserting a Jimmy Buffett video here, because I must have had a different expired video in this long block of uninterrupted text text.
Anyway, you get $1 million emergency medical evacuation, for example, compared to $10,000 to $50,000 on cruise line policies. If you buy Access America insurance on or before the official final payment date for your vacation, then your pre-existing conditions are covered too, with the caveat that you must be healthy enough to have a reasonable expectation of making the trip at the time you make the booking. While this policy can get more expensive for older travelers, making the cruise line policies relatively inexpensive, if they seniors have serious pre-existing conditions, this may be a better choice. The “cancel for any reason” clause of many cruise lines has eroded this advantage to some extent.
The most obvious time to buy insurance is at the time of booking, so that you are covered immediately and don't forget to add it later. What if you book Access America insurance but cancel your trip before cancellation penalties come into play? Your policy is good for 770 days from the day of purchase. As such, you can apply it to a different trip. Access America has an option called the Biz Pack, which covers work-related reasons for cancellation, but that must be purchased within 14 days of trip deposit to be valid.
The second time to think about insurance is with final payment. With Access America, this is your last chance to get full coverage, and it is your last chance to buy the cruise line travel protection. Don't forget to ask about insurance, if you don't already have it at this point.
However, if you get to the day before your cruise and decide you really would like to be covered for trip interruption, lost baggage and 100% of all your emergency medical and dental requirements (up to the policy limit), you can still buy Access America insurance.
One other note, Access America also offers a “Cancel Anytime” policy, with 80% cash refund for non-covered reasons, but the amounts of coverage are smaller (i.e., trip interruption only covered to 100% of trip purchase price versus 150% for the standard policy), and it isn't available after final payment for obvious reasons.
I have just touched the surface of travel insurance, and I've still probably bored you, but remember you shouldn't be afraid to pursue your dreams. Just invest a little to insure yourself against the worst.
