Caught out with invalid travel insurance costs customer £5000 plus!!!

It has to be your worst nightmare, taken ill on your cruise to find out that the insurance you thought was in place actually isn’t at all. This is what happened to one of my customers on their cruise. He and his wife assumed the travel insurance policy they had always been covered with was still valid and up to date, only to find out when his wife was taken ill and admitted to a foreign hospital that in fact it wasn’t and they were not going to pay for her treatment or stay in hospital. The policy they thought they had in place had infact expired and not be automatically re newed as they thought. My customer was faced with a medical bill of over £5000, which luckily enough he was in a position to pay. Imagine if not, his wife wouldn’t have been treated by the hospital and they would have been stranded in a foreign country, no hospital care!

I often get asked the question, do I need travel insurance for a cruise? Yes of course is the answer to this, and often you can get cruise specific travel insurance to make sure you are fully covered for all eventualities.

Be careful if you are covered with your bank, or your credit card or maybe even your mortgage, that the insurance is valid for the cruise you are about to take. It’s no good finding out when it’s too late or you too could be faced with a huge bill that you can’t afford to pay or even worse be faced with the hospital turning you away…sounds un thinkable but it happens.

Travel insurance is a requirement for you to board any cruise ship, it’s in the term and conditions, arrive at the port without it and you will be refused boarding. Some passengers I speak to say “well if they don’t check why do I need it!”  For most cruise lines you have to complete an on line check in before they will release your cruise tickets and insurance details have to be completed prior to your cruise.  There is also nothing to stop them checking this again once you are at the port ready to embark your cruise, so don’t be caught out and of course if you do manage to board your ship and then you need your travel insurance to pay out for emergency medical treatment you are in trouble!

Have you ever been caught without travel insurance? I would as always love to hear your experiences.

thanks Abbi x