Cruise travel insurance can protect prepaid trip expenses and provide important medical, evacuation, delay, and baggage benefits when a voyage does not go as planned. However, policies differ significantly, and the protection sold by a cruise line may not provide the same benefits as a comprehensive third-party travel insurance policy.
A cruise vacation can combine several separately purchased arrangements: airfare, hotels, ground transportation, the cruise fare, shore excursions, and prepaid tours. A single disruption can affect more than one reservation.
Before purchasing coverage, answer these seven essential questions about your itinerary, health insurance, nonrefundable expenses, and policy exclusions.
Key Takeaways
- Cruise line cancellation waivers and travel insurance policies are not necessarily the same.
- Standard trip cancellation coverage generally requires a reason listed in the policy.
- Medical care aboard a ship and in foreign ports may not be covered by a U.S. health plan.
- Emergency medical evacuation limits should reflect the cruise destination and itinerary.
- Missed connection coverage can be important when flights and cruise departures are close together.
- Supplier refunds and credits reduce the amount of an insurable loss.
- Time-sensitive benefits may require purchasing coverage soon after the first trip payment.
What Does Cruise Travel Insurance Cover?
Cruise travel insurance is a policy or package of benefits designed to address specified financial risks before and during a cruise vacation.
A comprehensive plan may include:
- Trip cancellation
- Trip interruption
- Travel delay
- Missed connection
- Emergency medical treatment
- Emergency medical evacuation
- Repatriation
- Baggage loss or damage
- Baggage delay
- Travel assistance services
- Accidental death and dismemberment
Coverage is subject to policy definitions, limits, deductibles, exclusions, and documentation requirements.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners explains that travel insurance can cover certain trip costs when a traveler must cancel, return early, or address a covered medical emergency. Each policy determines which situations qualify.
Insurance cannot prevent a storm, illness, missed departure, or itinerary change. Its purpose is to reimburse eligible financial losses or arrange covered assistance after a specified event occurs.
Question 1: How Much of the Cruise Is Nonrefundable?
Start by calculating the amount you could actually lose if the trip were canceled.
Include eligible prepaid, nonrefundable expenses such as:
- Cruise fare
- Port fees that would not be refunded
- Pre-cruise and post-cruise hotels
- Nonrefundable airfare
- Airport or port transfers
- Prepaid excursions
- Tours purchased separately
- Vacation rentals
- Rail tickets
- Event reservations
Do not automatically insure refundable expenses. If a hotel can be canceled without a penalty, its full price may not need to be included in the insured trip cost.
Keep cancellation policies for each reservation. A cruise line, airline, hotel, and tour operator can all have different deadlines and penalties.
Avoid underinsuring the trip
Some policy benefits or waivers require the traveler to insure all eligible prepaid, nonrefundable trip costs. If additional payments are made later, the insured amount may need to be updated within a specified time.
For example, a traveler might initially insure a $3,000 cruise deposit but forget to add the final cruise payment and separately booked excursions. That could affect the amount available for a claim or eligibility for certain time-sensitive benefits.
Avoid insuring money you can recover
Travel insurance is intended to reimburse a loss, not duplicate a supplier refund.
If the cruise line refunds $2,000 and the airline refunds $500, those amounts ordinarily are not part of the remaining financial loss. Credits and vouchers may also affect a claim depending on their terms and whether the traveler accepts them.
Create a trip-cost worksheet and update it whenever another nonrefundable payment is made.
Question 2: Which Cancellation Reasons Are Covered?
Standard trip cancellation insurance generally reimburses eligible prepaid, nonrefundable costs only when the cancellation results from a covered reason stated in the policy.
Possible covered reasons can include:
- Unexpected serious illness or injury
- Death or hospitalization of a qualifying family member
- Severe weather affecting the trip
- A natural disaster affecting the traveler’s home or destination
- Jury duty or a qualifying legal obligation
- A home becoming uninhabitable
- Certain common-carrier disruptions
- Certain involuntary employment events
- Other events specifically listed in the policy
The list varies. A reason covered by one plan may be excluded by another.
Common reasons not normally covered by standard cancellation benefits can include:
- Changing your mind
- Fear of travel
- Disliking a changed itinerary
- Routine work conflicts
- Failure to obtain required travel documents
- Known or foreseeable events
- A medical issue excluded as pre-existing
- Canceling because a travel companion no longer wants to go
What if the cruise line cancels?
When the cruise line cancels or fails to perform the transportation, request the supplier’s refund or remedy first.
The Federal Maritime Commission has limited jurisdiction over certain passenger vessel operators embarking passengers from U.S. ports. Its cruise passenger assistance guidance advises passengers to review the ticket contract because it defines many cruise line obligations involving cancellations and itinerary changes.
Insurance may address eligible costs that remain nonrefundable, but it does not replace money the cruise operator already owes.
Consider Cancel for Any Reason carefully
Cancel for Any Reason coverage, known as CFAR, can provide partial reimbursement when the traveler cancels for a reason outside the standard policy.
CFAR commonly requires:
- Purchase within a limited period after the initial trip deposit
- Insurance of all required prepaid, nonrefundable costs
- Cancellation before a stated deadline
- Compliance with all policy conditions
CFAR usually reimburses only a percentage of the loss, not 100%. The NAIC travel insurance overview notes that CFAR benefits are broader but more expensive and subject to strict timing requirements.
Question 3: Will Your Health Insurance Work at Sea and Abroad?
Do not assume your domestic health insurance will cover treatment aboard the ship or in a foreign port.
Contact the health insurer and ask:
- Is emergency treatment outside the United States covered?
- Is onboard cruise ship medical care covered?
- Is foreign care treated as out of network?
- Must the member obtain prior authorization?
- Will the plan pay the provider directly?
- Must the traveler pay first and request reimbursement?
- Does the plan cover medical evacuation?
- Are follow-up services after returning home covered?
The U.S. Department of State advises cruise passengers to obtain medical and emergency evacuation protection suitable for their itinerary. It also states that U.S. Medicare and Medicaid generally do not cover medical costs abroad.
The CDC’s cruise ship guidance explains that onboard medical visits, testing, and medication are typically not included in the cruise fare. Travelers may have to pay when care is provided.
