Note: Cruzely.com nor the author is an insurance professional. Be sure to review any policy and ask your insurance company any questions you might have.
We are an affiliate of InsureMyTrip, linked below. We receive a small commission if you buy travel insurance through the links included in this article, at no cost to you.
For many people, it seems like travel insurance is something they either never buy… or something that they always buy. We’d guess there aren’t many people who sometimes buy insurance to cover their cruise and other times don’t worry about it.
But if you’re a family traveling with kids, we’d recommend always having insurance for your booked cruise.
In general, cruise insurance is a good thing to have. While the vast majority of trips go off without a hitch, the impact of a disruption or delay while cruising can be devastating. That’s because you are dealing with two thing that are unique to cruising…
First, there is the strict schedule of the cruise. Miss the boat and you could be out of a lot of money on your trip as the ship leaves without you. Second, there is the fact that on your cruise you will spend a lot of time at sea, in the middle of the ocean and far from major medical facilities. In other words, if you need medical care above what the ship’s doctor can provide, then it can get expensive quickly.
We bring this up not to scare you, but to emphasize that cruise insurance can be a good idea for anyone. As a parent traveling with kids, however, we feel it’s a necessity.
Kids Get Sick At Just the “Right” Time
If you’re a parent with younger kids, then you likely remember how much easier things used to be.
Don’t get us wrong — having children is amazing, but it was nice when you (or others in your household) rarely got sick. Now it seems like a monthly occurrence. You didn’t used to spend your nights being up late with a congested kid, worrying if it was just a simple cold or something much more serious. And you weren’t always on edge watching your child run around, scared that they might slip and fall or do more serious damage to themselves.
And just about any parent can tell you that when you’ve got a date circled that you’re looking forward to — such as the day of your cruise — then it’s seemingly guaranteed that your kid will get sick just before then. It’s all part of being a parent.
But there is little argument that it can be stressful and put a cloud over your vacation. That’s why we’d suggest that anyone traveling with kids think about getting insurance to cover their vacation.
Among other things that it can cover, travel insurance can help in the following situations:
- Your kid (or you) get sick before your trip and can’t travel
- Someone sprains an ankle or breaks a bone while on the ship
- Your child gets a nasty stomach bug from local food and needs to go to a hospital
In addition, the coverage also protects for a number of different things from delayed flights to lost bags.
(See plans from several companies at once using InsureMyTrip. Get a free quote.)
Pay Less Compared to Older Travelers
One of the best things about being a parent and buying cruise travel insurance is that prices will vary depending on age. So when you are relatively young as a parent, then your rates will usually be more affordable than what older folks pay.
We checked rates with a well-respected travel insurer, using a family of three. Our example used two 35 year-old parents and a three year-old taking a one-week cruise they paid $5,000 to go on. For the mid-tier “Gold” plan from this company, the cost came out to $219 for the trip — or about 4% of the trip cost.
The same plan would cost $379 for two people aged 65 years old — even if they travel without a child! That’s about 7.5% of the trip cost.
In other words, not only does cruise insurance give you some peace of mind when traveling with a little one, but it also doesn’t have to cost a lot money for the protection.
Where to Get a Quote for Insurance
As a parent, we know that the unexpected can happen when dealing with kids. And we also know that it can be stressful to worry about what might happen. That’s why we would suggest buying insurance for your cruise to give you peace of mind.
It will help cover many cases of potential mishaps or delays, doesn’t cost a lot of money, and can help you sleep better at night.
To get a quote, we suggest using a site like InsureMyTrip.com. This site can search several different insurers at once so you can get multiple quotes, see how much your cruise insurance might cost, and everything that it covers.
