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.
When it comes to purchasing cruise travel insurance, it’s become obvious that it’s better to be safe than sorry.
In the span of just about two months in 2017, four different hurricanes wreaked havoc on travel plans. Cruises were cancelled, flights were delayed, ports were closed, and trips were shortened (or even lengthened if you were away at sea and the cruise had to stay away until the port reopened).
All of this could cause some major impact on your pocket book. If you were caught in the middle of the turmoil you might have had to book extra hotel nights before your cruise could depart. Or maybe your flight couldn’t make it to the port and caused you to miss your ship.
Truth is, it doesn’t have to be a hurricane for cruise insurance to come in handy. You could get sick and have to cancel your trip, or get hurt on an excursion, or have your bags get lost on the way to the ship. Cruise insurance covers these instances and a lot more.
But which plan should you buy? After all, there are dozens of different companies selling plans.
That’s why we took a look at several major plans to figure out which plan was the cheapest for the greatest amount of coverage.
Different Cruise Coverage at Different Prices
Before we get any further, you might be wondering about cruise insurance sold through the cruise lines. We suggest buying third-party insurance — not the policies sold through the cruise line when you book.
We have found that cruise line policies often offer lower amounts of protection for a price similar to traditional travel insurance. In other words, you can get better value buying a separate policy.
And when it comes to third-party travel insurance, there’s no shortage of options. From big names like AIG and Berkshire Hathaway to smaller providers like TinLeg and TravelSafe your choices are nearly unlimited.
Of course, that can make things confusing in deciding which policy is for you. The good news is that for the most part, the majority of policies are similar.
You’ll always want to double check, but plans will include things like reimbursement for a cancelled trip (as long as it’s an approved reason), protection for medical expenses on your trip, and coverage for emergency evacuation.
In addition, insurance will cover lots of other things like lost bags and trip delays, and some even have additional coverage that allow you to cancel a trip for any reason (although this coverage does cost extra).
What differs the most between the policies is their coverage and their cost.
We looked at seven major travel insurers to compare their coverage versus what you’ll pay. This includes AIG, Allianz, RoamRight, TinLeg, Berkshire Hathaway, Seven Corners and TravelSafe.
For our search, we looked at the mid-level plans offered by each company. Just like car insurance, there are higher and lower levels of coverage. Here’s the coverage offered by the mid-level plan of each company:
As you can see, coverages can range wildly from policy to policy. Here, we see emergency medical coverage from as little as $25,000 to as much as $250,000. At the same time, medical evacuation coverage can range from $250,000 to as much as $1 million.
And while it might seem a no-brainer to simply get the plan with the highest coverage, it’s not always so simple. Some plans may offer high coverage in one area, but lower coverage in another, as is the case here.
In addition, there is also the cost of each plan.
To figure out who offered the cheapest rates, we did a price comparison. Rates will vary based on your specific age and trip. For our search, we looked at the prices for a 65-year-old couple from Texas traveling on a week-long cruise to Mexico. The total trip cost was estimated at $3,000.
We also ran the same search for a 35-year-old couple. Because younger couples are less likely to have medical emergencies, rates are lower.
Here are the full results:
As you can see, cruise insurance provider RoamRight offers the lowest prices in both cases for coverage amounts that are decent.
Now your specific trip will differ in cost from what’s shown here and it does pay to shop around. Just because RoamRight was the cheapest in our case doesn’t mean it will be for your search.
For the best deal, we suggest using a site like InsureMyTrip.com. This site can search several different insurers at once so you can compare multiple quotes, see how much your cruise insurance might cost, and everything that it covers. Get a free quote here.
You can also search each site directly at the links below:
AIG Travel Guard: https://www.travelguard.com
Allianz Travel Insurance: https://www.allianztravelinsurance.com
RoamRight: https://www.roamright.com/
TinLeg: https://www.tinleg.com/
Berkshire Hathaway: https://www.bhtp.com/
Seven Corners: https://www.sevencorners.com
TravelSafe: https://www.travelsafe.com/
For more on buying cruise insurance, you can read our complete guide here.
FYI, We purchased CSA but when Carnival changed our itinerary from Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and Turks & Caicos Islands to Nassau and Amber Cove, which are two islands that Carnival owns, we called our CSA and found that they do not cover if we cancel. We wanted to cancel as we did not want to go to Nassau or Amber Cove. We had to go to Half Moon Cay on our original itinerary but that was to get to Puerto Rico and St. Thomas but our insurance was worthless as Carnival had the right to change the itinerary instead of cancelling the cruise due to the hurricane damages to those islands. It is very disheartening to find that we have no options other than to lose our trip payment, is to have to take a cruise that we didn’t ask for nor want to go on. Make sure your insurance covers everything better yet, read the fine print when you sign up for a cruise and make sure you understand that the cruise line can do what they want.
Would like you to add CSA Travel Insurance (they changed to GENERALI and now their plans are better). GENERALI seems to have the highest coverages for evac.
Why weren’t they in your guide? They are mainstream travel insurance. Dont recognize some of your suppliers listed but will lookup.