I have had to use travel insurance and found the hard way that the Amex insurance, where you use the card to buy your tickets, hotel, etc., isn't worth crap in an leaemergency. DH had also bought separate travel insurance through insurance company, on a whim, I think it was AIG or something similar.
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Anyway here is what happened: DH and I were on trip just the 2 of us and my mil was watching our children at her house. She was relatively young 59, and in very good health. We were on a small island in the atlantic, about a 2.5 he plane ride. MIL had been begging us to leave kids with her so she ova have her own time with them.

MIL has a stroke and is rushed to hospital. it takes 2 days for someone to track us down (why is for another thread) and it is unclear who has our children or where they are so needless to say we are in a rush to get back to D.C. Amex is zero help. None. We needed help getting new flights and refunds on prepaid car rental and hotels. And as time being of the essence I didn't have time or patience to be patient with them. So we then called the private trip insurance and they were great. Basically they told us as my MIL being sick constituted a direct relative under the terms of our policy they would refund us any fees associated with changing dates. They covered the change fee in airline tickets. The hotel was nice enough to not even charge us for the rest of the unused week. Although they could have, and we got the rest of the re tal carnreimbursed. We had to handle all the arrangements and hen submit the fees. The insurance wasn't like a concierge handling it. But in all the $125 policy saved us $1000 in the end. This was 5 years ago. I hope Amex has gotten better because they were a total waste of time.

We planned a 40th anniversary beach trip for my parents (this has been about 15 years ago). Did not buy insurance for the condo we rented. We were driving to the locale. It was the first time we had planned anything like this for our parents. They worked hard all their lives, rarely taking vacations, and were genuinely excited to take a trip like this, all organized and paid for by their kids.

About 10 days before we were to leave, my dad died. Totally unexpected. Hard as I fought, they did not give us back any money. They said it was too late to re-rent the place. We lost about $2,000.

Since then, I have flown and traveled many times to locations inside the U.S. and to the Carribbean and Europe and never purchased insurance. But the older I get, the more I think I should.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've gotten it for beach rentals during hurricane season. Never had to use it. The rental agency offered the policy.

We purchased it last year with our airfare for going on a 2-week vacation. We had previously nearly needed it due to a sick family member (who died 1 month before our vacation) and I didn't want to take any unexpected family crises to burden us on airfare. I didn't purchase for any of our hotel, car rental, etc.

useless. they will only pay out if there is a Mandatory evacuation, which pretty much never happens. most evacuations are voluntary and thus the insurance is useless.

I hate know-it-all posters who are obnoxious and wrong. If you shop carefully some insurance policies only cover mandatory evacuations but some are more generous and will cover you for the times you actually want to evacuate, whether it's mandatory or not.

I'm not sure I believe the "know-it-all". Many hurricane evacs on the NC/SC coast are mandatory for renters/guests, but voluntary for permanent residents. In that case, I can't see a way the travel insurance would be able to claim "not mandatory." I spoke with our rental agency when we set it up, and they said that we wouldn't have a choice on staying, if an evac is ordered.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We've gotten it for beach rentals during hurricane season. Never had to use it. The rental agency offered the policy.

We purchased it last year with our airfare for going on a 2-week vacation. We had previously nearly needed it due to a sick family member (who died 1 month before our vacation) and I didn't want to take any unexpected family crises to burden us on airfare. I didn't purchase for any of our hotel, car rental, etc.

useless. they will only pay out if there is a Mandatory evacuation, which pretty much never happens. most evacuations are voluntary and thus the insurance is useless.

I hate know-it-all posters who are obnoxious and wrong. If you shop carefully some insurance policies only cover mandatory evacuations but some are more generous and will cover you for the times you actually want to evacuate, whether it's mandatory or not.

Anonymous wrote:We've gotten it for beach rentals during hurricane season. Never had to use it. The rental agency offered the policy.

We purchased it last year with our airfare for going on a 2-week vacation. We had previously nearly needed it due to a sick family member (who died 1 month before our vacation) and I didn't want to take any unexpected family crises to burden us on airfare. I didn't purchase for any of our hotel, car rental, etc.

useless. they will only pay out if there is a Mandatory evacuation, which pretty much never happens. most evacuations are voluntary and thus the insurance is useless.

23:00 - that's awful. I'm so sorry for your loss, and agree that most insurers will go to the mat to not have to pay. For this reason, I don't bother with cancellation insurance.

We usually just rely on built-in insurance from credit cards. Amex platinum annual fees are steep, but I'm in love with their customer service & they are a nice intermediary when stuff goes south. We once had a rental car accident & Amex customer service Dealt with the entire incident; we paid nothing.

The only other additional insurance I do is for situations where I would really need help. For example, just went skiing with DS - just the two of us in the alps. There's no way he'd be able to navigate negotiation for rescue service (in French, no less) if something were to happen to me. So, I added extra insurance to the lift tix for full mountain rescue & evac support to make it automatic.

My parent bought trip insurance for a cruise. Worthless for them. I'm trying to remember the timeline but it went something like this: August 18, dad goes to the doctor because his toe is hurting, thinking ingrown nail or something. August 19, they book their cruise for November. Between August and November, my dad's toe get's a bad infection and it's really getting bad - four doctors later, a doctor said don't go on this cruise, you might not be able to walk very well. Don't want this getting worse while you're stuck on a ship. They invoke the insurance, they refuse to pay because that August 18 visit to the doctor was a "known medical condition that resulted in the cancellation of the trip." But the insurance is advertised as "any reason, or no reason at all." My mom was going to sue them, but when my dad died of sepsis, she didn't really give a shit anymore, but that's another thread I suppose.

TL/DR: cancellation for 'any reason or no reason' doesn't mean shit.

Yes. Ever since we've had kids we have always purchased it. I wanted the zero stress benefit of a last minute cancellation if someone got sick. Trips so far have been 2 to Europe and one Disney

I did when I was pregnant and we went to Jamaica and when I was not pregnant and went to Israel. It wasn't expensive -- like $50 I think.

No, I just use my Amex to pay.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone ever buy trip insurance for a cruise?

We have bought some before for a cruise. We wanted to make sure medical treatment and evacuation was covered, since that costs $$. Also want to cover flights if flying to a cruise - a storm or flight cancellation might mean you miss the ship.