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What are Prepaid, Non-refundable Trip Costs?Your insurable trip costs are your prepaid, non-refundable costs. “How much money would you lose cancelling your trip if you got hit by a cement truck at the last minute?” Here are some common non-refundable costs you will forfeit if you were forced to cancel your trip at the last minute:
More about airline tickets: Changeable does not equal refundable. Refundable means that if you cancel you will get 100% of your money back in cash – not credits or vouchers. Q. Can you just divide your total trip cost by the number of travelers and use the average trip cost to price the travel insurance and still be fully covered for all prepaid trip costs if you have to make a claim? A. The answer is “No”. If you under-insure your trip costs you will end up getting a lot less than you expect when you have a claim. Plus, you will probably unintentionally void your Pre-Existing Medical Conditions coverage. Read this: How To Correctly Quote a Travel Insurance Plan Q. Why is it important to know changeable does not equal refundable? A. Because if you are thinking you’ll just insure the change fee and not the entire cost you paid for the ticket, you may forfeit any plan benefits associated with having to insure the full non-refundable prepaid trip cost. The main impact would be to the Trip Cancellation / Interruption Benefits of the Waiver of the Pre Existing Medical Condition Exclusion and the Cancel For Any Reason option. With many plans, if they say that you must insure all non-refundable travel arrangements that are subject to penalties they mean just that: non-refundable or subject to penalties. It makes no difference even if the ticket is changeable with a fee. It’s still non-refundable and it must be insured. Q. Are Frequent Flyer Miles, Credit Card Rewards and Other Free Travel Awards Covered? A. Since this is a complicated answer, click here to see all the details. Q. Do Cruise Line Port Charges or Taxes need to be insured? A. I myself (Steve) started a thread on Cruise Critic in January 2010 asking specifically if cruise lines’ Port Charges or Taxes are refundable. I received dozens of responses. The majority were “No, they aren’t refundable”. However, I also got responses saying “Yes, they are refundable”. It seems to vary from cruise line to cruise line. So, should you insure Port Charges or Taxes? I don’t know. If you choose not to insure Port Charges or Taxes, I suggest you get, in writing, from the cruise line that they are fully refundable if you cancel at the last minute. Your risk is that if you don’t insure the full non-refundable prepaid trip cost, you may forfeit any plan benefit associated with having to insure the full non-refundable prepaid trip cost including, but not limited to, obtaining the Waiver of the Pre-Existing Medical Condition Exclusion and the Cancel For Any Reason option. Q. Are all First or Business Class tickets refundable? A. No, they used to be fully refundable, but now many have a non-refundable fee and you get the rest of the money back if you cancel the ticket. In this case, you are just obligated to insure the non-refundable fee. See Steve’s blog post “How Do I Insure Business Class Airline Tickets?” for a more detailed discussion. Here’s what are typically not prepaid, non-refundable trip costs:
Also, Frequent Flyer tickets have a $0 trip cost. Why is Your Trip Cost Important?The cost of a travel insurance plan is usually based on three factors:
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