Cruise holiday insurance

Now that many more British people are choosing cruises as their holidays, it’s important to ensure you have the right travel insurance to give you a worry and trouble free holiday. There was a 5% increase in cruise passengers from the UK up to September 2009, which really bucks the trend during the credit crunch and that means that more than 1.5 million British people will be taking cruises in 2010.

However, it’s vital to look over your travel insurance carefully. You need to make sure that when you buy insurance it covers the risk of a missed departure or connection, and that it meets your needs if a member of your party should fall ill at sea – this means ensuring that the illness cover is valid in all the ports that you visit, because if for some reason you have to leave the ship to obtain medical treatment, you can end up with huge bills if that country isn’t provided for in your cover.

There’s also the issue of transportation between countries – this may be necessary through illness (if you need hospital treatment and can then fly to meet your cruise ship at a future port call) or if you miss your ship departure while it’s in port for some other reason. People taking cruises to the Caribbean, USA and Canada should read their policy cover extremely carefully as some policies only provide cover for these regions at a higher premium. There’s also theft coverage, which you should make sure covers both onboard and onshore theft, as some policies don’t cover theft on ship or from your cabin. And finally, if you’re sailing in the Caribbean in hurricane season, be aware that your cruise company will only compensate you at a day rate for delays to sailing or missed port calls if storms interfere with the planned itinerary and you may wish to have a higher level of cover that gives you better compensation in those circumstances.