Is Cruise Insurance Worth It? Here's What We Know

Whether you're booking a cruise for a girls' trip or trying to choose the right ship for a cruise with your kids, there's always a risk that something goes wrong between when you book and when you set sail. It can be nerve-wracking to spend so much money on a trip so far in the future when there's no way to know for certain what might be happening in your life when the time comes to actually go on your trip. You may notice the option to insure your trip while you're checking out — but should you do it? The answer is probably, but you're going to want to shop around to get the best deal for the coverage you actually want.

A lot of people can experience sticker shock when they see the added cost of cruise insurance. These kinds of vacations can already be expensive, and applying insurance can add 10% or more of your fare on top of that. What you get for that price may be worth the added expense, however, if you can afford it. As pricey as insurance is, it's almost certainly still cheaper than the overall cost of altering your vacation if things don't go according to plan.

Because cruises tend to be fairly long trips that take place at a number of destinations, there are plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong, from stomach bugs going around the ship to missed connecting flights leaving you stranded at the dock. Exactly what you're guaranteed in different emergencies depends on what insurance coverage you book, but there are a few standard types of protection that you may want to look for.

Often, cruise insurance will help you get reimbursed for your trip if it's canceled or delayed, if your luggage goes missing, or if you get sick during the trip. Some insurance even has a "cancel for any reason" (CFAR) policy, meaning that you should be entitled to at least a partial refund no matter why you decide to not go on your cruise — although you may want to read the fine print to see if there are any glaring exceptions that you should know about before you pay up. As noted by some Redditors on a r/Cruise thread, some cancel-at-any-time policies have so many loopholes that it's difficult to actually get reimbursed.

Usually, the insurance offered to you by your actual cruise line during checkout is one of the cheapest options for coverage and, when it comes with a CFAR policy, can be one of the most comprehensive choices. That said, if you're already covered by regular travel insurance, you may not need to pay for another plan. If you're already paying for an insurance policy, or if your credit card offers you coverage automatically, you should compare what you could buy to what you have and double-check if adding in an official cruise insurance policy would actually make a difference.

In some cases, even if you're not already covered, generic travel insurance may actually be a better deal than one created specifically for cruises. For one thing, you generally have more ability to pick and choose your benefits, so if you're worried about medical coverage but not cancellation insurance, for instance, you can find a cheaper policy which gives you only what you need. If you want to compare policies, aggregators like InsureMyTrip.com can help you see the different options available at the same time and figure out what kind of insurance is worth it for you.