For a lot of guests, adding insurance to their Disney vacation package makes perfect sense. Maybe your job situation is iffy or planning a trip far in advance makes you nervous. Maybe you’re just worried about something bad happening once your vacation begins. Whatever the reason, there’s one rule you should follow when you buy insurance directly from Disney: Don’t add it until your final payment. Here’s why.
Briefly, buying insurance with your vacation package is pretty simple. In fact, it’s almost too simple, which is why it gets some guests into trouble. The option is offered to you when you book with an agent or with Disney or, if you’re doing it online yourself, when you finalize your package details prior to paying the deposit. For Disney World, insuring the adults means that the entire package is covered, so say you have two adults and three kids on a reservation. You’ll pay $75.95 per adult or $151.90 total. Disney Cruise Lines is a little different, since everyone has to be insured. Expect to pay hundreds of dollars to insure a typical cruise.
Here’s where people run into trouble. Say you have every intention of adding insurance to your trip so that when you’re asked, you just add it without thinking. Chances are, you’re aware that insurance is non-refundable, but you may not have processed that information to mean from here on out! Maybe you even confused it with the fact that your $200 Disney World deposit is fully-refundable up until 45-days prior to travel. It’s easy to do. Whatever the case, if you have to cancel your reservation, you just lost money, even if you have to cancel it months prior to travel.
Get Park Wise: Disney insurance coverage is very basic. If you need a policy that covers a broader range of circumstances, consider buying insurance from an outside company. You can even purchase a policy from the company that Disney uses, Travel Guard.
Since Disney travel is fully refundable up until final payment, there’s actually no risk in not adding insurance until that time. You simply don’t need it before then. So don’t give into the pressure,whether real or imagined, to add it because you’re going to need it later. As long as you add it before your final payment, you’re good to go. Finally, if you’re the type of guest who makes payments, just make sure you leave $100 or so left to pay on your trip until your final payment is due. That way, if you have to cancel, you won’t lose a penny.
Adding insurance before your final payment is the type of mistake that needlessly costs guests money every year. What do you usually do? Do you add insurance and if so, do you buy it directly or from Disney?
You must be logged in to post a comment.