Daniel Kline, Co-Editor-in-Chief of TheStreet and TravelHost, reveals why travel insurance is a must-have for anyone booking a cruise. Daniel breaks down how a single medical emergency at sea can cost $30,000–$50,000, what happens if you miss your ship’s departure, and how the right coverage can save your trip—and your wallet. From real-life stories to insider pro tips on filing claims and finding the best value, this video gives you the essential knowledge to cruise with confidence and avoid costly mistakes before you ever step aboard.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

We’re going to welcome back to the program Daniel Kline. He is the co-editor-in-chief of The Street and Travel Host. Dan, it’s always a pleasure to see you.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

Daniel Kline, Co-Editor-in-Chief, TheStreet & TravelHost

I have a lot of jobs. It’s always good to be reminded. Very nice to see you.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, I had to go through that intro several times. So thanks so much for coming on the program. Dan, I know you are a big cruiser.

You like to go on cruise ships and you have your own site, Travel Host, that you administer and you write articles and videos and the like. I really wanted to ask you about something that I think is important, whether you’re cruising or traveling abroad on an airplane, and that is travel insurance. How important is it to you and to people like you that travel, maybe not every week, but every month?

Daniel Kline, Co-Editor-in-Chief, TheStreet & TravelHost

Every other week, pretty much. So it’s incredibly important and I never had it. And then I watched a man in front of me break his ankle, stepping onto a cruise ship.

And he hit the little gap between the two spaces wrong. And then I thought, well, that guy’s cruise is ruined. And then like six hours later, I see him in a wheelchair.

And I said, you broke your ankle? You still came on the cruise? And he said, well, I didn’t have insurance.

So if I didn’t come on the cruise, I’m going to lose my money. He’s like, at least I can go watch a band play or have something to eat. It’s not too bad.

But so many things can go wrong with your trip. Now, if you only travel occasionally, you can buy travel insurance for your trip. So if you’re going on a cruise, the cruise lines sell it.

You can usually, when you book airfare, add a little bit of money to make your fares changeable, which is the equivalent of insurance in that case. But with the cruise, unless you’ve specifically purchased a cruise that’s refundable under any circumstances, which is very rare. Once a cruise gets to final payment day, which is 60 or 90 days out, there is nothing you can do.

So your mother could die. Your dog could die. You could get cancer.

You could get hit by lightning. It doesn’t matter. You will lose the money you paid.

And as travel agents or someone who’s a travel agent, but partners with travel agents, there’s nothing we can do. There’s no amount of arguing with the cruise line. So how do you get insurance?

There’s two ways to do it. You can do it if you’re traveling once or twice a year through the airline, through the cruise line. That’ll add maybe 50 bucks, 60 bucks.

It depends on the length of your cruise. I do it through one of the many providers, and I’m not going to name them, but definitely Google or work with a travel agent on it. I buy annual travel insurance.

And I buy the top tier because obviously I travel a lot. So the odds of something happening to me while abroad or while on a cruise ship or on a Caribbean island are more significant than they are for a person who only goes a week or two. And here’s what happens.

You’re playing in the water in the Bahamas. You get bit by a fish. You’re allergic.

They have to hospitalize you. This is a farcical example because I’ve never heard of anyone being bit by a fish. You get admitted and you have to be medevaced back to Miami.

If you have travel insurance, that’s most likely going to be covered and they will treat you. If you do not have travel insurance, everything will be cash out of pocket and they will not medevac you. They will not take a $30,000, $50,000 flight or whatever it is just because you need it.

So it could save your life under certain circumstances, but it can certainly save your pocketbook.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah. It would seem to me that in today’s environment with extreme weather, other things that happen in our daily lives, that it is more likely than not that you could experience a delay or a need to reschedule.

Daniel Kline, Co-Editor-in-Chief, TheStreet & TravelHost

Yeah. You want to look at the fine print. This is why having a travel agent to me, and when I say a travel agent, I don’t mean your aunt who’s kind of a travel agent.

I mean someone who is making real money that it’s either their full-time job or most of their job that is dedicated in cruises. You really want someone who is specialized in cruises. That doesn’t mean they won’t book a Disney trip here and there or all-inclusive, but you want someone who is booking hundreds of trips on the cruise lines and they should know the fine print of, hey, I’m in Boston, which this happened to me and my mother.

My mother’s in Boston. She has to get to New Jersey where we’re meeting to go on a cruise and the weather’s bad. It’s a hurricane and her flight gets canceled and there was no other flight.

Now, could she have hopped on the train? Could she have driven? Yes, but my mother at the time was, I think, 72 years old.

So once something got canceled for weather, I don’t think anything was getting her on that ship and whatever amount of money I paid for that cruise, I lost. There was no refunds. There’s no, oh yeah, the weather’s bad.

We understand. So you want to know what your insurance covers and I don’t fly for a cruise that often, but in October, I’m flying to Rome to go on a transatlantic. I’m going to start in Rome and the ship’s going to end up back in Miami.

If my flight, which I booked in about 48 hours of extra time, somehow gets delayed in a way that I don’t get to the ship, my travel insurance would do one of two things. It would pay back what I paid for the trip, which is actually minimal because I got it through the casino, but I did pay for extras that wouldn’t be refunded if I didn’t go on the ship, like meals and drink packages and things like that. Or it will help me get to the next port.

So from Rome, the ship is stopping in Spain and I believe Portugal. So they might be able to get me on a flight that day where I get to meet the ship. That doesn’t always work in the US.

Like if you miss your New York, you actually can’t get on if there’s a port canaveral stop. There are some laws about that. But in Europe, it’s actually common for people to get on and off at every port for cruises to almost be like a rolling thing.

So your insurance will help you with that. They would also help me with things like, oh, wait, I don’t have a hotel room because I’m supposed to be on a cruise or I need transportation to here or there or I’m sick to my stomach because I missed my cruise and I have to go to the doctor. They would cover that.

Know your policy. The one I use has a very simple app where you can make claims or you can ask for help and look for recommendations for the good ones. But it’s one of those things where like, you hope you never have to use it.

If I spend whatever it is, $220 a year, every year for the rest of my life and don’t use it, that’s a good thing. That’s not a bad thing.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

So Dan, you mentioned that there’s an app. Is filing a claim. So say you missed your flight or and you have to miss your cruise.

Do you do file a claim like you would for auto insurance? Like if you have State Farm or one of the other providers?

Daniel Kline, Co-Editor-in-Chief, TheStreet & TravelHost

So the app I use works exactly like that. Going through the cruise lines is a little bit different. They have forms you fill out.

Your travel agent can handle all of this for you if you have one. And let me give another example. We had a client and they were on their way to Seattle for a cruise to Alaska.

They had a very expensive, like I’m gonna say $35,000 super duper sweet, all the bells and whistles. And Delta grounded their flight for a medical emergency. And at the time could not provide them a replacement flight.

But they both had travel insurance and they did something else we recommend. Which is if you are flying to your cruise, book your air travel through the cruise line. Because they are incentivized to get you there.

So while I was looking up alternate flights and hotel rooms for whatever small town they were stuck in, someone else was looking up, can you rent a car to get from there to Seattle? Yes, you could, 11 hours. And my travel agent partner, Amy Post was on the phone with Royal Caribbean or celebrity in this case, their sister brands.

And saying, hey, it’s your job. We booked the flights through you. You have to get us on another flight.

And as Delta reversed their decision and decided to bring another plane in, we got them booked on an Alaska Airlines flight early the next morning that would have got them there. But then Delta came back and booked them. They made their original destination.

But they were protected in as many ways as possible. This is good for any travel. Yeah.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

So when you submit the claim, what paper? Like I know when I have an auto accident, not that I knock on wood, I haven’t had one in a while. I’m not asking for one.

You can file a police report. You can file, you have to file documentation. I filed a write-up, pictures.

What do you need to show proof that?

Daniel Kline, Co-Editor-in-Chief, TheStreet & TravelHost

Save anything, the cruise line, the airline. So when your flight is canceled, you usually get a text message and an email. Make sure you send them that email.

Make sure you screenshot that text message. You probably want to even go to their app or their website and verify that it’s canceled and get that. Have as much documentation as you can because one thing that’s not covered is, oh, the weather’s bad.

I don’t feel like going on my cruise. That’s not covered. Or hey, I’m sick.

If you’re sick, go to the doctor and get it documented that you were sick. Know the exact parameters. You may need to show, hey, I have a positive COVID test.

Or yes, my doctor says I have the flu. I am not able to go on this cruise. Just saying you don’t feel well will probably not work.

So even if it is a telehealth appointment because you don’t feel like you could leave the house, make sure you have a doctor’s note. Whatever goes wrong, sometimes a death in the family might be covered. Sometimes an illness of a dependent could be covered.

Know your policy. That’s not always the case. You want to document those things the way you would for any legal situation.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

And in terms of reimbursement, like when you get into an auto accident and the insurance company is going to cover it, or someone’s auto insurance will cover, they’ll stroke a check or maybe they send it by wire, whatever, they’ll pay for the repairs. If you have to file a claim, do they reimburse you? Do they send a check?

How does that usually work?

Daniel Kline, Co-Editor-in-Chief, TheStreet & TravelHost

It depends what’s being taken care of. So let’s say you’re about to go on a cruise and you break your arm and your doctor says you can’t go on a cruise and get a broken arm, might get wet. That’s dangerous.

At that point, they would reimburse you for some portion of your cruise, whatever the number is in your contract. It might be 90% and the cruise line will send you back your port fees and taxes. It can’t legally charge you those if you don’t get on.

And usually the cruise line will reimburse you for excursions and things you bought. But again, that’s iffy. And that could take time.

It’s not, you know, insurance companies don’t love to pay money. But let’s say you need to go to the doctor in Cozumel. Usually that payment is going directly from the insurance company to the doctor, unless you’re someplace that’s demanding payment upfront.

But in general, when you get sick or injured or whatever it is, if you’re using the app from the insurance, that’s going to tell you where to go. And it’s going to be someplace that they have an arrangement with. It’s just like I had something kicked through the front of my car and landed my tire well.

I had to bring my car. I pulled over, looked at it, made sure I could drive, filed with my insurance company, which said, yeah, if you bring it to one of these 10 places, they’ll bring a rental car to you and like you’ll never handle anything. So I paid my $500 deductible and that is all I ever saw of it.

I don’t even think I saw the final bill, which was thousands of dollars.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

So, you know, in today’s environment, I could see where it makes sense. You know, in today’s affordability challenges that exist and, you know, Americans of all stripes go on these cruises. What typically are the premiums?

You talked about an annual travel. What are we thinking? Is it like $200 per trip?

I mean, I guess it depends on the type of trip.

Daniel Kline, Co-Editor-in-Chief, TheStreet & TravelHost

It’s less than that per trip. It’s tied to the price of your trip. So if you’re on a $900 carnival cruise, it might be $30, $40.

I don’t sell this all day. But if you’re on a $30,000 three-week Viking excursion, well, then it’s going to be significantly more. And annual insurance is around, let’s call it 150 to 300, depending, it asks you some questions about how much you travel, what level of coverage would you want?

You know, do you want this covered after the fact? Those sorts of things. So it’s like any insurance, you know, you can, but for most people, a bare bones policy in the event of an emergency is going to protect them from, you know, that $10,000 Mexico hospital bill or the unexpected, even on a cruise ship, if you go to the doctor there, they might be like, hey, Jeff, here’s a Benadryl.

And then you get a $400 bill. I will say, if you ever need something like a Benadryl, go to the Facebook group for that cruise and post, hey, I’m on this ship. I forgot to bring my Prevacid or my C-Sec medicine or I need hygiene supplies or whatever it is.

There’s almost always a good Samaritan that will answer that and say, hey, meet me at the pool bar. I’ll, you know, this is what I look like. I had this for you, I got it.

Because remember, when you’re on a cruise, cruise ship stores can be limited. They might have toothbrushes and not toothpaste or toothpaste and not toothbrushes. It’s not a hotel where you can walk to the front desk and say, hey, you know, I forgot my toothbrush, can I have one?

And some of the ports, you know, if you’re stopping in Nassau, great, they’re going to have stores. But if you’re stopping in Belize, it might not be as easy to find, you know, the supermarket or the pharmacy that’s going to have those items.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, well, Dan, always great to talk to you. You know, these are things that you need, really need to think about in today’s environment. Really appreciate coming on the show.

And people should certainly check out Travel Host and The Street. We actually post our content there as well. We always appreciate Dan coming on the program.

Thanks so much for joining us. And look, you know, you’re going to come back again very soon.

Daniel Kline, Co-Editor-in-Chief, TheStreet & TravelHost

I’ll see you soon. Thanks for having me.