Booked Travel Insurance with Southern Cross and needed to add medical and cruise cover. The person I spoke with asked where we were going I told him cruise started from Australia and the three destinations it would stop at before returning.

The quote was extremely expensive and specified Australia plus the ports, but I felt I had no choice due to pre-existing conditions and being a member and all the good reports ie head, I paid it. 

Subsequently I was reading through the policy and noted that if you are transiting under 48 hours you don’t need to specify the place you stop in. Since my policy stated 3 ports I rang and queried this. I was told that a port wasn’t a transit stop. I argued that it was an eight hour stop over and should be covered by the 48 hr transit clause plus the fact that I have paid additional premium for cruise cover. Aren’t ports what a cruise entails?

While this was in progress I did some online quotes with other companies and sure enough quotes came out to half of what I had paid. 

I got nowhere by phone so emailed to escalate my query, It took a while but the seniors came back with a fantastic response and admitted a port was a transit stop and a very large credit came back to my account. I am very grateful that they were so accommodating and common sense prevailed. Really appreciated and will stick with them for future travel. 

Remember this when you apply for travel insurance for a cruise. My cousin has paid thousands more for specifying each port when it wasn’t necessary.