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You can purchase insurance plans up to 24 hours before your trip departure date, but we don't recommend waiting that long. If you do wait, you may not be eligible for many important benefits, such as the waiver of the pre-existing conditions clause. If you want to be covered for pre-existing medical conditions, you should buy insurance at the time you make your final cruise payment. (Each insurer dictates its own coverage window, but the deadline is usually 10 to 15 days after making that final payment -- or after booking your airfare, if you do that first.) If you aren't eligible for this waiver, your insurer will look back into your medical history (each policy differs as to the exact time period, but it often ranges from 60 to 180 days) and will not cover any condition for which you've suffered during that time. (We're talking everything from eczema and asthma to heart angina and strokes.)
When it comes to buying travel insurance, don't worry if you've paid for your cruise but haven't yet purchased your airline tickets. You can estimate the airfare cost when buying your travel insurance and then give your provider your exact travel itinerary once those tickets are booked. Likewise, if you're arranging your plane tickets first, buy your travel insurance within two weeks of that purchase, and estimate the cruise fare. You just need to be sure to pay for travel insurance within the booking window of whichever travel purchase comes first.
Remember, too, that you can't purchase travel insurance and expect it to cover events that are already in motion. For example, you book a Caribbean cruise that departs during hurricane season but procrastinate on purchasing travel insurance. Once your local weatherman announces that a hurricane is howling along the path of your cruise itinerary, it's too late for you to buy travel insurance and be covered for any travel cancellations or delays caused by the storm. You'd only be covered if you had purchased the insurance prior to the formation of the hurricane.
