Should I take the college tuition insurance plan???

<p>My S ‘s college offers a tuition insurance plan ($274) in the case of illness or accident. Is it worth to take this insurance?</p>

<p>If child got a full ride, then you probably won't need the protection.
If child and you are paying for college, then you could use the protection
If child and you are borrowing the cost for college, then you should use the protection.</p>

<p>There are other gradations.</p>

<p>D's school also offers this insurance -- but for about $100.00 less. We don't buy the health insurance offered thru her school, or buy special property insurance, but we do buy the tuition insurance. There are far too many cases of mono, etc, etc -- and since we're paying, we'd be short-sighted not to buy it.</p>

<p>We bought it last year; but we haven't decided whether to buy it this year. DS's tuition is $16k per semester, and we're paying it all, so it's worth recovering if he has to leave mid-semester. One of his hs friends came home the middle of 2nd semester with a leukemia diagnosis. That would have been covered, but that's a pretty rare occurence (thank heavens) and the more common reasons for leaving school aren't covered.</p>

<p>^thankgoodness, that the insurance reasons for leaving school is a rare occurrence. If the incidence was higher, the insurance premium would be much higher. </p>

<p>Is $274 worth passing the risk off to a third party?
Alternatively, what other opportunity can be had for $274. </p>

<p>We too had $16k/semester obligation thru loans and personal funds. I forgot the the amount we paid in 2002, but you never know about the freshman year. By the soph year we declined coverage; We were confident that S would not come done with illnesses, nervous breakdown, or national crisis</p>

<p>We discuss tuition insurance every now and again on CC. One thing that I remember about a previous thread. Make sure you read the fine print about what exactly is an event that triggers the insurance.</p>

<p>^^^^ in our case, the policy said he would have to have a doctor's certification that he had a medical condition that prohibited him from finishing the semester. Changing his mind wouldn't cut it. Getting sick for 3 weeks and opting to bail out because he's so far behind his grades would stink wouldn't cut it. He had to be medically unable to complete the semester.</p>

<p>If loosing the years fees would keep you up at night I would go for it, especially freshman year. Never know who will get mono or have emotional issues. Besides the house, this is the largest check we write.</p>

<p>We just got a tuition insurance offer today. My daughter's college's plan costs $428/year, which is much more than the numbers I'm seeing above. Does anyone know if it's possible to get insurance from a competitor, or if you have to use the plan offered through the school? The school's plan comes from Dewar. </p>

<p>We are full-pay, not borrowing at this point, but it would definitely be a hardship to come up with an extra semester or year's tuition, especially since the younger kid will be in college by the time older kid is finishing. So I'm thinking of getting the insurance, but at that price it's a lot of money to come up with right now and I wish I could find a cheaper option. Any advice?</p>

<p>Check into the individual re-imbursement policies of the college. My S left school in February, for reasons that would not have been covered by tuition insurance. We got all but about 3000 dollars of what we paid for tuition and housing back, plus all but about 1000 of the Stafford Loan remitted, so about 4000 overall out of pocket for the family. If and when he returns to school, we should be able to cover it.</p>

<p>Our plan increased from about $288.00 last year to $350.00 this year. We still can't afford to loose an entire semester of tuition, room and board.</p>

<p>Thanks. I guess our plan's prices aren't double everyone else's, though it was starting to seem like that! I did check the regular refund schedule of the college, and it looks like the refund goes down each week until the half-way point of each semester, and then it's zero. We can't afford to lose the tuition either, so I guess we'll go ahead and get it. I really hate to keep buying insurance for things, though. We're required to have flood insurance because we're near a creek, we're in the Bay Area so we have earthquake insurance, and we have the usual everything else. I wish we could drop something instead of adding one more!</p>