Hey – I just filed my first Travel Insurance Claim…

I imagine there are many folks out there like me who have purchased travel insurance but never had to file…well I had to just that last week. I thought you might like to go along with me on the claim ride. I waited until I got the results of my claim before I posted this…

We were scheduled to depart April 6 on a 10 day cruise but the week before my wife’s brother was visiting us from out of town and had to go to the emergency room. I won’t go into the details of his illness out of privacy concerns, but he was transferred to another hospital where they performed an emergency procedure. We were informed he would be in the hospital or a rehab facility for at least two weeks and we decided we had no choice but to cancel our cruise the Wednesday before our scheduled Monday departure.

We did purchase the insurance the same day we booked the cruise, so the pre-existing conditions clause was waived…this is important because my BIL was ill when we booked and he was the main reason we took the trip cancellation policy. Normally for a trip like that I would have bought a medical only policy with higher medical and evacuation amounts.

I called the insurance company and they advised me to call our travel agency and officially cancel the cruise, and then to call back and start the claim procedure. The travel agency sent me a waiver form to sign and return, and advised me they would charge a $50 pp cancellation fee, but that I should submit that as a claim as well as the cost of the cruise.

The insurance company emailed me a checklist of everything they required as well as several documents to be filled out:

· Trip Cancellation Form – to be filled out by me explaining the circumstances of the claim and the claim amount.

· Patient Authorization Form – a form signed by the patient authorizing release of records and listing information of all doctors and prescriptions…I made a copy of the hospitalization summary which fortunately had all that information and attached it to the form.

· Attending Physician’s Statement – my wife was able to get the Hospitalist seeing my brother in law to fill out the form – one of the questions for the physician does ask if he/she advised against taking the trip. Sometimes it is difficult to bring up something like trip insurance as the event is playing out – but I recommend anyone contemplating cancelling a trip to let the physician know about the trip cancellation before you file the claim.

I also needed to provide:

· Proof of payment – a copy of the credit card statements showing the cruise payment and travel agent cancellation fee.

· Cruise line Invoice showing cost of cruise and cancellation schedule.

· Email from travel agency confirming cruise cancellation.

A lot of stuff to gather, but most of it was fairly easy to obtain…the physician’s statement and list of attending doctors and medications was the most difficult to get.

I also included a “summary of events” letter hoping that would assist in the claim process. I made sure to put everything in the same order as listed on the Claims Checklist that was so kindly provided.

I mailed everything to the insurance company on a Friday, and on Tuesday they emailed me to confirm they had received the claim documents and that they would advise me if they needed any more information. They included a web-link where I could check the status of the claim.

Tuesday a week later and the site still shows the documents were received, but nothing else…

On Tuesday April 28 (about two weeks after the original email) I received an email saying they had contacted the travel agency to obtain a couple more documents. I called to see if I needed to send anything else and the very nice lady said no – there were just a couple of forms they needed the agency to fill out. She said I had done a nice job in sending in the original information and that she would let me know as soon as the claim was closed.

Monday May 4 I got a voice mail saying my claim had been approved and I should expect a check within 5-7 business days.

So about 3-4 weeks to get my claim approved – pretty painless except for having to collect all the information.

Thanks for the post. Having filed with an insurance company, I expecially like your last phrase, "pretty painless except for having to collecting all the information". We found the insurance phone people very helpful. Hope your BIL is now OK.

To be sure I understand, you were able to cancel under medical terms for a person who was not insured on this trip? you were able to submit forms saying you and your wife couldn't travel because of a relative's medical condition?

I have filed a claim for my parents when my father couldn't travel but he was the insured who was expecting to travel.

I also had a reasonably good experience with collecting. Lots of waiting for doctors to return paperwork, but the insurance company was easy to work with.

To be sure I understand, you were able to cancel under medical terms for a person who was not insured on this trip? you were able to submit forms saying you and your wife couldn't travel because of a relative's medical condition?

 

I have filed a claim for my parents when my father couldn't travel but he was the insured who was expecting to travel.

 

I also had a reasonably good experience with collecting. Lots of waiting for doctors to return paperwork, but the insurance company was easy to work with.

Yes - the policy covered illness and death for immediate family members.

Sorry to hear about your B-I-L's illness but hope he is recovering well.

Very happy to hear your insurance claim seems to have processed about as well as we can expect.

Of course, what would be of the most help and interest is Which Insurance did you buy? It's good to know there are insurers that when given the proper documents make the process as painless as possible.

Sorry to hear about your B-I-L's illness but hope he is recovering well.

 

Very happy to hear your insurance claim seems to have processed about as well as we can expect.

 

Of course, what would be of the most help and interest is Which Insurance did you buy? It's good to know there are insurers that when given the proper documents make the process as painless as possible.

 

I purchased a policy from Travel Insured International - the TI of choice for a certain large Travel Agency that actively promotes on Cruise Critic. It had sufficient amounts of Evacuation and Health Insurance policy amounts which to me are the most important part of Travel Insurance.

To be honest depending on the price of the cruise - sometimes i just purchase the Medical and Evacuation insurance; by forgoing the Trip Interruption and Cancellation part you can get really large amounts of Medical and Evacuation for less than $100. I knew however that there would be a strong chance we would have to cancel this trip.

Thank you for sharing.

My DH and chose to stop insuring for cancellation a great many cruises ago. We were always sure to have adequate medical and evacuation/repatriation coverage and saved literally tens of thousands of dollars in premiums we didn't pay. The exposure with self-insuring really levels out at about cruise number 5 or so depending on price of your cruises. We were fortunate to never have to cancel a cruise while in penalty phase.

As you say, the premiums for just medical and evacuation are very low when you remove cancellation coverage.