Buyer Beware!

[JUST TRIPPIN']

As many of you do, my wife and I always buy travel insurance. We have used the same company for 5 years in a row now always buying the same policy type of trip cancellation/interruption. We used a company called I Travel (ins**ed) dot com.

 

We sailed on the Carnival Legend in late January of this year. Our return was delayed by approximately 4 hours due to heavy fog. You can not control the weather, that's just how it goes. While Carnival was fantastic allowing us to rebook without expense, I can't say the same for our insurance company.

 

Upon returning home, we sent out a claim as soon as possible. A month had gone by and we heard nothing from them. Today I phoned their customer service number to inquire.

 

I was told our denied claim had been sent back to us on the 13th of March. It is the 27th today and so far, nothing has been received. Aside from that, the person on the other end of the phone informed me that because our delay, or rather issue, did not delay us more than 8 hours ( we rebooked for 4 hours after our original flight ) that we were not covered. As well, because we were on our way home, we were not covered...SURPRISE!

 

This meant that we paid for two flights, and one useless insurance policy as in regards to our very common travel issue. That was one expensive lesson. I don't know why I didn't read the 55 page policy better.

 

Oh well, I guess you live and learn. Sure I am pissed but I at least thought I should let others know just how weak some of these policies can be. Ask every imaginable question. Does your plan cover weather? How long do you have to be inconvenienced before the insurance company thinks they should pay.

 

Our original flight was almost 1:00pm by the way. Plenty of time even according to Carnival. Good luck with your travels and I hope this never happens to any of you. Another sad story of insurance companies letting you down via the loopholes.

[cherylandtk]

Thank you for your post. I am sorry you did not realize the limits of your chosen policy prior to needing that coverage. Perhaps others will read this and benefit from your experience. Policies are available with as little as three hour delay limits for coverage for flights, but that does usually limit coverage to cruise or trip missed connections. Most of the good policies do have a 5-6 hour trip delay clause.

 

I am a little surprised that they told you your return flights were not covered at all, they should be included as part of your trip, although the 8 hour delay limit of your policy would still make them outside the policy limits.

Edited March 27, 2014 by cherylandtk

[LHT28]

Some Credit card will cover delayed flights you may want to check that out

if you paid for the original flights by CC

 

Now I am off to read my ins policy :eek:

[RJ2002]

Sorry to hear about your experience.

 

As someone else posted, it is very important to understand the exact terms of policies. We always print a copy of the coverage page and bring it with us on the trip, just in case.

[LHT28]

I looked at the terms for my TD visa it said it covers delays 4hrs + & it would cover hotels etc..

Not sure if you would be covered for new flights .. I would hope so

I wonder if the airline would have rebooked you if you had called & told them the problem?? or maybe you did ?

 

You may have to call the insurance company while you are in transit ...I have not had that problem of missed flights ..just delayed & the airline just re booked us

 

Anyway worth looking at your CC coverage

[JUST TRIPPIN']

I checked with my credit card and no luck. We did actually contact the airlines approximately 6 hours prior to our departure but they did not offer us anything. We were told we were lucky as there were only two tickets left on the last flight that would get us home. We sat about 10 rows apart on the plane so I believe they were telling us the truth.

 

As we have booked a European vacation for later this year, I have been scouring the web for a company that offers a premium cancellation/trip interruption package. There seems to be no one out there who will offer delays of less than 6 hours.

 

It seems to me if you miss your flight through no fault of your own, the last thing you want to be concerned about was how long you were delayed. You still missed your flight whether it was 4 hours or 8 hours? Mind boggling. I know they are protecting themselves from things like " stupid " and " unorganized " people to be politically uncorrect but 4 hours is not in that category with a valid reason due to a third party carrier.

 

To insure or not to insure...that is the question.

[JUST TRIPPIN']

P.S. I posted this on the Carnival site as it was a Carnival cruise that we were delayed on. I purposely did not print out the full name of the insurance site we used. Other people asked me to even though I thought it was obvious as I only deleted two letters. I did so and then noticed it was deleted by CC.

 

Not sure why an informative thread would be deleted by CC. I was definitely not promoting the company. I was and still am, warning people to know what they are insured for. Most people think of trip insurance as simply an add on like we did. Perhaps these mentioned companies provide advertising dollars and therefore do not want bad P.R....who knows?

[LHT28]

It might be worth stay over 1 night at the end of the cruise if you can

 

I am always worried that cruise will come in late we almost missed our 12:30 frlight out of Miami one yr as the ship was not cleared until 9:30 then the mass rush for Taxis ..we finally got one at 11 am

 

but if the cruise ship is not docked on time there is not much you can do

 

Hope your next cruise is better

 

I have not really checked the other insurance companies we have used in the past like PC financial, RBC, Manulife & Global

I will be now though so thanks for bring this topic to light

 

 

Lyn

[JUST TRIPPIN']

Late last night, I found a positive looking policy offered by a company named RSA. Being Canadian, I searched for travel insurance available to Canadians. Usually we book through American companies as our companies tend to charge about double. The big selling point that stuck out was their all inclusive policy. Their time limit for your delay is ONLY 2HOURS! The price for this policy was about $360 Canadian dollars. Not bad when compared to others. That is for our 2 week European vacation which will be about twice what we would spend for a Caribbean cruise.

[LHT28]

Late last night' date=' I found a positive looking policy offered by a company named RSA. Being Canadian, I searched for travel insurance available to Canadians. Usually we book through American companies as our companies tend to charge about double. The big selling point that stuck out was their all inclusive policy. Their time limit for your delay is ONLY 2HOURS! The price for this policy was about $360 Canadian dollars. Not bad when compared to others. That is for our 2 week European vacation which will be about twice what we would spend for a Caribbean cruise.[/quote']

 

I have used them

 

I did claim with them Global Excel is their underwriter but we had to cancel the day before the cruise & they were quite efficent do not know how they compare with interruption problems

 

 

I would call a speak to an agent & ask if in the situation you had would it have been covered

 

Lyn

Edited March 30, 2014 by LHT28