Cancelling trip insurance for cruise cancelled by cruiseline

[CoralReef]

Any advice or experiences would be appreciated.

 

Here's the situation: on June 19, I put down a deposit on a Silversea cruise. I promptly (next day) purchased trip insurance through M.H. Ross, in order to have pre-existing condition coverage. The cruise was pricey, and I also insured the cost of the business class airfare we anticipated buying.

 

On July 14, Silversea cancelled the sailing. They offered a full refund of our deposit, but I am out of pocket $734 for the trip insurance. I have requested cancellation of the policy from the company. Has anyone ever done this? If the insurance company won't issue a refund, do I have any recourse with Silversea?

 

Thanks for any suggestions or experiences you can share.

[Guest maddycat]

Any advice or experiences would be appreciated.

 

Here's the situation: on June 19, I put down a deposit on a Silversea cruise. I promptly (next day) purchased trip insurance through M.H. Ross, in order to have pre-existing condition coverage. The cruise was pricey, and I also insured the cost of the business class airfare we anticipated buying.

 

On July 14, Silversea cancelled the sailing. They offered a full refund of our deposit, but I am out of pocket $734 for the trip insurance. I have requested cancellation of the policy from the company. Has anyone ever done this? If the insurance company won't issue a refund, do I have any recourse with Silversea?

 

Thanks for any suggestions or experiences you can share.

 

Most likely the insurance company will allow you to transfer the insurance to a future cruise. I would be very surprised if they will refund your money.

[CoralReef]

Thanks, maddycat.

 

So no experiences with this scenario? I will post my results.

[GeezerCouple]

Depending upon the type of coverage you have, the insurance might be transferable to ANY trip, not just a cruise.

 

So if you have some large non-refundable airfare coming up, you could check about applying it to that.

 

But that only makes sense if you would want insurance on the specific future trip.

 

This is really an oddity. I hadn't thought about "what if the trip itself is canceled by the trip provider". Not good!

 

GeezerCouple

[CoralReef]

This is really an oddity. I hadn't thought about "what if the trip itself is canceled by the trip provider". Not good!

 

GeezerCouple

 

I couldn't agree more :-)

[CoralReef]

Got this response:

 

We are sorry to hear that your trip has been cancelled by the Travel Supplier. Since you are outside the “Free Look” period, we require the attached completed Premium Refund Request form. When we receive the completed form, we will be able refund the Premium less the processing fee (on an exception basis.)

 

Promising response, will keep you all posted.

[GeezerCouple]

Got this response:

 

We are sorry to hear that your trip has been cancelled by the Travel Supplier. Since you are outside the “Free Look” period, we require the attached completed Premium Refund Request form. When we receive the completed form, we will be able refund the Premium less the processing fee (on an exception basis.)

 

Promising response, will keep you all posted.

 

Ah, this makes more sense!

 

I'm sure the insurers are always on the lookout for those who try to game things, inappropriately.

 

But this - the PROVIDER cancelling! - this can't be manipulated by the passenger, who did nothing wrong or even remotely questionable about the trip, after all.

 

There shouldn't even be a processing fee, but assuming it's a minor charge, it's understandable.

 

How often does an entire cruise get cancelled?

It's not like one can just take the next cruise (as with plane trips).

Did Silversea give a reason?

 

In the future, you might want to consider purchasing a policy that allows incremental premium payments, to match up with incremental payments for the trip. (But I don't know how the coverage and costs compare.)

If for no other reason, at least YOU keep the biggest portion of the premiums for longer.

 

GeezerCouple

[sail7seas]

Entire cruises get cancelled from time to time if the cruise line opts to charter out the ship. If they sell a whole charter, any guests who had already booked for that date are cancelled.

 

Also, could be scheduling for a dry dock made it necessary to cancel a cruise.

 

I hope you are refunded all your costs, OP.

It is a pet peeve of mine when cruisers, through none of their own actions, are not made whole when the cruise line cancels a cruise. There is no way I can defend them leaving anyone who had booked less than refunded all of their verifiable costs.

 

[SeagoingMom]

Entire cruises get cancelled from time to time if the cruise line opts to charter out the ship. If they sell a whole charter, any guests who had already booked for that date are cancelled.

 

Also, could be scheduling for a dry dock made it necessary to cancel a cruise.

 

I hope you are refunded all your costs, OP.

It is a pet peeve of mine when cruisers, through none of their own actions, are not made whole when the cruise line cancels a cruise. There is no way I can defend them leaving anyone who had booked less than refunded all of their verifiable costs.

 

Interesting opinion, but ooh, what sticky wicket one could get into if one expects the cruise line to refund "all verifiable costs!" Pax would expect the cruise line to refund the money they spent on new clothes, new luggage, new camera, etc. (Folks often buy a lot of new things for cruises.) It would be a nightmare for the cruise line.

 

Somehow I wouldn't expect the cruise line to refund costs beyond the cruise fare, TA costs if any (although that really should be covered by the TA it seems to me) and arguably, airfare, but even airfare can be used to fly for a different sort of vacation -- not really the cruise line's responsibility?

 

What exactly does the small print say in the cruise contract regarding the cruise line's liability? If we want to sail we ultimately all agree to the contract as the cruise line writes it, whether we agree with it or not...

 

But of course this is a digression from the OP's topic.

[sail7seas]

Interesting opinion, but ooh, what sticky wicket one could get into if one expects the cruise line to refund "all verifiable costs!" Pax would expect the cruise line to refund the money they spent on new clothes, new luggage, new camera, etc. (Folks often buy a lot of new things for cruises.) It would be a nightmare for the cruise line.

 

Somehow I wouldn't expect the cruise line to refund costs beyond the cruise fare, TA costs if any (although that really should be covered by the TA it seems to me) and arguably, airfare, but even airfare can be used to fly for a different sort of vacation -- not really the cruise line's responsibility?

 

What exactly does the small print say in the cruise contract regarding the cruise line's liability? If we want to sail we ultimately all agree to the contract as the cruise line writes it, whether we agree with it or not...

 

But of course this is a digression from the OP's topic.

 

 

I don't see a sticky wicket with expecting the cruise line to be responsible for non-refundable travel insurance that was bought specifically for that cruise. Without having booked that cruise, the pax could not/would not have purchased that policy. They should not be 'out money' because the cruise line is availing themselves of the opportunity to make more money by chartering a cruise they had already sold to some people.

 

[GeezerCouple]

Interesting opinion, but ooh, what sticky wicket one could get into if one expects the cruise line to refund "all verifiable costs!" Pax would expect the cruise line to refund the money they spent on new clothes, new luggage, new camera, etc. (Folks often buy a lot of new things for cruises.) It would be a nightmare for the cruise line.

 

Somehow I wouldn't expect the cruise line to refund costs beyond the cruise fare, TA costs if any (although that really should be covered by the TA it seems to me) and arguably, airfare, but even airfare can be used to fly for a different sort of vacation -- not really the cruise line's responsibility?

 

What exactly does the small print say in the cruise contract regarding the cruise line's liability? If we want to sail we ultimately all agree to the contract as the cruise line writes it, whether we agree with it or not...

 

But of course this is a digression from the OP's topic.

 

I think most of us would interpret sail7seas comment about "all of their verifiable costs" to mean things that are entirely and only for the now-cancelled trip.

 

That would mean non-refundable airline tickets, for example, non-refundable discounted hotel nights for before/after cruise, or non-refundable excursions (if any; many are refundable with relatively short notice), etc.

 

It's not at all reasonable to assume that someone flying to/from port cities would want to go to that location and STAY there the entire time. And if the start and stop ports are different, then the passenger on the now-cancelled cruise would also need to pay extra to get to the end point to catch the non-refundable flight home. That might be quite a convoluted and expensive routing.

 

I doubt sail7seas was intending to include new clothes, cameras, luggage.

These are things that DO have "some other purpose" even if the trip isn't ever taken, and there's probably a very good chance that the passenger will sooner or later get to another vacation (cruise or land) where those items will be just as useful. OR be able to use them nicely at home/locally.

 

Probably a reasonable "rule" in this case would be "whatever travel insurance would have paid" IF the insurance had been taken out already.

We had a medical emergency cause a very late cancellation of a big vacation (cruise and land combo, and expensive airfare).

We never, ever considered trying to have the insurer pay for the new clothes that were already packed in the new luggage!

And we wouldn't have been surprised to get a less than polite response if we had tried that.

 

IMPORTANTLY, what does the cruise contract say about "if the cruise is just flat out canceled by the cruiseline"?

We'll now read all of our pending cruise docs again, although because we do have travel insurance before there are meaningful non-refundable costs incurred, it's moot (for us).

 

GeezerCouple

[sail7seas]

I think most of us would interpret sail7seas comment about "all of their verifiable costs" to mean things that are entirely and only for the now-cancelled trip.

 

That would mean non-refundable airline tickets, for example, non-refundable discounted hotel nights for before/after cruise, or non-refundable excursions (if any; many are refundable with relatively short notice), etc.

 

It's not at all reasonable to assume that someone flying to/from port cities would want to go to that location and STAY there the entire time. And if the start and stop ports are different, then the passenger on the now-cancelled cruise would also need to pay extra to get to the end point to catch the non-refundable flight home. That might be quite a convoluted and expensive routing.

 

I doubt sail7seas was intending to include new clothes, cameras, luggage.

These are things that DO have "some other purpose" even if the trip isn't ever taken, and there's probably a very good chance that the passenger will sooner or later get to another vacation (cruise or land) where those items will be just as useful. OR be able to use them nicely at home/locally.

 

Probably a reasonable "rule" in this case would be "whatever travel insurance would have paid" IF the insurance had been taken out already.

We had a medical emergency cause a very late cancellation of a big vacation (cruise and land combo, and expensive airfare).

We never, ever considered trying to have the insurer pay for the new clothes that were already packed in the new luggage!

And we wouldn't have been surprised to get a less than polite response if we had tried that.

 

IMPORTANTLY, what does the cruise contract say about "if the cruise is just flat out canceled by the cruiseline"?

We'll now read all of our pending cruise docs again, although because we do have travel insurance before there are meaningful non-refundable costs incurred, it's moot (for us).

 

GeezerCouple

 

 

 

Thank you, GeezerCouple.

 

I expected most people would understand that was my meaning and didn't care to get into a back and forth about it. :)

 

Either it was understood......... or not.

 

[GeezerCouple]

Thank you, GeezerCouple.

 

I expected most people would understand that was my meaning and didn't care to get into a back and forth about it. :)

 

Either it was understood......... or not.

 

 

I would have let it pass entirely, except there was that part about using the airfare for the vacation anyway.

Most people get non-refundable airfares because it can be so much less expensive than the refundable fares, and some get pre-paid non-refundable hotels, too, for before and after the cruise, either for convenience catching flights, or because they want to do some sightseeing in those locales, too.

 

It just doesn't make sense to expect people to use those *same* air tickets, if their reason for the flights (to or from the cruise ports) no longer exists.

 

And "non-refundable airfare" IS something that trip insurance DOES usually cover.

(So that part is in a totally different category than the "other expenses" such as clothing, luggage, cameras, etc., and shouldn't be lumped in with them.)

 

I admit that I never considered the "what ifs" for a cruise canceled by the cruiseline.

 

GeezerCouple

[ghstudio]

1) This is silversea, not NCL..it's a premium line that probably would like your future business. I think you have leverage with them, especially if you have cruised with them before. It's very reasonable to ask them to cover your insurance expense.

 

2) If your insurance company refuses to refund the premium, you may find that you are actually covered under the trip delay portion of their policy up to some amount. I know it sounds far fetched, but we were on a celebrity cruise when the ship broke down and they cancelled the cruise one day in. We found that we weren't covered for trip interruption, but we were covered (for some unknown reason) for trip delay. It sounds like a stretch but if there are no other options, you might persue that one. It would require you to read the policy very carefully because, of course, the insurance company would claim it wasn't covered.

 

Most likely outcome...they will refund you payment less some relatively small processing fee. You should be able to get that portion back from silversea or perhaps even Ross who would like you to buy insurance from them in the future.

[CoralReef]

Good news! I had to fill out some forms and provide some documentation, but today M.H. Ross responded that they are refunding the whole premium. Very pleased with them for doing the right thing. I will definitely favor them when buying future insurance.

 

Thank goodness I hadn't bought airfare yet! I guess the insurance company would have covered the airfare, but then I wouldn't have been able to cancel the insurance.

 

I agree with the comments that it seems unfair for the customer to be on the hook for airfare purchased for a cancelled cruise.

 

Thanks, all, for the feedback.

[Guest maddycat]

That is good news. I'm glad that they did the right thing and refunded your payment. Thanks for letting us know.

[sail7seas]

Thanks for the update. Appreciate your returning here to let us know how it worked out.

 

Very happy they are refunding your premium.

 

[dancinman66]

Wow. Good that you got that back

Thought you would have had to wear it

 

 

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