Insurance refusing to pay for both people on policy

[luckybecky]

We had a missed flight, causing a two day delay in Munich. Our trip insurance has trip delay coverage of $125 per person, per day. The math is not hard: $125 X 2 people X 2 days = $500.

 

Insurance paid only $250 for one person on the policy. No coverage for the spouse. 

 

I called to ask why (after they failed to respond to my email). I was told it was because only one of us incurred expenses; there were no receipts showing expenses for the spouse. There were no receipts for the spouse because we paid for everything jointly. We didn't ask the hotel staff to divide our bill in two and have each spouse pay half. Likewise, we paid for our meals jointly. We shared a taxi to and from the airport so have only one receipt for that, etc. 

 

It seems completely bizarre to me that we purchased a joint policy, for both of us, but they are refusing to cover both people on the policy, simply because we paid for things jointly. 

 

The conversation I had with the insurance rep became truly nonsensical. He insisted that the spouse had no expenses. I said, I don't know any married couple who travel together yet divide and pay separately for their shared hotel room. I said I wished someone had told me that was a requirement to maintain insurance coverage. The rep replied, "ma'am, it is not our responsibility to tell you how to pay your expenses."

 

Anyone run into this before? It seems crazy to me that we paid for two people to be on this policy but they will only pay the trip delay for one of us. This was with IMG insurance, purchased through Insure My Trip. 

 

Any suggestions?

[GeezerCouple]

8 hours ago, luckybecky said:

We had a missed flight, causing a two day delay in Munich. Our trip insurance has trip delay coverage of $125 per person, per day. The math is not hard: $125 X 2 people X 2 days = $500.

 

Insurance paid only $250 for one person on the policy. No coverage for the spouse. 

 

I called to ask why (after they failed to respond to my email). I was told it was because only one of us incurred expenses; there were no receipts showing expenses for the spouse. There were no receipts for the spouse because we paid for everything jointly. We didn't ask the hotel staff to divide our bill in two and have each spouse pay half. Likewise, we paid for our meals jointly. We shared a taxi to and from the airport so have only one receipt for that, etc. 

 

It seems completely bizarre to me that we purchased a joint policy, for both of us, but they are refusing to cover both people on the policy, simply because we paid for things jointly. 

 

The conversation I had with the insurance rep became truly nonsensical. He insisted that the spouse had no expenses. I said, I don't know any married couple who travel together yet divide and pay separately for their shared hotel room. I said I wished someone had told me that was a requirement to maintain insurance coverage. The rep replied, "ma'am, it is not our responsibility to tell you how to pay your expenses."

 

Anyone run into this before? It seems crazy to me that we paid for two people to be on this policy but they will only pay the trip delay for one of us. This was with IMG insurance, purchased through Insure My Trip. 

 

Any suggestions?

 

Sounds more than odd to me, and this is certainly *not* what we experienced with several travel delays/changes.

 

As a side note, we get our travel insurance through www.TripInsuranceStore.com (with Travel Insured).  TIS could also try to assist with a claim, if needed.  However, we've never needed them to run interference with any complaints for any of our claims, fortunately.

 

We are also a married couple, and we paid with a single credit card for hotel rooms and combined food when our insured trip was delayed/changed... and this was more than once.  And there was only one room bill that included a total for all meals (which were sometimes for both of us, but on one occasion, below, for just one of us for a couple of days).

 

When we had to spend extra nights at a hotel because I landed in hospital, the insurance just paid the bill for almost an extra week.  First, for the extra stay - including meals - when DH was there and I was in hospital, and then for a few more days because I was out of hospital, but still not in a condition to travel (per written note from physician).

 

Another time, our flight home from the Caribbean was cancelled.  Then it was "late", scheduled for the next day.  We went back to our hotel, where our room was still unoccupied thank goodness (this was a week before Christmas).  Again, we had one bill for one room, and it included food charges for dinner and breakfast.  We also had taxis back to the hotel and then back to the airport again. One taxi that we shared each way, no surprise.

 

Like you, we had a single receipt for each of the charges:  A single room bill each time, and a single charge card receipt for payment for each separate "cost".

 

Did you ask to speak with a supervisor/manager/etc.?
Will Insure My Trip help you with this?

I'd escalate this for sure.  And I might even send a certified letter, with proof of delivery.  However, I can't believe this would really be necessary; that's nuts.  Even if you weren't married, but were traveling together, and both had the the same insurance...

 😠

 

GC

[klfrodo]

I'm going to play devils advocate only for clarification purposes.

 

Does the policy state they will pay $125 per person per day? Or does it state it will pay UP TO $125 per person per day?  The reason I ask if because my policies state that Trip Delay will pay up to a max amount of 150% of Trip Cost. Then, of course, the final question of how much was the total receipt for your losses?

 

 

And if you still feel you are being screwed over, I would file a complaint with you State Insurance Commissioner. They regulate the laws of your State as to who and what can be sold in your State.

For residents of Texas, that would be here at this link.

Texas Department of Insurance

[luckybecky]

Thanks GeezerCouple and klfrodo for your comments. 

 

Yes, I did ask to speak to a supervisor. He's the one who gave me this bizarre explanation for not paying. 

 

Before speaking to him, I had a long conversation with a woman who first could not understand the math: two people times 2 days times $125 per day  (2 x 2 x 125= 500). She kept insisting that we had been paid in full. Then she said we hadn't been paid the full benefit because they don't cover taxi cost to and from the airport. The taxi was just a small fraction of our total expense.

 

Klfrodo, you are correct, our policy states it will pay UP TO $125 pp/pday. Our total cost was over $800. Unfortunately booking a last minute hotel near the airport in one of the most expensive cities in Germany turned out to be very costly. Around $300 per night -- and it was a very ordinary hotel. Nice enough, but nothing special at all. Not the Four Seasons. 

 

We know that the policy limit means we won't recover the entire amount we spent during the delay. But we do think it should be covered to the full limit of the policy. 

 

Thanks for the link and the suggestion to escalate to our state insurance commissioner. I have emailed an appeal of the decision to pay only one person on the policy. I'll wait a few days to see if they respond, and if not, then I'll follow your suggestion.

[klfrodo]

Well,,, with all being said, it sounds like your logic is more correct than the insurance companies logic. Okay, I can kind of understand the taxi issue, but the hotels, meals, etc should have paid out max benefits. Please come back and let us all know how it works out. Maybe you can save the next person from this scenerio

 

For future reference only, this is an example of why most of us here champion Steve and his people at tripinsurancestore. Whenever I'm in a position to file a claim, Steve helps answer questions about wording in the claim and has gotten involved himself. It's good to have an advocate on your side.

Edited October 27, 2022 by klfrodo

[luckybecky]

Reviving this old topic. Today, we finally received full payment on our policy. It took a truly ridiculous amount of persistence on our part. I had to call and email OVER and OVER to get this claim paid. 

 

I don't know if the insurance company was just hoping I would give up and go away or what.

 

It just seemed completely nonsensical to me that two people purchased a policy, but they were only paying for one person. I kept pressing that point and today they finally reimbursed the full amount. This was for a trip that happened last summer. It took months to get paid.

 

What is worse is that this is for a small claim. It's not like we were trying to recoup many tens of thousands for a medivac or repatriation. It was just several hundred dollars for a couple of days of delay and lost luggage.

 

 

[GeezerCouple]

I'm glad this finally got resolved properly!

 

Perhaps try a different travel insurance company next time?

(And thanks for mentioning which insurer it was, to help others make good decisions.)

 

GC

[tj_shopper]

I am late in replying to this thread but wanted to say that this exact same thing happened to me with IMG SE policy for a January 2023 cruise.  Our flight was canceled due to weather and we had to spend an extra night in Texas.  I submitted my expenses and two weeks later, I received my check with only half of the payment.  They divided my bill in half but only paid me and not my husband.  I had to contest it and about a month later, I received the other half.  I think it was the analyst that worked on my claim.  My girlfriend also had the same thing occur to her and she submitted her claim.  It came back perfect for her.  She must have had a different claims analyst complete hers!