Does Travel Insurance Cover Interest Charges?

[Daniel A]

Generally speaking, does travel insurance cover credit card interest charges if you need to use a credit card to pay a hospital bill and submit a claim to the travel insurer later?  I imagine it could take months to get a settlement out of an insurer, in the meantime the credit card charges are accruing interest.

[Babr]

Not to my knowledge. Policies list covered medical expenses and services. Otherwise, they cover prepaid nonrefundable expenses up to the policy limit.

 

Accrued interest on a credit card does not fit either of those definitions.

[GeezerCouple]

59 minutes ago, Babr said:

Not to my knowledge. Policies list covered medical expenses and services. Otherwise, they cover prepaid nonrefundable expenses up to the policy limit.

 

Accrued interest on a credit card does not fit either of those definitions.

 

If one has extra non-medical expenses, such as an extra night because a flight was cancelled, then the travel insurance (or, to be more specific, the type of travel insurance we get) would pay for the extra hotel night, all meals including tax and tip, taxi fare back and forth (and tip *IF* one gets a receipt; that's the one thing we never got reimbursed for, because we didn't have a receipt for the tip, but that was a trivial amount, relatively speaking), or other transportation if one needed to 'catch up' with travel plans.  And most of that is not a "prepaid non-refundable" expense.

In one case, we had almost an extra week at a 5* hotel, including all meals.  That involved a medical problem where travel was not possible (for documented medical reasons) right away.  We were already at that hotel, which was supposed to be for a very short stay, when I landed in hospital.  Again, all was paid without any question.

 

The charge card interest is a slightly different question.  We've always been paid within a couple of weeks (usually 2 or maybe 3?) of submitting our claim that incluced all required documents.  There was one exception, where our non-weather-related claim was submitted when there had just been a few major hurricane/weather events, so the travel insurers were really swamped.  Fortunately, we purchase our coverage through www.TripInsuranceStore.com - and we contacted Steve to ask about the delay.  Everything got processed very promptly again, from that point on.

 

I'd ask a travel insurer about this.  For a very large claim, any interest could add up, but our experience has never been longer than one billing cycle (which on a large bill with charge card rates, even one month's interest could still be a bit of change...)

 

We have found, over quite a few claims, that the insurer paid all appropriate, documented costs that were claimed.  They (or at least our insurer!?) are not the monsters or fly-by-night operations that sometimes seem to be described.

 

But NOTE:  Always read the terms and conditions of *your* policy (or the one you are considering purchasing).  All policies do **NOT** include the same things!

 

GC
 

[Babr]

Yes, Trip Interruption and Trip Delay are not prepaid expenses. I was not considering them in my answer about accrued interest though those, too, could be carried as a balance until the claim was settled.

 

In addition, as you pointed out, additional expenses for the spouse are covered while the patient is being treated along with return transportation.

 

In any case, I have never seen a policy that states it will pay the interest on any medical or travel expenses while the claim is pending. It is an interesting question for Steve, but I’m betting No.