Trip Cancellation - Death of Parent

[Georgia_Traveler]

I'm considering cancelling a cruise, and it appears that my insurance (through World Trips - Atlas Journey Preferred) would pay benefits under the Trip Cancellation provision due to death of my mother.  There doesn't appear to be any exclusion for this as long as the death "occurs after the purchase of this policy and while this coverage is in effect."

 

Her death was on 2/20/24, but cruise is not until 5/18/24.  I was surprised that the policy doesn't appear to have any restrictions such as "death must occur within 30 days prior to cruise" or similar.  

 

Is anyone aware of a restriction I may be missing?   Thanks for your insight.

 

In case it matters, here are all of the relevant dates:

Cruise booked/first payment on 6/29/23

Insurance effective on 7/8/23 with no pre-existing exclusion

Final payment due on 2/17/24 and paid on 2/15/24

Mother's death on 2/20/24

Cruise start date is 5/17/24

 

 

[ckre4d]

I just want to say I am so sorry for your devastating loss. My beautiful, 92 year old Mom passed away on March 16, 2024. We bought trip insurance, but decided we will still take our cruise next month. Sending healing hugs and prayers!

✝️🙏💗🙏✝️

Edited March 28 by ckre4d

[GeezerCouple]

39 minutes ago, Georgia_Traveler said:

I'm considering cancelling a cruise, and it appears that my insurance (through World Trips - Atlas Journey Preferred) would pay benefits under the Trip Cancellation provision due to death of my mother.  There doesn't appear to be any exclusion for this as long as the death "occurs after the purchase of this policy and while this coverage is in effect."

 

Her death was on 2/20/24, but cruise is not until 5/18/24.  I was surprised that the policy doesn't appear to have any restrictions such as "death must occur within 30 days prior to cruise" or similar.  

 

Is anyone aware of a restriction I may be missing?   Thanks for your insight.

 

In case it matters, here are all of the relevant dates:

Cruise booked/first payment on 6/29/23

Insurance effective on 7/8/23 with no pre-existing exclusion

Final payment due on 2/17/24 and paid on 2/15/24

Mother's death on 2/20/24

Cruise start date is 5/17/24

 

First, I'm very sorry about your loss.

ETA:  And Welcome to CruiseCritic!

I'm also sorry that your first experience with CruiseCritic is for such an unfortunate situation.

Hopefully the future will include some nice cruises or other trips.

 

Given what you've described, the possible problem I could see MIGHT be that you may have an obligation to mitigate the loss.  Fot example. if on March 1st (totally fictitious dates!) you could have gotten a 75% refund from the cruise line, but by April 1st, it would only be 50%, then there may be a question about that extra 25% of the fare that the insurer might have been able to save, if your refund were larger.

 

But there may be mitigating circumstances.

Do look carefully at your policy AND at your cancellation dates/penalties, and try not to force the insurer to refund more because you delayed the cancellation.

(I know that when we had to cancel that first insured trip, and IIRC, there was still a chance for a slight refund on the Saturday emergency.  However, the doctor wasn't yet sure if we would be able to travel or not, given the sudden onset... would the condition improve or keep getting worse.  And IF we could go, we definitely wanted to still go!  So the doctor needed to see the patient on Monday to see if there was any improvement or the opposite.  Alas, it kept getting worse, and became a very serious medical situation that we never dreamed of.  So we cancelled on Monday, when the doctor said, "no go". He wrote that sequence on his insurance form.  We got a full refund within about 2 weeks... and were SO sad to miss that trip!
The only traveling we did for a couple of months was to and from various seemingly unending medical visits.

 

And then, we still couldn't reschedule a real trip for a couple more months, because the travelers must be "fit to travel" the day the insurance is started.   And he wasn't... yet.

On the day that the doctor finally cleared him, I asked the doctor to write a short note on his letterhead (he used an Rx form, which was fine!) that "<name> is fit to travel without restrictions today, <date>".

We went home, I called to schedule a new cruise and land trip, and the next call I made, almost immediately, was to start the insurance.

And we had a *wonderful* trip, finally!

 

So take a good look at *all* of the terms and conditions.  We work with an insurance broker, and we've asked for their advice/suggestions a few times, and this - being our first claim - was certainly one of those times we wanted to make sure that we didn't screw something up by mistake.

GC

Edited March 28 by GeezerCouple

[Georgia_Traveler]

11 hours ago, GeezerCouple said:

 

First, I'm very sorry about your loss.

ETA:  And Welcome to CruiseCritic!

I'm also sorry that your first experience with CruiseCritic is for such an unfortunate situation.

Hopefully the future will include some nice cruises or other trips.

 

Given what you've described, the possible problem I could see MIGHT be that you may have an obligation to mitigate the loss.  Fot example. if on March 1st (totally fictitious dates!) you could have gotten a 75% refund from the cruise line, but by April 1st, it would only be 50%, then there may be a question about that extra 25% of the fare that the insurer might have been able to save, if your refund were larger.

 

But there may be mitigating circumstances.

Do look carefully at your policy AND at your cancellation dates/penalties, and try not to force the insurer to refund more because you delayed the cancellation.

(I know that when we had to cancel that first insured trip, and IIRC, there was still a chance for a slight refund on the Saturday emergency.  However, the doctor wasn't yet sure if we would be able to travel or not, given the sudden onset... would the condition improve or keep getting worse.  And IF we could go, we definitely wanted to still go!  So the doctor needed to see the patient on Monday to see if there was any improvement or the opposite.  Alas, it kept getting worse, and became a very serious medical situation that we never dreamed of.  So we cancelled on Monday, when the doctor said, "no go". He wrote that sequence on his insurance form.  We got a full refund within about 2 weeks... and were SO sad to miss that trip!
The only traveling we did for a couple of months was to and from various seemingly unending medical visits.

 

And then, we still couldn't reschedule a real trip for a couple more months, because the travelers must be "fit to travel" the day the insurance is started.   And he wasn't... yet.

On the day that the doctor finally cleared him, I asked the doctor to write a short note on his letterhead (he used an Rx form, which was fine!) that "<name> is fit to travel without restrictions today, <date>".

We went home, I called to schedule a new cruise and land trip, and the next call I made, almost immediately, was to start the insurance.

And we had a *wonderful* trip, finally!

 

So take a good look at *all* of the terms and conditions.  We work with an insurance broker, and we've asked for their advice/suggestions a few times, and this - being our first claim - was certainly one of those times we wanted to make sure that we didn't screw something up by mistake.

GC

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.  You've given me some good insight.

[Georgia_Traveler]

11 hours ago, ckre4d said:

I just want to say I am so sorry for your devastating loss. My beautiful, 92 year old Mom passed away on March 16, 2024. We bought trip insurance, but decided we will still take our cruise next month. Sending healing hugs and prayers!

✝️🙏💗🙏✝️

Thank you so much!  I'm sorry for your loss as well. I hope you enjoy your cruise.

[Coral]

Was your parent going on the cruise with you?

[TerryAndDoug]

10 hours ago, Coral said:

Was your parent going on the cruise with you?

No, she was not.

[dickinson]

Sorry for your loss.  I would check further because your cruise is two months later.  It MIGHT be that it is covered only within a certain time frame which would not cover two months before the cruise.  

[Coral]

On 3/31/2024 at 3:11 PM, dickinson said:

Sorry for your loss.  I would check further because your cruise is two months later.  It MIGHT be that it is covered only within a certain time frame which would not cover two months before the cruise.  

Almost 3 months. I would be surprised if this is covered.