Lesson; always file an appeal.
jay

Mr. Ashley cancelled his trip on December 13, 2011. According to the medical documentation received from his treating physician, the last time he sought medical advice and/or care for his condition was July 11, 2011.

Since at the time of loss a physician did not certify an illness resulted in medically imposed restrictions, benefits under the policy are not payable. Therefore, his claim was appropriately declined. At Travel Insured we are never happy to deny a claim. Members of our claim department and their management team are always readily available to our customers, and they can be reached at 1-800-243-2440 to discuss a claim filing that has not resulted in a happy or satisfying outcome.

Our family was to take a trip to Switzerland to visit my Wife’s family in December of 2011. My wife purchased flight insurance from Travel Insurance Intl. in March 2011. I was diagnosed with Immulogical Urticaria in July 2011 which is a systemic, painful reaction to heat and other stress brought on by allergies. It began to act up about a month before our trip and my doctor advised me by phone, not to take a flight over 3 hours in length as there may be no way to get any relief in-flight. Since the flight to Switzerland is 12 hours I made the decision not to go with my family on this trip. We filed a claim and it was denied because they said there was no record of me being treated in December, even though my doctor told them, in the Insurance Companies own form, that he advised me not to take a flight over 3 hours in length. Are they trying to say that a doctor cannot advise a patient by phone not to do something. These are just greedy bastards that will take yiour money and deny, deny, deny coverage to keep from paying out claims. Yoiu might as well burn your money rather than give it to Travel Insurance Intl. for flight insurance.
Jay

Thank you,

William Limbrick

TravelInsured
September 22, 2011
Under the policy the insured purchased, Pre-Existing medical conditions are excluded.
In order to waive the Pre-Existing medical condition exclusion, you must purchase the plan within fourteen (14) days of the initial Trip deposit; for the full non-refundable cost of Your Trip; the booking for the Trip must be the first and only booking for this travel period and destination; You are not disabled from travel at the time You pay the plan cost.

Pre-Existing as defined by the policy is any Injury, Sickness or condition of yourself, a Traveling Companion or You and/or Your Traveling Companion’s Family Member for which medical advice, diagnosis, care or treatment was recommended or received within the 180 day period ending on the Effective Date.

The Effective Date of the policy is May 4, 2011.

According to the documentation submitted, the insured’s father-in-law received medical advice and/or care within the 180 days period prior to the Effective Date for the same illness in which he cancelled his trip for. Since the illness for which the insured cancelled is a Pre-Existing condition, it is excluded under the policy and therefore benefits are not payable.

Although the insured has been a valued customer for several years, we must pay all claims according to the policy language.

After our trip, I am getting the run around. First I have to get confirmation from 3 airlines to say my daughter did not fly. That is hard enough to get from international airlines but Now the company tells me that I had to notify the 3 airlines 48 hours before the flight. This is not in their policy and I was not told that by the 2 representatives that I spoke to before the trip. The customer service rep was very rude stating that that is a policy rule even though it is not stated in the policy and I was not told about it.
I did try to notify all 3 airlines 2 weeks before the flight, I have phone records to prove it but I was unable to get through to 2 of them. (With some charter airlines it is impossible to have any human contact)

Response from Travel Insured International

We did not provide the quality customer care service that is the TII way.

Our claims customer service representative should have recognized that Travel Insured was notified of the claim on 06/23/11, thereby meeting the contractual policy requirement that the insured be prevented from taking the trip for all reasons up to 48 hours prior to departure.

We understand that it is difficult to get refund information from certain airlines, and after a review of all available documentation we are paying the claim for $372.59.

We have reviewed this claim with our representative and we apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused our customer.

We now plan to take this further!

Consider using the purchase options available online instead. If you know the company and plan name, you can navigate to it on our website and purchase the plan from there. Alternatively, you can use this link to get a quote to get a number of quotes and to purchase your plan immediately – no phone call required (unless you have questions, of course!).

Be sure to review your policy within the review period listed in your policy to be sure it meets your needs. Have a good trip!

I hope their marketing people aren’t spending too much money on ads — – because the operators don’t seem to want to collect any revenues!

Response from Travel Insured International:


After checking with its claim department managers, Travel Insured International reports that the above Cancel for Any Reason claim has been paid.

No thank you… I’m staying anonymous due to your “customer service” personnel threatening to turn my case over to your lawyer simply because I had a legitimate complaint–the intent was crystal clear, you would use your attorney to make me go away with nothing for my claim and probably try to silence me in the process. This “chilling effect” practice of implied threat is abhorable. If I was out a lot of money for my incident i would have immediately hired an attorney to go after TII when the above statement was made to me. But since I am mostly out on the amount of the coverage, it’s not worth being litigious (as it seems to be for TII). I look at the money I wasted on the TII coverage as a lesson–one I hope others learn from and spend their hard earned dollars elsewhere. My only objective now is to relate my viewpoint in many places and ways, and hopefully cause some future customers of TII to consider alternatives who might treat them with more respect. (Note: I am pleased that so far two of my friends have heeded my advice and gone elsewhere for travel insurance). So, no full name, no policy number, because TII you already had your chance and your response was despicable. Damn your polite, “wish we could help if we only had your name” response. If you had my name all I’d get is a letter from your attorney. You HAD my name and your actions spoke volumes about your company. I repeat, caveat emptor with TII.