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.

RESPONSE FROM TRAVEL INSURED INTERNATIONAL

We ask that “Theo B. ” kindly further identify himself with full first and last name on his Travel Insured plan so that we can investigate to verify whether or not his service needs were properly addressed and whether more could have been done to provide emergency assistance. Thank you. Travel Insured International

We immediately contacted Travel Insured International, to institute a claim for the 12% Cancellation Fee that was being imposed upon our refund by the touring agency (amounting to $755), and for reimbursement of the “reinstatement fee” of $150 charged to my account by American Airlines, to reinstate my Frequent Flier miles that I had used for my air ticket to Japan. We had carefully read the Policy that we had bought from Travel Insured, and noted that under the heading “Natural Disasters,” it stated that reimbursement of travel charges (and cancellation fees) would be covered in the event that our “accommodations in the city of destination,” i.e., Tokyo in our case, “were made uninhabitable.”

We certainly believed that the terrible situation that existed in Japan, generally, as well as in Tokyo — not to mention the fact that our own State Department had issued a Travel Advisory URGING US NOT TO GO TO JAPAN AT THAT TIME(!) — were sufficient to satisfy the “uninhabitable” clause in the Policy. After all, it is not simply the physical destruction of a property that can make it uninhabitable! Surely, an earthquake every hour, the looming radiation cloud approaching the city, and the general misery of the entire country after such an unprecedented disaster qualify as making it “uninhabitable!”

Not so, says Travel Insured International. After completely IGNORING FOR SIX WEEKS (no acknowledgement of any kind about having heard from me!) our submission of required and supporting documents and a personal letter to them, I finally called to speak with a Claims Manager. Leaving a voicemail message for him, I heard back four days later from a much lower-level subordinate, telling me that they were waiting for a response from my tour agency, to verify when THEY had cancelled our trip! (It was clear in my letter that WE had cancelled…) I said that I required direct contact with the Manager, Mr. David Dagostino.

That contact finally occurred a day later, and was completely unsatisfactory. I was furious at the company’s poor (extremely slow, or non-existent) response to my initial claim materials, and to the fact that they had obviously not even read my letter, with its details. I was also furious that Mr. Dagostino had shoved my case back “downstairs,” to an underling, after my voicemail message to HIM… He said he would look into my claim personally, and get back to me promptly.

Three or four days later, I received a letter in the mail, denying my claim, on the grounds that our accommodations were not, indeed “uninhabitable,” and that we, not the tour agency, had cancelled the trip.

My husband and I travel internationally very often, and have never encountered such a situation with any company I have dealt with. I consider that Travel Insured International totally misrepresents itself as operating in its policyholders’ interests, that it is in the business purely for profit and nothing else, and that its business practices are absolutely awful. They obviously do not like having to pay on legitimate claims, whether or not they fit the “letter” of the policy to a “t.”.

I intend to file a formal complaint with the Connecticut Insurance Department, and with the Better Business Bureau, but I decided that a Review would be a good pace to start, as a warning to potential victims of this company’s shenanigans!

Bottom line: DO NOT PURCHASE YOUR TRAVEL INSURANCE FROM THIS COMPANY!!! YOU WILL BE SORRY!!!

RESPONSE FROM TRAVEL INSURED INTERNATIONAL

Travel Insured Intl. response to Marijo Hennagin-Mazur complaint #16 of May 30, 2011:

The ferocious tsunami and 8.9- magnitude earthquake that hit Japan affected millions of travelers worldwide. While Travel Insured International (TII) strives to review claims and return calls in a timely fashion, world events occurring at that time inundated the Claims Department and we were not able to provide the quality service we normally provide..

The insurance plan Ms. Hennagin-Mazur purchased provides Trip Cancellation coverage for specified events. According to the documentation submitted, Ms. Hennagin-Mazur cancelled the trip due to the situation in Japan resulting from the earthquake, tsunami, and radiation.

A specified event covered under the plan is Natural Disaster at the site of Your destination which renders Your destination accommodations uninhabitable. TII did not receive any documentation to show that any destination accommodations for Ms. Hennagin-Mazur were made uninhabitable by the Natural Disasters, benefits are not payable.

The plan also provides coverage for Travel Supplier Cancellation. TII looks for ways to pay claims; therefore, they contacted the Travel Supplier to determine whether they cancelled the trip. Since they did not cancel the trip, benefits are not payable under this benefit either.

We were “declined” payment after my wife suffered a series of Alzheimer’s Delirium Episodes and had to return home mid-cruise.
Dick

Second post from original poster 5/8/2011

It is obvious that a high percentage of people reviewing Travel Insured International are treated poorly. This company is not in business to insure. They are in business to receive premiums and then find a weasel way to deny claims. One purchases insurance in case travel is interrupted. My wife suffered a series of four Delirium Episodes in the first five days of an 11 day Caribbean Cruise. We had to disembark in Costa Rica and fly home. Travel Insured International denied the claim because she was not seen by a ship’s doctor before leaving the ship. Why would that have been necessary? The doctor would have diagnosed Alzheimer’s Disease which we already knew. There is no known treatment for Alzheimer’s or for Delirium Episodes which are suffered by a small percentage of Alzheimer’s patients. Waiting for a doctor to do nothing would have been stupid. But, it appears that you have to be stupid to trust Travel Insured International.

Dick Swearingen

Reply from Travel Insured International 5/9/2011

We are very sorry that the Swearingens were not able to continue their cruise vacation and had an unhappy outcome to their claim. Please note that Travel Insured is required to follow disclosure rules that do not permit private medical records to be publicly disclosed. However, our claim department management has confirmed that the Swearingens’ claim was properly declined due to the absence of any physician’s certification that would have restricted their continued participation on their trip. Such certification is required for a Trip Interruption to be covered.