jclinard

Insurance companies are good at collecting premiums and denying claims. People give me grief for stating you should only get insurance recommendations from people who know what color the company writes their checks one. But I'll keep saying it.

People get mad at me for saying this, but my additional take-away is to only get insurance recommendations from people who know what color their checks are.

There is a reason why I only accept insurance recommendations from people who know what color the insurance company writes their checks on. After a denial of insurance on a flight (where the company forced me to cancel the flight before I submitted a claim, just so I no longer had the option of waiting for a change in the flight schedule and reject the change, thus getting a refund that way), I carefully read the policy and realized there is no way I could collect on it. My heirs might be able to if I died, but they wouldn't know to file a claim. I also requested copies of cruise insurance I had paid for, but the company ignored my first ten requests for a copy of the policy, and I decided if they didn't to after ten requests, they were unlikely to provide a copy on my 11th request. The insurance agents / advocates here don't like me bringing that up, but they have yet to explain why I should only listen to people who know the color of the checks.

Not at all. There were two separate incidents, one with Expedia, and one with TravelGuard. I won my fight with Expedia. With TravelGuard, in order to apply for their insurance, I was forced to cancel my flights before they would process my claim. They then denied my claim. They had no intention of paying my claim, but they also forced me to cancel my flights. Holding the tickets would have given me options. In the best case, they would have changed their flight times or connections by a sufficient amount to where I could reject the change and obtain a refund (a route I've taken before). Worst case, I could have attempted to use the tickets from Las Vegas to Copenhagen. I think I would have been denied boarding as Denmark wasn't accepting tourists due to COVID (this reason for canceling my tickets fell on deaf ears at TG, but their policy is to collect premiums and deny claims), but I could have shown up at the airport and made the attempt. I had paid for the ticket, and it was business class, so it's not like I would be suffering in economy. As it stands, it was a lesson for me, which includes not buying insurance for flights in general, and not buying anything from TG in particular. If you want to ignore the expensive lessons I learned, that's your business.

You say "throw shade", I say "warn people to due proper research". My Expedia issue was not about insurance. It was about me canceling fully refundable tickets. Instead of refunding, they gave me credits with a foreign airline. They agreed it should have been refunded in cash, then didn't do anything about it. In my case with the BBB, they agreed I should have been given a cash refund and said they would. Then they didn't do it. It was only my subsequent case where I changed tactics and stated they had engaged in bad faith that they decided to refund my fully refundable tickets in case. I've stopped buying insurance on flights as it's clear there is no circumstances where I can collect, unless I died. In which case I won't need the money, and my heir's will not know to collect.

That's a good option. I had a dispute with Expedia I took to the BBB. They agreed I was in the right and promised a refund, which they then didn't issue. I re-opened the case and filed a complaint against Expedia for bad faith. They issued the refund. They thought they could get away with shining me on about the refund because I'm a nobody, but I switched it so they'd have to explain to the BBB why they lied to them.

I stopped using TravelGuard after they denied my claim. They're evil; they forced me to cancel my flights and get credits before they would process my claim. After they denied it, I was stuck with the credits, instead of being able to wait for flight time changes and get a cash refund. I'd personally try filing a case with the Better Business Bureau.