I've been on 12 Viking cruises, and I've just automatically signed up for Tripmate travel insurance. After all, Viking is a great company so why wouldn't their recommended travel insurance carrier be superior? But it is like one of the wise posters on this subject has said repeatedly: until you have had a claims experience, you don't really know the value of the insurance policy you are purchasing.
We had a South American / Transatlantic cruise planned, which started in Argentina. But the flight portion went awry with a weather delay, and we missed our connection to Buenos Aires. Finally arriving after 10pm at DFW, AA told us they were going to put us on a flight to Miami at 6 am the next morning (meaning we needed to be back at DFW at 5am), that later connected that night with a flight to Buenos Aires. This became another travel nightmare situation, wherein we ended up spending the night on the furniture at DFW, because with that short interval, we felt the trip to and from a hotel wouldn't really work. In any event, as a result we missed the first day of the cruise and a long awaited excursion. (The lesson for us we need to learn: plan on getting there one day early.)
We filed our claim with Tripmate, and what followed were four requests for further documentation. Why these weren't consolidated into one request is beyond me. It was like a contest to see if I would finally give up on pursuing the claim. Finally, after over two months had elapsed, we were informed by email that our claims were "in payment status." So we awaited our check, which after a month, still had not arrived. So I finally called Tripmate and a confused agent told me she would look into it. After a few hours she called me back. It turned out that the payment check had "fallen through the cracks" and had never been cut. Had I not called them, the claim would never would have been paid. Never again with Tripmate.
