Travel Insured - Great Customer Service

[erby2283]

My case is probably different than most:

 

After making myself sick to death about whether to go on my January cruise or not (and even posting here about it months ago), I cancelled a few weeks ago, PRIOR to final payment.

 

However, I had paid for 2 airline tickets (Southwest and Jetblue) and my deposit for the cruise was non-refundable. Many advised me to make final payment since I had a cancel for any reason clause and just cancel if I had to. But I really had this feeling that I shouldn't go, and why should I waste my money, and the insurance companies money if I was pretty sure I wasn't going to go.

 

Yes, it is a little bit of work to complete the forms, make copies of invoices, emails and submit all the information but as long as you keep good records, it shouldn't be that hard.

 

I filed my claim for my non-refundable Carnival deposit and the $60 fee Jetblue charged me for canceling my ticket. Jetblue will allow me to book another flight (it only needs to be booked, not traveled) within the next year. As for the Southwest flight, I've already booked another flight for next month using that ticket since Southwest allows you to change flights without fees.

 

So this morning, only 2 weeks since I sent in my paperwork, Sheila from Travel Insured called me to see if my intentions were to use the Jetblue ticket or whether they needed to only refund me the Carnival deposit. After explaining that I only asked to be refunded for the penalty that Jetblue charged for canceling and not the airfare itself, she told me a check would be in the mail for 75% of my claim amount (as I expected) and that if I ended up NOT booking the Jetblue ticket within the next year to call her back and she would add those fees to my claim and reimburse me 75% of those fees as well.

 

This is the first time I have ever had to file a claim and while I am disappointed not to be cruising, am glad the claim process has been quick and easy!

[GeezerCouple]

My case is probably different than most:

 

After making myself sick to death about whether to go on my January cruise or not (and even posting here about it months ago), I cancelled a few weeks ago, PRIOR to final payment.

 

However, I had paid for 2 airline tickets (Southwest and Jetblue) and my deposit for the cruise was non-refundable. Many advised me to make final payment since I had a cancel for any reason clause and just cancel if I had to. But I really had this feeling that I shouldn't go, and why should I waste my money, and the insurance companies money if I was pretty sure I wasn't going to go.

 

Yes, it is a little bit of work to complete the forms, make copies of invoices, emails and submit all the information but as long as you keep good records, it shouldn't be that hard.

 

I filed my claim for my non-refundable Carnival deposit and the $60 fee Jetblue charged me for canceling my ticket. Jetblue will allow me to book another flight (it only needs to be booked, not traveled) within the next year. As for the Southwest flight, I've already booked another flight for next month using that ticket since Southwest allows you to change flights without fees.

 

So this morning, only 2 weeks since I sent in my paperwork, Sheila from Travel Insured called me to see if my intentions were to use the Jetblue ticket or whether they needed to only refund me the Carnival deposit. After explaining that I only asked to be refunded for the penalty that Jetblue charged for canceling and not the airfare itself, she told me a check would be in the mail for 75% of my claim amount (as I expected) and that if I ended up NOT booking the Jetblue ticket within the next year to call her back and she would add those fees to my claim and reimburse me 75% of those fees as well.

 

This is the first time I have ever had to file a claim and while I am disappointed not to be cruising, am glad the claim process has been quick and easy!

 

We filed a large claim with Travel Insured about 2 years ago, the very first time we purchased travel insurance (and now we will NEVER travel without it in some form).

The forms were somewhat tedious, but it all made sense that they needed to verify that the claim was "real" and that we really paid for the claimed costs, etc.

 

About a week after we submitted the final documentation, we got a call from them that the check was being sent, and a week later it arrived.

 

No nonsense about paying.

And that's how it should be...

 

The next few trips were uneventful in terms of insurance issues, but we are about to file another claim, for a much smaller amount than last time for a trip interruption claim (not the last minute medical emergency cancellation last time).

We've already spoken with them, and they helped us with just how to make the claim, as it's a bit of an unusual situation (well, for us anyway, but probably not for them - they must "see it all", etc.!).

 

GeezerCouple

[ChucktownSteve]

Thankx for sharing the info about Travel Insured's great customer service. That's who I'm using on two of my upcoming cruises after they were recommended by Steve at the trip insurance store.

 

I had a horrendous experience with Trip Mate (TravelSafe's claims company) whereby a simple airline cancelled flight causing me to no show at my AK cruise took THREE months and then an appeal for a missed payment to complete.

 

I hope I don't need to file a claim but if I do, I'll feel a lot better using Travel Insured thankx to your post.

[cherylandtk]

Thanks for the information. I had posted our difficulties last April in using Trip Mate. As an update, we had another policy for a second trip in place prior to that claim - different company, but also processed by Trip Mate. As bad luck would have it, we had a one-day delay due to airline mechanical problems. Airline paid for our hotel, tour company took care of everything from arrival airport onwards. So our only claim was for meals under trip delay and the one day of prepaid tour arrangements.

 

Took two separate claim forms - one for delay and one for interruption, although three out of the five pages were identical on each form. Since we had prior experience in filing claims, I knew enough to obtain documentation right away to prove the flight delay. By the time I finished, the claim was 24 pages of forms, receipt copies, proof of purchase and one cover page outlining what happened and what was enclosed.

 

This was a much smaller claim than our cancellation, this was only slightly over $800. Still, it took from 9/24 when they received it to 10/24 to 'approve' it for payment. We received the payment last week as four separate checks; one each for delay and one each for interruption.

 

Thankfully this now clears out any backlog of policies using Trip Mate. We intend to stick with Travel Insured or Travelex in the future, both of them have proven records of prompt and courteous service.

[Keith1010]

Glad it worked out for you.

 

Keith

[sail7seas]

Thanks for coming back to let us know it worked out for you.

Happy the claim was paid. :)