Here’s an $11,504 travel insurance mistake you won’t want to make

Travelers beware: Sometimes a travel insurance mistake isn’t fixable – no matter how much money is at stake. But what about this one?

Last August, 79-year-old Martha Weisberg was happily looking forward to a scuba diving trip in the Red Sea. The active adventurer had paid $11,540 for the 7-night group tour and $1,379 for a travel insurance policy. 

Most standard travel insurance policies don’t cover risky activities like scuba diving. Weisberg knew this, so she purchased her coverage through Dive Assure, a travel insurance company that specializes in, you guessed it, covering divers.

Unfortunately, just 10 days after making the final payment for the trip, Weisberg took a terrible fall. 

“I fell on my face and head,” Weisberg told me. “At the hospital, I had a CT scan and X-rays before being diagnosed with a concussion. I also had to have stitches on my lip and my forehead.”  

With the diving trip in Egypt just a few weeks away, Weisberg wondered if she would still be able to go. Her doctor quickly cleared up any confusion. It wouldn’t be safe for her to take a long-haul flight or to dive in her condition.

A canceled trip and a long road to recovery

Weisberg let the tour operator know that, regrettably, she needed to cancel her trip. Her next call should have been to her travel insurance company, Dive Assure. Unfortunately, Weisberg didn’t make that call. In fact, it would be months before she informed the travel insurance company of her cancellation – a mistake she blames on her head injury.

“I lost consciousness after my fall. For a long time after the accident I couldn’t think straight,” Weisberg explained to me. “I had severe headaches and couldn’t look at a computer and I was very sensitive to light.”

Weisberg says that in December, she finally started to feel like herself again. That’s when her thoughts turned to the travel insurance claim that she intended to file.

“I needed someone to help me, but because of the holidays, no one had the time,” Weisberg recalled. “In the first week of January, I was able to gather all the documentation and send it to the travel insurance company.”

By then, it was nearly five months after Weisberg’s fall. That timeline would prove problematic for the travel insurance company – extremely problematic.

A denied travel insurance claim

Initially, Weisberg didn’t detect that she would face any difficulties getting her travel insurance claim approved. She submitted all the documents and received a friendly message from Robin Assist, the Claims Administrator of Dive Assure.

In that email, dated January 15, the claims handler gives no indication that there is a catastrophic problem with Weisberg’s submission. Instead, she asks Weisberg to gather additional documentation to prove that her trip was nonrefundable and that she had canceled it. 

So Weisberg went back to the tour operator to get that proof. Then the claims handler asked Weisberg to provide credit card statements to prove she’d paid for the trip in full. Weisberg did that, too. 

Finally, Robin Assist had all the requested documentation and Weisberg patiently waited for her $11,504 reimbursement check. 

But two weeks later, she received a shock instead of a check. The same friendly claims handler had some bad news. Weisberg had missed the deadline for filing her claim by nearly 60 days. That mistake allowed the Robin Assist handler to easily deny her travel insurance claim. 

And that’s exactly what happened. 

Weisberg couldn’t believe what she was reading. With visions of her $11,504 evaporating in front of her eyes, she headed straight to Consumer Rescue. She hoped our advocacy team could rescue her from this travel insurance nightmare.

Another travel insurance mistake. Help!

Weisberg is no stranger to travel insurance mistakes. 

Unfortunately, she is also a Vantage Travel Bankruptcy victim. She lost $13,000 after she made the mistake of purchasing the struggling tour operator’s self-insured travel protection instead of a third-party comprehensive travel insurance policy. That policy turned out to be worthless for the travelers who bought it, since the bankrupt company couldn’t pay its claims. 

Related: Why you shouldn’t buy travel insurance from your tour operator

So, as Weisberg faced losing another nearly $12,000 to a travel debacle in just two years, she found it hard to believe.

Michelle,

Is there any way you can help me?  I already lost a lot of money from the Vantage fiasco, and really didn’t want to lose more on other trips.

Please, can Consumer Rescue help?  Martha Weisberg

After I reviewed Weisberg’s documentation, I wasn’t so sure.

Fact: All travel insurance policies have filing deadlines

Over the years, I’ve seen consumers make many travel insurance mistakes. Some of these errors have been dramatic and irreversible, like buying travel protection from a nearly bankrupt company without an underwriter. 

While other travel insurance mistakes turned out to be fixable — with a little effort.

Regular readers of my column might recall the traveler in Mexico who believed she was being held captive in a hospital there. After receiving some questionable treatment, she made a break for it without getting an itemized receipt for her services. All she had was a credit card bill from the medical facility. That caused Allianz to deny her travel insurance claim — at least until she contacted my advocacy team.

Travel insurance companies have just a little wiggle room in approving a claim. Some things can be overlooked by a claims adjuster (like not having an itemized receipt for services), and then there are other things that are not typically ignored. 

One of those inflexible details is the deadline for submission of a travel insurance claim. Travel insurance customers must alert the company of a covered event as soon as is reasonably possible. Certainly, unless a traveler has been rendered unconscious or otherwise incapacitated, claims handlers aren’t likely to ignore the submission deadline.

Although Weisberg’s narrative clearly showed that she had been having a rough time since her fall, I wasn’t sure that explained the long delay in filing. 

What does the doctor say about this travel insurance filing delay?

Weisberg acknowledged that she had made a mistake in not contacting the travel insurance company sooner. But during her convalescence, it just hadn’t been a priority. 

As I mulled over what to do with Weisberg’s case, I could think of only one way her case might be successfully appealed. I asked Weisberg if her neurologist could provide a statement of what her last five months were like. If the physician could medically explain away the lapse in filing, Robin Assist might reverse its decision. 

Weisberg was more than happy to do what she could to hopefully get her travel insurance claim approved. 

So the next week, she visited her neurologist. He provided Weisberg with a statement that said the disorientation, poor concentration, and confusion she suffered for months after her accident would explain the “delay in filing her travel insurance claim.” In his professional opinion, the travel insurance company should not fault her for that delay.

Now I believed I had a reasonable foundation to ask Robin Assist to reconsider her claim.

Asking for a reconsideration of this rejected travel insurance claim

I hoped the doctor’s note, along with one important clause I noticed in Weisberg’s travel insurance policy, might just do the trick. Here’s an excerpt from my request for reconsideration of Weisberg’s claim.

Martha was injured a few days before she was set to take a diving adventure in Egypt. Luckily, she had insured her over $11,540 trip via DiveAssure. Unfortunately, because her accident involved a head injury, she continued to suffer from confusion and brain pain for months afterward. She was unable to gather the necessary documents to file her insurance claim until December. 

Your lead claims adjuster, *** ****, reviewed all the documents and then rejected Martha’s $11,540 claim because the application was filed beyond 90 days from the accident. The language in the insurance policy does note the 90-day limit, but it also says that there may sometimes be extenuating circumstances that would allow a claim to be filed outside of that window.“

The good news: This travel insurance claim is approved

Within just a few days, Robin Assist had reconsidered Weisberg’s claim, which now included the doctor’s explanation of her post-accident recovery. This time, her travel insurance claim was approved, and the $11,540 check was soon in the mail. 

I am a very, very, very, very, very happy ‘camper’.  I had been impressed with your involvement in the Vantage fiasco (which, as you know, I was a part of as well) – that’s the reason I came to you with this ‘Red Sea’ problem.

Thank you so much for ALL YOUR HELP.

Sincerely,

Martha Weisberg

Now, with Martha’s $11,540 safely in her bank account where it belongs, we can add one more “consumer rescue” to our constantly-expanding success files. ⛑️🛟

But of course, no cautionary tale would be complete without some tips you can use to avoid a similar travel fiasco.

How to avoid an expensive travel insurance mistake 

In most cases, protecting your vacation funds with a comprehensive travel insurance policy is a wise investment. Unfortunately, many travelers fail to understand their policy’s limitations, terms and conditions. As a result, there are a lot of misconceptions about the value of travel insurance.

I recently covered some of those travel insurance mistaken beliefs in a piece for Fodor’s Travel. I also covered more travel insurance mistakes over at The Points Guy.

What I can tell you is that most travelers’ complaints about travel insurance are rooted in their own misunderstandings. 

Here’s what you can do to make sure you are fully aware of the travel insurance policy you’re buying: what it covers you for, and how and when to file a claim so that you don’t make an expensive and potentially irreversible mistake.

1. Research travel insurance policies 

Using a site like Squaremouth or Insuremytrip, travelers can compare various travel insurance companies and policies. Pay careful attention to the covered named perils (events that are covered) and the exclusions (things that will not be covered). Make sure you’re buying a policy that covers all the events you hope to be covered for before and during your trip.

2. Read the policy

One of the most valuable things you can do to make sure you aren’t making a big travel insurance mistake is to read your policy. These are hefty documents, so it will take some effort on your part. Unfortunately, that’s why many travelers don’t read their policy… until it’s too late (after they’re attempting to file a claim in a way the policy doesn’t allow).  

Always use the 14-day review period to look over your travel insurance policy and make sure you’ve bought something that protects you in the way you want to be protected. If, during that period, you discover you’ve made a mistake, you can return it for a refund and resume your search for the correct travel insurance policy.

After the 14-day look-over period the policy becomes permanent and no refunds will be issued.

3. Involve your travel insurance company as soon as possible

Most travel insurance companies have 24-hour helplines. Make sure you have that number stored in your phone so that you can use it if necessary. Had Weisberg called her insurance company at any time during those five months, she would likely not have needed a consumer advocate to assist her later.

4. Mind the deadlines and provide all the requested documents for your claim

All travel insurance policies come with a deadline for claim submissions. 

Ninety days is the typical claim deadline. Don’t ignore that timeframe, because although Weisberg got lucky, most travel insurance companies will not consider a claim outside that window. Make sure that you provide all the requested documents in a timely manner. And remember, the quicker you submit your documents, the more quickly your claim can be reviewed and (hopefully) approved. 

The bottom line

Travel insurance can protect your vacation dollars as well as cover unexpected medical expenses during your trip. But it can only provide that protection when used correctly. If you read the document, make sure you understand it and mind the deadlines, you likely won’t run into any trouble.

But if you do, and despite your best effort, you’re unable to fix the problem, use the button below and send your request for assistance to Consumer Rescue. Our help is always fast, friendly, and best of all – free.   (Michelle Couch-Friedman, Founder of Consumer Rescue)