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I’m not a fan of travel insurance for most trips. I think it’s overpriced, and often fails to deliver what consumers think they’re buying. The hassle in getting a claim covered can outweigh the value of the claim. To my mind it’s something to consider for a ‘trip of a lifetime’ where a loss really would be catastrophic (a trip that could never be replaced) but not for run of the mill travel.
That’s a different matter from making sure your health coverage extends to wherever you’re traveling and to medical evacuation coverage.
A Reader’s Father Being Transferred from Gulfstream to Ambulance at Atlanta Peachtree-Dekalb Airport
For simple trip delay and cancellation as well as baggage delay and lost bag coverage I prefer to take the coverage bundled with many premium rewards cards. One that I’ve had success with in the past is the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card.
For many years this was the single best card for earning valuable rewards points, in a class by itself. Now it’s refreshed with the biggest public offer there’s ever been for the card: 60,000 points after $4000 spend within 3 months of account opening.
The card comes with primary collision damage waiver (so if you ding a rental car, your own insurance may not even need to know) as well as travel coverages like trip delay and cancellation. Most consumers are surprised to learn that the cards they already have may come with this coverage.
What’s nice about the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card is that coverage even applies when you’re using your points, just charge any taxes and fees to the card (or when you’re paying entirely with Chase points directly through their travel portal).
I’ve also by the way made a successful purchase protection claim through the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card — when I dropped my new cell phone on the sidewalk and shattered the screen, coverage paid to fix it. This was not without hassle as I detailed in this story.
Trip delay coverage isn’t always hassle free either, I eventually got paid on a Citi Prestige claim but wasn’t sure that I would.
Most people don’t know about the coverage, and bureaucracies are set up in ways that make it seem like they don’t want to pay out, so you may need to be persistent. I prefer to get that kind of coverage bundled with credit cards rather than paying for the hassle separately through travel insurance. But it’s always worth diving into what it takes to come out ahead in a claim.
SanDiego1K shares her experience with a recent credit card rental car coverage claim — she won, but it took some doing.
We rented a car in Belgrade, Serbia, on Sept 23. We returned it in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Sept 28. We used our Chase Sapphire card for the rental and relied on it for car insurance. A small crack in the plastic grill at the bumper was found on turning in the car. We took a picture of the damage. We were unaware of having caused it but had not taken pictures on picking up the car so it was legitimate to attribute it to us. We did not get a final bill since the Belgrade office had the contract.
We subsequently saw on our credit card bill that we were charged 100 euros for damage. On Oct 4, I called Chase and was directed to eclaims to file the claim.
She relays that she filled out the claim online. One of the requests was for an accident report, but there was no accident. They also wanted proof the rental company actually paid what was charged to repair the car, but the rental agency in Europe wasn’t inclined to move quickly on this request. Eventually the rental coverage took over this item.
After three months of trying, and SanDiego1K’s followup five times, the rental coverage eventually gave up insisting on this document and agreed to pay out the claim. That’s a lot of effort over 100 euros. Whether or not it’s worth the effort on small claims, of course, depends on the value of time lost in pursuit and of course on whether you value the chase!
I’ve always self-insured for travel insurance, but Marriott’s draconian new cancellation policy on awards (such as the St. Regis Aspen thread in Flyertalk) has me wonder. Does travel insurance cover penalties (as opposed to lost pre-paid rooms)?
My upcoming NYE reservation has a 75 day cancellation penalty.
I was actually shocked by how hassle free it was to get reimbursed using my Chase Reserve. My son was to travel this past fall on a trip with his High School to Italy. Unfortunately, he had to have surgery on both knees and was unable to make the trip. I made 4 payments to the tour group based in Italy(The first by check as required by the school, and the 3 other payments 1 using my CSR, 1with CIP, and, 1 using my wife’s CSR). I filed the claim based on my CSR payment and was reimbursed in full for all 4 payments.
Both a friend and my wife had even worse experiences than SanDiego 1K with Chase’s supposed rental car insurance. They each had separate, one-car accidents that involved no bodily harm but damage to their cars rented with Chase Shapphire cards. Chase pawned them off on the insurance company which actually handles such matters for Chase, which in turn subjected both to many months and many rounds of forms, demands for additional documentation, lousy communication, etc. In the end, and through a lot of perseverance, both managed to get reimbursed. But clearly the whole Chase system is geared toward making folks give up without getting compensated. Good that you mentioned SD1K’s experience here, Gary. But you really should highlight this systemic problem in the future whenever talking about credit card rental coverage and the supposed rental advantages of such Chase cards.
If the car rental company refused to provide documents to prove that they incurred the $100 cost, she should have disputed the $100 charge with Chase, rather than continuing to pursue her coverage claim. Doing it the way she did is like penalizing the insurance company for the potential fraud of the rental car company.
I would like to see an up to date blog post about emergency medical evacuation experiences (as shown in the photo at the top of this blog post). I am much more concerned about a $100K bill for an overseas medical evacuation, than I am for a bumper scratch.
I took a cruise to Antarctica and found that the fine print on many standard travel insurance policies excludes evacuation from remote places. On the other hand, I spoke to an Amex global services representative who said they do cover such evacuations for Platinum card holders. We ended up not buying overpriced coverage and relied on Amex. Does CSR, or Prestige doffer similar coverage?
Of course everyone must make a personal decision as to whether they need travel insurance, but the hassle of filing a claim and receiving the promised compensation should not be one of them. Over the last 20 years, I have had to file three claims (one was for over $8,000), and I could not have been more pleased with the ease of filing a claim or the final results. If one books with a reputable company (I use Travel Insured or Square Mouth) and follows their requirements for claiming a loss, the peace of mind this insurance provides is well worth the 5-8% that it costs. Oh, I might add that I am 73, so I guess that should be factored into a person’s decision as well.
An extra point for the Citi Prestige trip cancellation & interruption coverage – no exclusion for pre-existing conditions like Chase.
I am with @Gary on the value of the protection offered by most travel insurance typically sold by airlines etc. If you read the policies my general sense is “good luck” if you ever have to file a claim.
I routinely use American Express’s primary rental car insurance add-on. At $24.95 for up to 30 days coverage it is a no-brainer as far as I am concerned. I had to file a claim once, when Enterprise at LHR charged me for a “scuff” (a black car collected in the dark. good luck spotting that). Amex dealt directly with Enterprise, negotiated the claim and dealt with it. While the whole thing was a hassle, it worked out OK.
Medical evacuation insurance? Depends how old you are and how much you travel. I personally use Medjet Horizon (no financial interest). Never had to use it, hope I never do. Reasonable cost, IMO.
I also wanted information about medical evacuation coverage.
And I didn’t see any information about US Bank Altitude Card
For those that are interested in medical evacuation, join Divers Ert Network. Med Evac is included, doesn’t have to be a diving accident. $35/year
Divers Alert Network
I can see the $35 annual subscription on the Divers Alert Network website, but it sounds too good to be true since medical evacuation can be extremely expensive. The website shows no terms or conditions for the coverage. I wonder if there are significant limitations or exclusions.
We bought my mother a membership in DAN – Diver’s Alert Network. She fell on a cruise and was taken off the ship to a hospital in Cozumel. My sister contacted DAN and got the paperwork they required from the Doctor at the hospital in Cozumel. DAN sent a plane with medical personnel to fly her back to a hospital in Fort Lauderdale. They made all the arrangements. They were fantastic. Afterwards they asked if there was any other insurance to bill. There was no other insurance. We sign up for DAN every year.
Anybody really know anything about the question @Beachfan raises in the first comment — penalties from hotels, such as forfeited points bookings being penalized as (uncapped) cash nights, long lead-times on cancellation penalties (which functionally make these things into pre-pays, even though they are not formally pre-pays)? Are these kind of potential disasters (because a literal reading of some of the penalties could make for a lot of $$$ on an ill-time need-to-cancel) really going to be taken care of by whatever card (assuming it is a “good” one) you used to buy the *airfare* that surrounds them?
I tried to use the baggage delay insurance offered by Chase but it was such a hassle I finally just took the loss. By hassle I mean I submitted the same documentation three times. Each time I seemed to get a new contact and each time they kep asking for more information. I find this to be an absolutely worthless benefit.
I’m going to “2nd” what M. Sloan said above:
Insure My Trip or Squaremouth are my go-to’s for trip insurance policies, especially for their medical, medical evacuation/transport and accidental death & dismemberment coverage, which one can select which options meet their, and their family’s needs best depending on which credit cards, if any, they have, or whatever other insurance coverages they may – or may not – have with their existing insurance plans be it health, home, renters’, auto, or of course, credit cards.
While we’ve never filed a claim, we’ve faced situations where but for the luck of a stranger who was passing by when we were discussing arrangements for next day trains to Brussels from Cologne after our 8pm train was canceled due to a fatality involving our train before it reached Cologne, and intervened on our behalf in German to arrange for us to join him in a taxi to Aachen (200+ kilometers per hour trip on the autobahn included!) to (just barely) catch a train there to Brussels instead – and the concierge service we consulted then was very helpful.
Ditto, again, when we arrived at MCO for an evening flight back to NYC and the airline’s IT network was down; lines were literally out the door and snaking around the sidewalk for baggage check and handwritten boarding passes; and all flights were either delayed by hours or canceled – with some (ours included) not canceled, but lacking any definitive departure time, and for a while completely disappearing from departures monitors and appearing as if it had been canceled.
Again, the concierge service was very helpful, and had enough hours elapsed allowing us stay overnight at a nearby airport hotel to avoid arriving in NYC at 3 or 4am (instead of the 1:30am we finally arrived), we had already discussed eligibility with the insurance company’s representative, and were prepared to act if our flight remained without any estimated departure time past the number of hours that our plan offered for that trip.
Lastly, on a recent trip, a friend who regularly turns to me for assistance booking her and her family’s flights, had a misrouted checked bag that finally arrived several days later after being rifled through and minus a few stolen items, and her claim was paid promptly from the policy she bought using Squaremouth.
So, again, it all depends on one’s needs – or whatever other coverage they may, or may not, have on other policies they have.
Of course, those with premium cards such as Chase Sapphire (as Gary cites), or others from Citibank or Amex, likely will not need trip insurance that’s already included with an array of benefits that makes the annual fees for premium cards a worthwhile value proposition for the affluent audience they’re marketed to.
Everyone’s needs are different; our health insurance, while meeting our needs in our hometown, is far from ideal, where just finding in network doctors and hospitals was a difficult and frustrating “process” that took more than 2-years after our longtime PCP retired in 2016, and because we have insurance from different companies, wasn’t even accepted by the same doctors until last year when after several attempts at finding a new PCP that accepts both of insurance plans, we finally found one at a facility that does accept both plans.
So, more than anything, we’ve decided that our needs are best met by purchasing trip/travel insurance with primary health coverage to avoid worrying about resolving out of network issues in the event of an accident or serious illness since that aspect of coverage is difficult and complicated enough to deal with on our home turf that we shudder to imagine how much more difficult that would be to deal with out-of-state – let alone in a foreign country.
And although neither of us has had a medical emergency while traveling, obviously accidents can, and do, happen in the blink of an eye – or as happened on a recent family reunion trip to the Philippines, two family members developed pneumonia, that required treatment while there.
So, given the ordeal it took to find doctors and facilities that accepts both of our health insurance plans we experienced at home – we like to think of travel insurance as “insurance for our (already difficult and complicated to use) health insurance” as a hedge against finding ourselves in an emergency that either, or even neither, of our plans may, or may not, deem as “in or out of network” while we’re in need of medical attention – assuming we’re even conscious and able to begin sorting those matters out at all.
Obviously, for some the cost of travel insurance may not be justified, be it for the value of the underlying non-refundable tickets or for those who can reserve hotel rooms at the higher rates that allow cancellation up to 1 or 2 days before check-in instead of the using the discounted, but alas completely non-refundable (short of death) option to prepay their entire stays in advance that makes higher quality hotels possible for those whose budgets otherwise don’t allow for!
Whatever one’s needs are, for sure **AVOID** the expensive to buy, exclusion ridden, and exceptionally low ball coverage offered for things that aren’t excluded in the six-point sized font found in the booklet of the policies sold by airlines, or the even more scammy “plans” sold by the online travel agencies that often turn out to be completely useless, that they force you to select (or opt out of) after scaring/“guilting” you on the 2nd to last booking page before clicking the “purchase now” button on your computer or hand held device screen.
These very expensive for the exceptionally limited scope of coverage they offer in return, “one-size-fits-all” “plans” are no where near as good as the cost-benefit options one can find by using independent, third party sites such as Insure My Trip or Squaremouth.
NOTE: I did NOT/do NOT receive any compensation, cash or in-kind, from either of the companies that operate the web sites mentioned above; NOR do I receive any consideration whatsoever from the insurance companies whose products are offered for sale at either of those web sites.
@Paul
DAN’s website shows T&Cs in the handbook, which can be accessed here:
https://www.diversalertnetwork.org/membership/Travel_Assist
Thanks Beachfan. I looked at the handbook. It seems like there are no exclusions for pre-existing conditions or locations (other than being accessible to emergency medical personnel). Susan’s experience with her mother was also impressive.