travel insurance

sorry Kent- it involves someone who was traveling with us and their privacy. Suffice it to say that you never feel so far from home as when something goes wrong. Knowing our insurance would reimburse us was a comfort. We will travel to Europe again for sure, but we will always get travel insurance. Always before when I posted about travel insurance, I would say "we use this company but have never had to file a claim." Now I have filed a claim and can say it is a worthwhile investment....however, I hope it is my last claim.

Travel Insurance is like Car Insurance. Waste of money until you need it. Personally for the small amount up front (considering the overall cost of the trip) I appreciate the lack of worry. Actually do know two people who had to utilize it (one a heart attack requiring a med evac to the tune of $50K) and one who's entire family was out all their luggage for an entire 3 week cruise/land tour (thank you British Airways). Personally, 20+ years and have never made a claim. Buy it every time anyway.

My husband and I had never purchased travel insurance, until we went on a trip to South America this past October. We purchased a standard trip insurance package (trip interruption, lost baggage, etc. - it was not "upgraded" to any kind of premium package) through American Express Global Assist. The medical insurance was separate, I believe $13.00 total for each of us (included evacuation, etc).

Lo and behold, we encountered a strike while we were down there on the day we were to travel via bus from Point A to Point B (it was a road strike, meaning all roads and train tracks were blocked and impassable). This left us with only one option to get from A to B: by air. And the airfare was expensive.

Once we got home, we filed a claim with the insurer, and they required proof of the strike. This is what we sent them:

1) The agency who helped us book the trip (and who also scrambled for plane tickets at the last minute) wrote a letter on company letterhead to verify the strike

2) A small tidbit of info about the strike we found online (I think it was one line of info from a third-tier news agency)

3) I found a few posts on TripAdvisor.com about the strike (it was a big one)

4) Copies of airplane receipts and any other costs incurred (such as airport transfers, taxes, etc)

It took a few weeks and a few phone calls, but eventually we were reimbursed for every last dime of those flights and all costs associated with the strike.

My advice is if you have travel insurance and run into a situation where you are going to have to file a claim, collect as much info as you can. If we had gotten a newspaper article about the strike (even if it was in Spanish) AMEX said they would have reimbursed us faster. But because I had random bits of info, they had to look into it a little harder.

Overall, we were very pleased with the results and how it worked.

I agree with Angela 100 per cent. Take a copy of your policy with you (at least the part that says what you will need to collect for each incident) and then go above and beyond that. We filed a well documented claim and got our money in less than a month. Some incidents are easier to document than others, but always get everything you can. At the time, you will be overwhelmed and may be tempted to "figure it all out later" (I know I was) but document, document, document.

In case you run into a situation like Angela mentions, it can be helpful to carry the policy number and contact number for the insurance. Most if not all have a number that you can call collect from overseas (toll-free numbers for the US won't work), and have a staffed department that can help you out while you're travelling.

Kent asked me earlier what "form" our problems took and I needed to OK it with the person who was responsible. We had a minor fender bender accident. If we had purchased the car insurance with the rental company, there would have been a $1500 deductible..with CSA no deductible. Also, the CSA insurance was less expensive when we packaged the car insurance with our other travel insurance needs. (We got full travel insurance including car for a little more than just car insurance would have been with AutoEurope) Also, our car insurance was not involved at all, so our rate will not go up. (The person driving has never had an accident so get major money off on car insurance.)

Connie: Thank you for taking the time to get the okay from the other person, so that you could let us know the nature of the problem. The specifics help people here learn from what happened. You mentioned "The person driving has never had an accident" until driving in Europe, and so I thought I'd share my own experience. I've rented a car several hundred times in the US and never damaged even one. But in about 10 car rentals in Italy and southern France, I've damaged (significant scrapes and dings) 2 out of 10. I'm only including driving in Italy and southern France in this discussion, I'm not including my driving experience in the easier-to-drive-in countries such as the rest of France (outside of southern France), Germany, etc. Both times that I damaged cars in Italy and southern France, I had paid the extra for the "super CDW" that reduced my financial liability to zero, and I was glad I had done that and always do that in Europe, I choose to trade the extra money for the peace of mind it buys me. I suspect (but don't have data to prove it) that American drivers have a higher rate of damage to rental cars they drive in Europe than to rental cars they drive in the US.