Trip Insurance is a SCAM

[Oakman]

DW and I were scheduled to depart for a 14 day tour of Egypt on Feb 9th. Naturally with all the chaos in Egypt right now our trip has been cancelled. The first thing I did was call our trip insurance company to see if we would be reimbursed for the cost of the trip. NOPE, “civil unrest” is an exclusion for recovering any losses.

Wow, travel insurance really is a scam. Travel insurance is strongly recommend for trip, but especially so for international trips. No one ever mentions the “exclusions” that are written into these trip insurance policies.

When I discovered that our trip insurance (Access America) wouldn’t cover the cancellation of our trip to Egypt because “civil unrest” isn’t covered, I started looking at other insurance companies. All of them have a list of exclusions that covers just about everything that can ruin a trip.

Here is a partial list of exclusions from the Access America website. Keep in mind that most other trip insurance companies have a list almost exactly like the following:

Civil disorder or unrest
War (declared or undeclared)
Acts of war
Nuclear reaction, radiation, or radioactive contamination
Natural disasters
Epidemic or pandemic
Air, water, or other pollution
Threat of pollutant release
Unlawful acts
Financial default of travel supplier
Terrorist events
Travel bulletins or alerts
Government prohibition or regulations.

Also on the list is pre-existing medical conditions. OK, so if you have diabetes and something happens to you on your trip that is associated with that disease, you’re not covered. If you’ve had a previous heart attack or heart disease and then have a heart related problem on the trip you’re not covered.

Keep in mind that is just a partial list of exclusions. Just those exclusions I’ve listed cover just about everything and anything that can ruin a vacation doesn’t it? Aren’t the events I’ve just listed the things you WANT to be covered for? In other words, travel insurance is a scam and not really worth the paper it’s written on.

Currently flights to Egypt have been cancelled so I can’t even get to Egypt. Surely my trip insurance would cover us now, nope flights were cancelled due to “civil unrest” we’re not covered.

If you plan a trip, a cruise, or vacation where a travel agent tells you it’s important to buy trip insurance, tell them you would like to look at the list of “exclusions” written into the policy. BTW, our policy was 30 pages long. Make an informed decision.

The next time a travel agent tells me it’s important to purchase travel insurance I’ll be laughing raucously in their face.

I do want to add on more thing, Delta Airlines is refunding the total cost of our airline tickets to Egypt. At least they’re honest.

[KyDan]

Whoa, that's a real eye opener

I wonder if Consumer Reports has ever commented/reported
on trip insurance???

[yvesm]

This is why I travel and visit the U.S. and Canada...the rest of the world is to volatile.

[peskin]

And it's tough to drive the MH accross the pond

[hanna1946]

a scam..it IS a scam!

Wonder what IS covered?

Also wonder...what kind of perks the travel agencies get for selling these scam policies....or are they the ones who sell them? Who sold the policy to you? Thanks for the heads up because I will NOT be buying any travel insurance in the future!

[VTX Al]

Caveat Emptor !!

...VTX-AL

[Oakman]

Originally Posted by VTX Al

Caveat Emptor !!

...VTX-AL

EXACTLY! I posted this so that others who might be planning a future trip will have more sense than me and look really hard at what their trip insurance plan will actually cover. And it's not just the exclusions, the are also stipulations on what these policies do cover.

On another forum I was told that I should have read the policy before I bought it. True! But in reality, how many of us read the complete homeowners policy, or medical insurance policy, or auto insurance policy BEFORE buying? What we do is look at the main page to see what coverage we get, not the exclusions page. Heck, before this indicent I didn't even know there was an exclusions page for travel insurance.

I'm not telling people not to buy trip insurance, I just what everyone to know that they should find out EXACTLY what they will be covered for and then make a decision.

65 years old and I'm still learning life's lessons.

[Willis]

This reminds me of the home "warranty" policies you are pushed to buy when you are selling or buying a house. They too are scams. I can tell you from personal experience that you are unlikely to ever collect a dime and in fact it's likely you'll have to pay out MORE in deductibles, service call fees and jacked-up rates by the "preferred" service suppliers.