3-On Your Side: Travel Insurance Fine Print
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Are you planning on taking a trip this year around the holidays? With the high cost of travel these days, trip insurance is something more and more people are considering. But as 3-On Your Side's Jim Donovan reports, you need to be certain to read the fine print.
When you buy insurance you expect it will cover you when something goes wrong. But there's a provision in some policies that catches a lot of travelers by surprise
Debbie and Jim Martinez had to cut short their Mexican vacation when her brother's colon cancer took a turn for the worse. The couple flew home early and a few hours later her brother died. The couple assumed their travel insurance would cover their $14-hundred dollar tickets home but, the insurer, Access America, denied the claim citing cancer was an existing medical condition. Debbie says, "I was quite shocked that it was denied."
Steve and Irene Hansen were also denied by Access America when his doctor forced him to cancel a European trip after his arthritis flared-up. Irene says, "They made it sound like they would cover everything."
You have to comb through 16 pages of the lengthy policy before you get the the part about pre-existing conditions, but it is in there. There's no law requiring companies to tell you before you buy a policy what is and isn't covered.
Consumer Advocate Amy Bach wants travel insurance companies to be more up front. She says, "That's the main reason people buy their product, so if the insurance company is going to pull the rug out under you after the fact that's definitely a situation that shouldn't be allowed to stand.."
Access America does have a ten day satisfaction guarantee that allows customers to cancel once reading the policy they've received in the mail. Neither the Hansen's nor the Martinez's did that. The company now says it is considering moving up the section where it lists the exclusions in its policy.
Reported By Jim Donovan, CBS 3
