Cancellation for family emergency?

[CMF]

Is anyone aware of a reputable travel insurance provider that will provide coverage under the following circumstances:

 

• family member is currently in the hospital following surgery
  
• the trip (a cruise with accompanying airline tickets) is paid in full - deposits made a few months ago and final payment approximately 45 days ago
  
• date of embarkation is approximately 40 days out
  
• reason for cancellations may include: patient takes a turn for the worse and family member with POA must be available to make medical decisions; or death, family member must cancel to make final arrangements
  

 

I contacted Access America and I was told that they do not provide coverage.

 

Thanks,

Charles

[cruiseco]

Is anyone aware of a reputable travel insurance provider that will provide coverage under the following circumstances:

 

• family member is currently in the hospital following surgery
  
• the trip (a cruise with accompanying airline tickets) is paid in full - deposits made a few months ago and final payment approximately 45 days ago
  
• date of embarkation is approximately 40 days out
  
• reason for cancellations may include: patient takes a turn for the worse and family member with POA must be available to make medical decisions; or death, family member must cancel to make final arrangements
  

 

I contacted Access America and I was told that they do not provide coverage.

 

Thanks,

Charles

 

your only possible hope is with an insurer that does not apply the pre-existing medical condition exclusion to non-traveling family members -- i'm assuminf this person is not booked to travel with you. Travelex isone of them with their new plans. Give them a call and see what they say. http://www.travelexinsurance.com

[CMF]

your only possible hope is with an insurer that does not apply the pre-existing medical condition exclusion to non-traveling family members -- i'm assuminf this person is not booked to travel with you. Travelex isone of them with their new plans. Give them a call and see what they say. www.travelexinsurance.com

 

Thank you.

 

Charles

[Ready2SailAway]

Hi Charles (or anyone else reading this)

 

We're in a similar situation -already paid for our cruise & flights, and we leave in a couple of weeks.

 

Did you find out if Travelex insurance would cover a trip cancellation due to illness or death of a family member not travelling with you?

 

Since it's the weekend, I can't call Travelex to ask, and I'd like to buy the insurance asap.

 

Looking forward to your reply at your earliest, thanks.

[klfrodo]

First of all and most importantly, I hope everyone is OK.

 

Second. Selling insurance for $100 to cover a known upcoming event and paying out thousands of dollars to cover said known event is not a good business plan if you want to stay in business and make a profit.

That's one of the reason why travel sites and TA's offer to sell trip insurance when you book.

 

Like asking, hey, my house just got destroyed in a flood. Can I now buy flood insurance to cover my house which is destroyed?

 

I'm pretty sure this sounds mean and I don't mean for it to sound that way. Just can't figure out how to be PC on this.

 

and Yes, I am empathetic and hope everyone is OK.

[Ready2SailAway]

Hi klfrodo,

 

Yes, everyone's fine -thanks. The reason we asked about this is because we didn't realize if we wanted the cruise line's travel insurance it would have to be purchased at the time of booking. We were reading other CC members experiences and decided it might be a good idea to get the insurance, just in case someone in our family who isn't traveling with us got sick and we needed to postpone our trip. If Travelex won't cover this, then we'll just buy a basic policy to cover other contingencies like trip interruption or lost bags.

[Rancher Dave]

Sadly after final payment the only coverage you can get is coverage for new events and any change in status for the family member in the hospital would not be considered new.

 

There is one carrier I use for clients where up to the final payment date I can get them full coverage including pre-existing conditions but after that, as was pointed out previously it is not sound business for the carrier to sell policies with extra high risk (at least without significant premium adjustment which is not part of any carrier plan yet.)

 

Hope the family member in the hospital gets well and is bouncing off the walls to get out as soon as possible. Persoanlly I am going thru medical testing for diagnosis of a cardiac problem, which has caused me to hold off missing a couple of awesome deals on cruises I wanted to take...

[Ready2SailAway]

Thanks, Rancher Dave -and sorry to hear about your situation.

 

However, we don't have a family member in the hospital. What we have are family members in Japan, and we're very concerned about what's happening there. Hopefully everything will turn out OK over the next few days, and this whole travel insurance thing will be a non issue.

[CruisinGerman]

Dear friends:

 

Have a look at some of the European carriers that sell travel insurance to all nationalities. Some of them are not as picky as the American system.

 

IHI dot com comes to mind. My suggestion would be to buy their annual policy and not their single-trip policy.

 

Hope everything turns out okay.

 

Kind regards,

 

Gunther and Uta

[6rugrats]

Thanks, Rancher Dave -and sorry to hear about your situation.

 

However, we don't have a family member in the hospital. What we have are family members in Japan, and we're very concerned about what's happening there. Hopefully everything will turn out OK over the next few days, and this whole travel insurance thing will be a non issue.

I hope they are o.k., but this is the same situation as the OP. You want to insure for an event that's already happened, and you aren't going to be able to do so, as klfrodo has already correctly pointed out.

 

Trip insurance is so inexpensive, I never understand why it's not purchased by more people.

[cruiseco]

re: my previous post that the OP should contact Travelex for more information on their policy toward pre-existing conditions and non-traveling family members.:

 

The way a Travelex VP explained it to me a while back is that Travelex does NOT apply the pre-existing condition exclusion to non-traveling family members. Here's their wording:

 

"Pre-Existing Condition: means any injury, sickness or condition of You, or Your Traveling Companion for which within the sixty (60) day period prior to the Effective Date of Trip Cancellation coverage under the Policy (a) first manifested itself or exhibited symptoms which would have caused one to seek diagnosis, care or treatment;

(b) required taking prescribed drugs or medicine, unless the condition for which the prescribed drug or medicine is taken remains controlled without any change in the required prescription; or © required medical treatment or treatment was recommended by a Physician."

 

Note that the definition ONLY applies to the insured and traveling companions. To compare, this is from a Travel Insured policy:

 

"34) "Pre-Existing Condition" means any Injury, Sickness or condition of You, a Traveling Companion or Your and/or Your Traveling Companion's Family Member for which medical advice, diagnosis, care or treatment was recommended or received within the 180 day period ending on the Effective Date."

 

The VP further explained that the non-traveling family members condition as of the date the policy is purchased establishes a base line that future claims decisions will be compared against. For example, say you buy a policy when your grandmother is in the hospital for some condition. You can not at a later date cancel your trip because your mother is in the hospital for that condition -- that was her condition when the policy was purchased. But if her condition significantly worsens or if she dies you would be able to cancel.

 

So, just to verify that nothing had changed I sent an email to Travelex with this hypothetical question:

 

"I will be making the final payment for our cruise shortly (deposit was made several months ago) so it's time to get trip insurance. I have a question -- my Mother-In-Law recently had an operation and if she has complications or has to go back in the hospital before we leave we'll have to cancel the trip (she's not going on the cruise with us). We're considering the Select Plan. If we have to cancel the trip because of this would we be covered? Thanks!"

 

I'm sure this isn't exactly the situation the OP is facing but it's close. Here's the reply from Travelex:

 

"Thank you for choosing Travelex Insurance Services. In regards to your inquiry, our Travel Select plan does offer coverage for Trip Cancellation due to the Sickness, Accidental Injury, or death of You, Your Traveling Companion, or a Family Member. In order to be covered in the situation you have outlined below, the Family Member’s condition would need to worsen, become acute, or a new condition must arise from the one she currently has, after the Effective date of the policy to be eligible for Trip Cancellation benefits. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Service department at 1-800-228-9792, M-F 8am-7pm CST"

 

Note that the Effective Date (if the policy were to be purchased today) would be one minute after midnight tonight.

 

This reply agrees with what I had been told previously: a cancellation due to the MIL's pre-existing health problems can be covered if it meets one of the following criteria:

 

1) The same condition worsens

2) The same condition becomes acute

3) A new condition arises resulting from the current condition (maybe is in the hospital for one thing but develops pneumonia or an infection or something)

 

So, my original advice remains the same -- in the OP's situation there is no plan that will provide an automatic waiver of the pre-existing condition exclusion. The best course of action is to contact Travelex directly and go over the situation with the relative to see what can be covered. Be aware that they will never give a flat "yes" or "no" answer but he may be able to get enough reassurance that the situation may be covered to justify purchasing a policy.

[Ready2SailAway]

I appreciate your detailed reply, thanks.