Billie: You and the Glazers share a slightly different situation with Legendary Journeys. Mr Ferguson stated he suspended business with Mr Watson and PTP in August 2009. Both of you had not yet taken your cruise. Legendary Journeys had months to switch your policy to an honest company like AccessAmerica but they did not do so.
Florida and several court cases in other states have agreed that sellers of travel are experts and as such are professionally and fiscally responsible for any product they sell or recommend. It is not good enough say I didn’t know experts should have known by researching their suppliers.
The “Group” and the DFS, OIR, DOACS and AG all have hard evidence that many sellers of travel were in partnership with Mr Watson since 2004 – that is why, after fourteen months, the investigations continue.

Trip-insurance losses huge
By Mary Jo Melone
1/6/2010 © Health News Florida

More than 300 would-be travelers across the country who booked cruises through Florida travel agents but had to cancel because of illness have filed complaints, saying the trip cancellation insurer didn’t pay.

Given the average price of the cruises, the losses run into the millions of dollars. The insurer, Prime Travel Protection Services of Arvada, CO, declared bankruptcy [They did not actually declare bankruptcy and are still registered in Colorado State.] last January and went out of business shortly before Colorado authorities issued a cease-and-desist order against its owners.

Florida’s Department of Financial Services, which began investigating the matter a year ago, says the insurer wasn’t licensed to do business in Florida and travel agents shouldn’t have arranged the coverage. But DFS officials say the state can’t prosecute travel agents unless it can prove they knew the company lacked a license and had “criminal intent.” [This only applies to a criminal case not the civil investigation ongoing.]

Orange County, CA., college professor Barry Resnick accused Florida officials of “gross incompetence” for failing to notice that an owner of Prime Travel Protection was previously involved with another travel insurer that failed to pay claims. It took too long to connect the dots, Resnick said. {The real issue here is the Florida regulators failed to recognize this was the same scam, perpetuated by the same travel agents who sold through the previous bogus insurer– Trip Assured. The top sellers of Trip Assured were also the top sellers for Prime Travel Protection and the Florida authorities were well aware of this fact.}

Some who lost money say they suspect there was more afoot than an ordinary business bankruptcy, that the collection of money and failure to pay was orchestrated. [Colorado used the word Fraud in their C&D and the DFS hold documents linking certain travel agents to Mr. Watson for six years.] Florida officials “haven’t looked at the big picture, that the whole affair was not just an unlicensed product,” said Peter Lay of Danville, CA., who lost $4,300 when his wife’s illness forced cancellation of their September 2008 cruise. [It was fraud.]

Health News Florida reported troubles with the travel insurer last month after a civil suit was filed against a travel agency, [Legendary Journeys.] but the extent of the losses wasn’t clear until a few days ago when DFS released the number of complaints and some documents.

The earlier story described charges in a lawsuit filed by Richard Glazer, 71, a retiree near Tampa who says he faced $61,000 in unpaid travel and medical expenses when he suffered a heart attack during a cruise. He had paid $710 for a policy from Prime Travel Protection Services when the cruise was booked by Legendary Journeys in Sarasota, he said.

The DFS Division of Insurance Fraud file on Legendary Journeys contained 400 pages of documents sent in by customers who said the insurer never paid their claims. Nevertheless, investigators closed the case against the travel agency.

“There are ethical implications” for Legendary Journeys, one investigator wrote, but no criminal statute covers what happened. [The investigation into criminal activity was conducted earlier in 2009 when many documents were unavailable. The fraud division did not know of Mr. Watson’s fraudulent policy only an unlicensed policy. The “Group” has provided additional evidence which should allow the criminal case to be reopened.]

The news of the case-closing stunned Linda Ferrall of St. Augustine, who lost $6,700 on a cruise through the Baltics she had planned with husband Ed for August 2008. Just before the trip, she was diagnosed with a blocked carotid artery and needed immediate surgery. She was told the travel insurance claim would be paid in four months. It wasn’t.

“I’m speechless,” she said. “I’ve not just lost my funds. I’ve lost my trust.”

Al Ferguson, an owner of Legendary Journeys who spoke to Health News Florida last month, could not be reached for comment this week. At the time he said he had “satisfied” 25 clients [I hold evidence that he did not.] who lost money and was cooperating with the state investigation.

According to Colorado records, Prime Travel Protection Services was owned by Jerry A. Watson and his wife Christine C. Watson. They could not be reached for comment.

The records say Jerry Watson used to work for Trip Assured, a Tennessee travel-insurance company that was ordered shut down by authorities in 2006 after customers complained that it wasn’t paying claims. By the time that happened, Watson was no longer with the company, records say. [He was acting as VP sales via Watson Consultancy Inc and left to set up Vacation Protection Services in January 2004.]

In addition to the Watsons, DFS continues to investigate three travel agencies: Vacation Superstore Network doing business as Best Price Cruises, a web site called SmartCruiser.com, and Super Travel of West Palm Beach. The owner of Vacation Superstore Network, Ron Russo, could not be reached. A lawyer for SmartCruiser.com, Dan Newman, declined to comment. Super Travel of West Palm Beach could not be located. [Legendary Journeys are also being investigated because of 150 complaints.] {These travel agencies were also large volume producers for Trip Assured. They may claim they were unaware that the Trip Assured product was fraudulent, but this excuse shouldn’t fly a second time with Prime Travel Protection, but it did as the authorities in Florida sat on their hands. }

DFS ordered a few agencies that did business with Prime Travel Protection to reimburse a handful of customers: Cruise Options of Plantation was ordered to pay back two customers [9]; Cruise Supermarket of Plantation, three; and High Performance Travel of South Daytona, one. The majority of agencies and complaining customers are not affected by the orders. [Not so far!]

One Boca Raton couple, Ruth and Ted Krakover, say they lost $41,000 on a four-week cruise from Singapore to Rome scheduled for March 2008. Just before the trip, Ruth Krakover developed what looked like a recurrence of cancer and needed tests.

The Krakovers never got their $41,000 back. They have declined to talk about what happened to them because they have sued Prime and their travel agency, Vacation Superstore Network doing business as Best Price Cruises, of Port St. Lucie. The lawyer for Best Price Cruises, Daryl Krauza, declined to comment.

The Krakovers’ lawyer, Steven Meyer, said Jerry Watson could not be served with the lawsuit because he could not be found. [But BPC was served in January 2009.]

–Mary Jo Melone, an independent journalist in Tampa, can be reached by e-mail.

Florida warns agents to sell only authorized insurance products
By: Nadine Godwin
December 30, 2009
Florida issued a warning to the state’s travel agencies that they must be licensed to sell travel insurance in Florida, and they must sell only the products of insurers that have authority to sell in the state — or the consequences could be severe.

In the document, issued on Christmas Eve, the Department of Financial Services said it prepared the alert because a “significant” number of travel agencies have recently been identified as selling travel insurance without proper licenses or selling on behalf of companies that are not authorized to sell in Florida.

In the past year, the department has obtained cease-and-desist agreements from three travel agencies, warned four additional agencies that it intended to seek similar orders against them and filed complaints against two individual travel agents, all in connection with alleged improper sales of travel insurance.

The department said in its alert that selling on behalf of an unauthorized insurance firm is classified as a third-degree felony. Under Florida law, if an unauthorized insurance company fails to pay claims, the seller of the unauthorized policies can be held liable for those unpaid claims, it said.

In the three cease-and-desist orders this year, the agencies agreed in consent orders to pay administrative penalties, make good to those clients who had valid unpaid claims and refund premiums to those still holding policies or move them to an authorized insurer.

The agencies were High Performance Travel in South Daytona ($1,000 fine), Cruise Options in Plantation ($2,500 fine) and Cruise Supermarket in Plantation ($2,500 fine).

High Performance was selling for Prime Travel Protection and Traveler Protection Services, and the others sold for Prime Travel Protection. Both insurance firms were not authorized to sell in Florida, and both are now out of business.

Florida also served notices of intent to issue cease-and-desist orders against four travel agencies that it says were selling travel insurance without required licensing and also were selling for insurers not authorized to sell in Florida.

The agencies are Legendary Journeys, Sarasota; Palm Coast Travel (aka SmartCruiser.com), Lake Worth and Boca Raton; Super Travel of Palm Beach in West Palm Beach; and Vacation Superstore (dba Best Price Cruises), Port St. Lucie.

The state said the four also were selling products of the unlicensed Traveler Protection Services and/or Prime Travel Protection.

In response to the first of the orders, Legendary Journeys Vice President Al Ferguson said last March that his agency had stopped selling Prime Travel Protection in September 2008.

He also said the state was incorrect in stating that his agency is not licensed to sell travel insurance. He said the state requires that one person in each agency hold a “point-of-contact” insurance license for selling travel insurance, and the president of Legendary Journeys is that person.

The department also filed administrative complaints against Natalie Block, described as the sole director and officer of the Cruise Agency in Lake Worth and Coral Springs, Fla., and Cynthia Drubin Burdige, an employee of Bruce Travel in Plantation.

Block is accused of selling for Prime Travel Protection and/or a second unauthorized company, Universal Assurance Group. Burdige is accused of selling for Prime Travel Protection and/or the unauthorized Ciela Capital Insurance Company.

The department said legal resolution of these last six cases is still pending.

In its bulletin for travel agents, the Florida Department of Finance also noted that its investigations have led to criminal charges against sellers for unauthorized insurance companies.

Kyra Jennings, the department’s communications director, said the document included references to criminal charges in order to emphasize how serious it can be for a travel agency to violate the state’s insurance law.

However, none of the criminal arrests cited in the bulletin involved travel agencies. She said that in the last five years there have been four criminal investigations of travel agencies in the sale of insurance, but all cases were closed without arrests.

Three Florida travel agencies have been disciplined and four others may be soon for selling trip-insurance policies from a company that had no Florida license.

Prime Travel Protection, of Arvada, Colo., went out of business last January, leaving scores of travelers who had to cancel or cut short their trips in a tough spot.

One of them is Richard Glazer, 71, who plunked down $10,000 for the cruise of a lifetime with his wife through the Greek Isles in October last year. Glazer, a retired Allstate agent who lives near Tampa, spent another $710 on travel insurance through the Sarasota agency that booked his trip, Legendary Journeys. [I am waiting a call back] ]

It appeared to have been a smart move when Glazer suffered a massive heart attack on board the ship and spent 12 nights in a Turkish hospital. The equipment was as modern as in an American hospital, Glazer said, and the care was first-rate. A Turkish doctor even escorted him back to Tampa.

The welcome home was something else. When Glazer returned, he said, Prime delayed paying his bills, then went under. He was suddenly facing $61,000 in travel and medical expenses.

Glazer has sued Legendary Journeys, but the travel agency has troubles of its own. Last March, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink issued a warning to Legendary and two other companies to stop doing business with Prime. The others were Palm Coast Travel of Lake Worth and Boca Raton, and Vacation Superstore Network doing business as Best Price Cruises in Port St. Lucie.

The travel agencies were accused of violating state law for selling Prime travel insurance when the company wasn’t licensed to do business in Florida. Those cases are still pending.

Since then, a warning has also been sent to Super Travel of West Palm Beach. [I don’t know these Folks.]

Best Price Cruises did not respond to a request for comment. Palm Coast Travel [is, of course Smartcruiser – Smolinski] and Super Travel could not be located.

Three travel agencies have agreed to consent orders accepting discipline in which they are required to pay all claims that went unpaid by Prime.

–Cruise Options of Plantation was ordered to pay a $2,500 fine and was placed on two years probation. [Not with Trip Assured or VPS/TPS]

–Cruise Supermarket, also of Plantation, received a $2,500 fine. [These guys were with Trip Assured and probably VPS or TPS. Watson paid them 40% commission so they were good sellers.]

–High Performance Travel of South Daytona was fined $1,000 and also placed on probation. [With Trip Assured, VPS, TPS and PTP. 40% commission from Watson. Number four best seller with 1565 premiums sold in 2005/6 – these guys are bad news!]

All three companies were ordered to cooperate with any administrative or law enforcement investigation of Prime, according to the disciplinary documents.

Some travelers who lost money were those who canceled before going and couldn’t get a refund. Glazer’s case was more serious.

On Dec. 1, he sued Legendary Journeys and its president and insurance agent, Adrian Ferguson, charging negligence and deceptive or unfair trade practices. The lawsuit argued Legendary and Ferguson knew or should have known that Prime was not authorized to do business in Florida and had a history of not paying claims.

Legendary Journeys stopped doing business with Prime last September, the same month that Glazer booked his trip.

Al Ferguson, Adrian Ferguson’s son and co-founder of the company, said Prime denied Glazer’s claim because he failed to follow the proper procedures for notifying the insurance company that he needed medical care. “(Glazer) was not affected by the bankruptcy,” Al Ferguson said.

Legendary has “satisfied” 25 other clients who were affected by Prime going out of business, Al Ferguson said. He would not elaborate. The travel agency has also cooperated with the state investigation, he said.

As for Richard Glazer, he hasn’t been able to pay all his medical bills left from what was supposed to be this once-in-a-lifetime trip. He has paid all but the $38,000 hospital bill from Turkey. Said Glazer, “I don’t have the money.”

–Mary Jo Melone, an independent journalist in Tampa, can be reached by e-mail.

A group member sent this today.

DFS & OIR

Dear Mr Clift & Ms Deering

Today I came upon a case reported prior to Ms Leitners.

Joseph Reis JR (321-453-8532) is a seventy six year old former naval pilot living in Merritt Island. He is recorded as complaining about Legendary Journeys in January 2008 although he tells me he instigated the report in 2007.

Legendary Journeys and Travel Protection Services made a lame excuse after being contacted by consumer affairs.

Mr Reis’s son ,a computer/internet savvy person, researched both LJ and TPS. He told his father that neither company was licensed to sell insurance in Florida.

Mr Reis immediately contacted the Insurance Commissioner by letter and informed them of the discovery.

Several postings were made regarding the illegality of this travel insurance scheme on a website called Your Two Cents Worth .

Since both departments, DFS and OIR, must have been notified: what happened?

With the wonderful assistance of ELLEN we have received a list of travelers complaining to LJ.

Earlier this year Mr Ferguson claimed LJ had few complaints and most were dealt with – reported on Elliottblog.

Just last week on ElliottBlog Mr Ferguson reiterated they were at the tail end and winding down the number of cases.

But! The records received from Florida Public Records Department show 108 officially documented complaints stretching back to January 2008.

ONE HUNDRED EIGHT!
35 of the complaints were lodged prior to Prime Travel Protection closing

That is amazing and confirms LJ are the most prolific sellers of unlicensed, fraudulent travel insurance.

In 2006/7 in collusion with Mr Watson’s Vacation Protection Services (VPS) and Travelers Protection Services (TPS) Mr Ferguson sold an astounding 15,000 illegal policies! Do the math – Mr Ferguson earned millions from VPS/TPS.

Going back to Trip Assured; Legendary Journeys were star performers amongst 670 travel agents.

Mr Ferguson has been offering wholly unsatisfactory certificates for travel to be taken in the future and spread over a number of years. Victims may die or be seriously ill by then. The amount allowed in any period means victims will have to pay extra for a decent cruise – not good.

That, however, is not the main reason for getting victims to sign off.
Florida statutes has a provision for penalties against agents selling illegal/fraudulent/unlicensed insurance.
$5000 to $25000 PER VICTIM. In addition a court can also order client restitution.

Victim Jack Graziano is filling a small claim against LJ in Sarasota.