A travel insurance mystery: who is Prime Travel Protection Services?
What do Prime Travel Protection Services, Travelers Protection Services, Vacation Protection Services and Trip Assured have in common?
They may be the same company, according to a customer who says he was sold useless travel insurance by his travel agent.
Trip Assured, you’ll recall, is the Crossville, Tenn., company that closed after six state attorney generals issued a cease-and-desist order against it in 2006. After it folded, a suspiciously similar company called Vacation Protection Services emerged.
That’s the last I’ve heard of the operation. Until this weekend.
That’s when I got the following note from reader Paul Donahue. He had booked a cruise last year through a Florida travel agency called Legendary Journeys, and bought a $390 insurance policy from Travelers Protection Services that covered pre-existing conditions. He had to cancel his vacation for medical reasons, so he filed a claim.
I had our doctor fill out the needed information and sent them to the insurance company. That was in the last week of April of this year. To date, not one dime has been paid to me.
Tragically, Donahue repeated the experience only a few months later. He bought another cruise, took out insurance from the same company, and had another medical emergency that forced him to cancel. Again, his claim was not processed.
Donahue is something of an amateur sleuth. And here’s where it gets interesting.
He began researching Travelers Protection Services, which in the meantime had changed its name to Prime Travel Protection Services, which is based in Arvada, Colo. It turns out that there were two links to the former Vacation Protection Services. One of Vacation Protection Services’ partners now works for Prime Travel Services. And both Vacation Protection Services and the new Prime Travel Services have the same toll-free number.
But are they the same company? And if they are, what does that mean?
I contacted the State of Florida’s Department of Financial Services and asked for records relating to insurance sold by Prime Travel Protection Services, Travelers Protection Services and Vacation Protection Services. Although the department has not released its files to me yet, an insurance specialist working with Donahue told me he is aware of at least five complaints against Prime Travel Protection Services.
I also contacted Legendary Journeys and asked about Donahue’s case. It has not responded.
I e-mailed several executives at Prime Travel Protection Services, too. I asked them what relationship, if any, they had with Trip Assured and Vacation Protection Services. No response, either.
After five months of research, Donahue thinks he knows what’s going on.
I believe that they have a very sophisticated scheme going. I also think that Legendary Journeys is tied into the whole thing because on their Web site, they push this trip insurance.
Its insurance rates are so far below the rates the better-known insurance companies have. They make it very tempting. It’s a well-orchestrated program, with letters, forms, phone numbers — everything but the payoffs.
When things get too hot with claims they change the insurance company’s name and then move to another city.
Donahue cites Legendary Journeys’ rap sheet with the Better Business Bureau as evidence that it’s in on the scheme. If he’s right, then it’s certainly not alone. I’m troubled by the network of other agencies that follow this insurance company around as it changes names.
Barry Resnick, whose mother and several others were involved in a class-action lawsuit against Trip Assured in 2006, says this looks familiar.
Prime Travel Protection Services appears it is the same type of operation as Trip Assured. If you will notice, there is no mention of “insurance” on its site. That is how they skirted around the law the first few years in business
At first it was difficult for the state insurance regulators to go after them when they weren’t selling insurance. North Carolina was the first state to order the cease and desist and did so based on a statute that forbids a company from selling a product that has the appearance of insurance, but is not underwritten by a licensed insurance company.
The other five states then ordered cease-and-desists under similar regulations. Prime Travel Protection Services claims their products are underwritten by A.M. Best companies.
Other travel insurance companies will list the states that they are licensed to sell their products through their underwriter. I do not see any of this information on the Prime Travel Protection Services site.
I’m not entirely convinced that Prime Travel Protection Services is a reincarnation of Trip Assured. And the only thing Legendary Journeys is guilty of — other than selling apparently useless insurance to one of its customers — is dodging my questions.
Still, something’s not right here. A search of Colorado’s database of licensed insurance sellers turned up nothing for Prime Travel Protection Services.
Bottom line: Be careful out there. Buy insurance from a company whose name you know. If your travel agent pushes cancellation insurance that looks too good to be true, it probably is.
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2 Responses to “A travel insurance mystery: who is Prime Travel Protection Services?”
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We purchased ‘trip insurance’ with TPS, through the Colpitts Travel Agency in May of 2007. We had to cancel because of a serious illness. Thinking that this was a legitimate company, claim forms were sent to a location in Crab Tree, TN. Then, after numerous phone calls, we were advised that the company had been sold to a man in Arvada, CO. There were multiple delays, their last request was for my husband’s complete medical records. Ten days later, the manager of a Chili’s restaurant in Colorado called to inform us my husbands 24-page complete medical records had been left in his establishment. Obviously, not a professional organization.
Complaints have been filed with the Attorney General’s office in New York State and Colorado.
I am involved with Legendary Journeys and Prime Travel Protection attempting to file a claim for a tour around South America in February, 2009. We must cancel for medical reasons. I have had no response to my calls to Legendary Journeys for information on processing an insurance claim.
After reading the account of others’ experiences with Legendary Journeys and Prime Travel Protection in elliot.org, I realize I have been scammed.
Does anyone know of any legal retribution in Florida?