INSURANCE

The Travel Troubleshooter: Insurance claim denied after bike accident

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Question: I recently booked a trip to Colorado Springs on American Airlines. I paid for the tickets with a credit I’d received after canceling a previous flight, plus $350 in fees. I bought travel insurance from Access America, which is offered through the American Airlines website.

I had a bicycling accident and we could not travel to Colorado. I sent a claim to Access America with complete documentation, including receipts from American Airlines. The receipt shows a payment of $601 plus $350 in fees.

Now Access America says they won’t pay the claim since we used the $601 credit from the earlier trip. Needless to say, I am upset because American advertises Access America on its site and the ticket agent when I rebooked said to call them. Can you help me get my money back? — John Frow, Plano, Texas

Answer: Access America should have refunded your entire ticket, regardless of how you paid for it. Unfortunately, insurance claims are often denied because of a misunderstanding, and that’s what appears to be happening to you.

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Case dismissed? Travel insurance won’t cover my canceled tour

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Editor’s note: For years, readers have asked me to write a regular feature on my failures as a reader advocate. (As if my critics need any more ammunition.) So today, I’m doing just that. “Case dismissed” will explore the mediation requests that bombed. Don’t forget to vote in the poll and comment on this case. Your opinion matters!

Catherine Markland was looking forward to her Ecuador trip with Friendly Planet this month. She had a little extra peace of mind because she’d purchased an insurance policy for her flights through Access America.

Maybe she shouldn’t have been so confident. When her plans changed, she discovered a thing or two about her coverage — a thing or two I couldn’t help her undo.

Last week on this site I ran a series about travel insurance. Read the fine print, I said. But what if the fine print doesn’t specifically address a situation you couldn’t even anticipate?

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The Travel Troubleshooter: Snared by the Mexican insurance scam

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Question: I recently returned from a nine-day trip to Cancun, Mexico. Before arriving, I booked a car rental through Hotwire.com, accepting a midsize vehicle with Europcar for $9.80 a day. With taxes, my rental was supposed to come to $97.

Before leaving for my trip, I verified that my credit card company covered all types of rental car insurance and that no additional insurance should be purchased. When I arrived in Cancun, the Europcar agent insisted that it was company policy that I take the extra insurance, otherwise he could not rent me the car. He even insisted that this would have been on the Hotwire agreement page.

Reluctantly, I accepted the insurance. When I got home, I ended up being charged $268 for the rental car. The Hotwire and Europcar websites do not mention mandatory insurance, yet neither will compensate me for what I believe was an attempt to overcharge me for services. What can be done about this? — Gordon Houston, Calgary, Canada

Answer: Ah, the old Mexican insurance scam! Regular readers of this column already know about this one. It goes something like this: You rent a car south of the border, believing the rate you’ve been quoted includes all mandatory charges. But wait. When you get to the car rental counter, an associate tells you that without insurance, you’re not going anywhere. So you pay.

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It’s alive! Prime Travel Protection pursues customer who didn’t want “insurance”

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Remember Prime Travel protection, the Colorado travel insurance company that shut down amid allegations it sold unlicensed policies? Turns out it’s not dead yet.

When Dick Rheinhardt booked a cruise vacation through Four Seasons Tours and Cruises, in Largo, Fla., last November, he agreed to pay $824 for what he believed to be a travel insurance policy. But it wasn’t a real policy, he says. A few months later, Florida authorities told three agencies that Prime Travel Protection policies might be bogus. Rheinhardt wanted a refund.

That’s when he discovered Prime Travel Protection was alive and well.

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