Travel Insurance Can be Bought After Final Payment

by Steve Dasseos on March 6, 2023

Hi Steve, We recently paid our trip’s Final Payment, but didn’t buy a Trip Cancellation plan. Based on what I read on other websites, it’s too late to get a policy. But, your name keeps coming up online as the person to get the right answer from, so can you help me? We don’t need coverage for any pre-existing medical conditions. Thanks, Maxine

Hi Maxine, Thanks for writing. I’m happy to tell you that, yes you are able to get a Trip Cancellation plan after you pay your Final Payment. There are only two deadlines for buying a Trip Cancellation plan after you paid your Final Payment:

  1. The day before you leave home for your trip. Or,
  2. Two days before something unexpectedly bad happens (i.e. – a covered reason to cancel your trip) where you wish you had already bought the Travel Insurance plan.

Here are some examples of unexpectedly bad things that could happen making you wish you had bought the Travel Insurance plan a few days earlier: You get hit by a Cement Truck, weather is forecasted or a natural disaster occurs that will affect your trip, a non-traveling family member has a medical emergency, a transportation strike, your company cancels your previously-approved time off and tells you are needed at work.

The reason I said “unexpectedly” is because if the circumstance is already known, it’s too late to get a plan to cover you. Here are some of the Blog entries I wrote that address this: Do Callers Think We Were Born Yesterday?, New Job Will Not Allow Me to Take My Trip, Don’t Buy Travel Insurance When You’re Ill and Past the Deadlines, Travel Insurance Can’t Help Debbie and Travel Insurance Won’t Help With Paul’s Pre-Ex Condition.

There are more entries along this line in the 373 other Blog entries I’ve written in the past fifteen and a half years since September 2007, but I think you get the gist of it.

PS – I’ve had a breakthrough with my Long Covid I’ve had since May 2020. I’ll write about it next time.

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Welcome to 2023 and Long Covid Tips

by Steve Dasseos on January 21, 2023

Happy New Year and Welcome to 2023!

I’m happy the last 3 years are over. The travel and hospitality business is recovering, the worst of the pandemic is over, though Covid and other diseases are still very dangerous for a small part of the population. Unfortunately, some people now have Long Covid. I’ve had it since May 2020. The brain fog affects me until about 10 – 11 am, but there are many others who have it far worse. I hope they benefit from the new treatments and cures.

I have a customer who is part of a large team researching Long Covid at Johns Hopkins. She occasionally tells me what’s working for some. Here are two pages from Johns Hopkins with good information if you know anyone with Long Covid: Resources for COVID-19 Survivors and Long-Term Effects of COVID-19

I’m sorry I haven’t added to my Blog since July 28, 2022. I have 37 drafts, but, Deanna, Kim and I are so busy I seemingly haven’t had time to focus on finishing one.

“One never knows, when he enters an elevator or tears open an envelope or picks up the telephone, what new trick of fortune may be about to be played. Every day is a new series of adventures; around the next corner may lie the event that will change a whole career.” Bruce Barton, 1928

P.T. Barnum started his Circus when he was 65. I turned 65 in July and with the destruction and recovery of the travel and hospitality business, it felt like I started over with TripInsuranceStore.com. Like Barnum, I didn’t start from nothing, because I have been blessed with favor from God, loyal customers and a good reputation off and online.

You’ll hear from me again soon. Gratefully, Steve Dasseos

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How to Insure a Future Cruise or Travel Credit

by Steve Dasseos on July 28, 2022

You were referenced on a Cruise Critic thread. Someone suggested you might know insurance plans that would cover the full cost of a canceled trip with Viking Cruises, when a portion of the cruise fare was paid with a Viking voucher from a previously cancelled cruise. Once a Viking voucher is used, Viking will not restore or reissue it, even if the trip is “insured” with Viking.

I caught Covid the day before embarkation, so I had to cancel a June 2022 cruise for two people. Viking issued vouchers in the amount of $5,360 for each of us. I rebooked the same cruise for 2023. The cost of the new cruise will be about $6,000 per person. Viking applied the value of the two vouchers to this new booking.

I’d like to find trip cancellation insurance for the June, 2023 trip that will cover the full cost of the trip, including the value of the vouchers, if we have to cancel for medical reasons again. Have you found a plan that will do this?

Thanks for asking. I have plans that will cover you. Insuring Future Cruise or Travel Credits is an area that appears simple on the surface, but has an important detail that’s important to know if you want the waiver of the pre-existing medical condition exclusion and / or the Cancel For Any Reason coverage.

The simple part is: Regardless of how the credits are shown on your new booking invoice, all my plans will let you insure your prepaid and non-refundable trip costs when your trip is paid by any combination of Future Cruise or Travel Credits, Travel Vouchers or cash. The Credits or Vouchers must be equal to the amount of money you had prepaid in cash for the cancelled trip that created the credits. You cannot insure the value of any bonus credits.

Here’s a tip: If you don’t have a clear accounting of monies paid and credits that were later issued, make sure you get it. This can get complicated when you’ve had multiple trips booked and cancelled that created subsequent credits. Be sure to note any bonus credits. You will need this accounting if you ever have a trip cancellation or interruption claim. We will help you with your claim, but we won’t sort out your credits for you.

The complicated and important detail to know when you are buying a new trip cancellation policy with past travel credits is this: Your Initial Trip Deposit Date will be the date you originally made the first payment on the trip that later caused the Travel Credits.

Why is this important? It’s important if you want the waiver of the pre-existing medical condition exclusion and / or the Cancel For Any Reason coverage. I have four plans that you may get that cover pre-existing conditions if bought any time before, but not later than your Final Payment. However, I don’t have any plans that offer the Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) coverage for this scenario.

Since there are so many travel credits out there, we now ask everyone this question:
“Is any of your trip being paid with Future Travel or Cruise Credits that represented money you had paid on a trip that was cancelled or interrupted due to Covid?”

I ask this all the time and often get this answer: “My deposit is paid in cash”. So, I have to ask more followup questions like “Are you re-using airfare credits from prior cancelled trip?” or “By the time you pay the Final Payment, will you be using any Future Travel or Cruise Credits to pay for part of your trip?”.

I want to be sure there’s no surprise if they later have a claim.

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Why are Travel Insurance Claims Taking So Long to Process?

by Steve Dasseos on July 14, 2022

Why are Travel Insurance Claims Taking So Long to Process?

Note: I originally wrote this on July 18, 2020. I updated it today with some more information.

This is a typical phone call or email we have been getting for the last twenty nine (29) months:

It’s now been 4 (or 5, 6, 7…) months since I submitted my claim for my trip. I understand they are busy, but this seems like they found an excuse to put my claim at the bottom of their pile. Is there anything you can do to get that moving? I’m happy to provide documents but I think they should tell me why they need it. I also think they should be able to tell me everything they think is missing all at once. Nothing about this process is giving me confidence that any company will respond well should problems arise on either of the other vacations I have insured with any company. Also, when I call them, I leave my number for a callback, but no one ever calls me back.

I am very thankful that the vast majority of people who call or email us are kind and very pleasant to work with. And, I completely understand their frustrations. We make it a point to tell our customers that a claim will take at least six months.

While I cannot know what is the exact reason that claims are taking so long to process, I do know that all the Travel Insurance companies’ Claim Departments are overwhelmed with the volume of claims that started coming in the beginning of February 2020. In addition, many claims require supporting medical documentation so the backlog in medical record transfers is part of the problem.

Unlike other widespread events like hurricanes or bad winter storms, the volume of new claims has not dropped off after the initial event. In a normal event, the majority of claims come in over a two – four week period.

What’s different about this Covid mess is that the initial claim submissions were not spread out, but there was a surge in March 2022 that continued as trips kept getting postponed or cancelled. And, in normal times, if an insurance company needed documentation from a travel supplier or a doctor’s office, there was a very short turnaround time. Now, it’s longer, partly due to people working remotely or companies being understaffed, first due to layoffs, then due to labor shortages.

Another problem is that travel suppliers are taking months to furnish cancellation invoices and other documents so the traveler has to wait before they have all their paperwork to submit with their claim.

In early July 2020, one company told me they had over 9,000 unread emails in their Customer Service email queue. And, because they had a hiring freeze or laid people off, now they (and other companies) are understaffed, so the backlog aren’t clearing quickly. I wish the companies would stop over-promising faster turnarounds because they are under-performing and needlessly getting people angry.

Finally!! I got paid after waiting three months. Steve, thank you again for your help with this claim. Lisa M., Austin, TX

We are continuing to help our customers with their claims. I have worked very hard to have a good relationship with each of our companies. There are many reasons for this, but I think the main reason is that we have never lied, mis-represented the truth nor have ever tried to deceive our companies in any way. When we made a mistake, we always own up to it. We record our phone calls so we can send the call to our companies to document our mistakes.

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I hope this makes sense. If you want the right travel insurance advice, call us at 1-888-407-3854 and we'll help you figure it all out.

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How Does Re-booking My Trip Affect My Initial Deposit Date?

by Steve Dasseos on March 28, 2022

How Does Re-booking My Trip Affect My Initial Deposit Date?
Prior to Covid, the most common reasons we saw that a traveler would potentially cancel and re-book their trip and not file a trip cancellation claim on their policy were these:

  • Your travel supplier cancelled and they offered you a great deal on a new trip if you switched to the new trip.
  • Or, there was some scheduling conflict so you decided not to pay your Final Payment and instead you cancelled your trip before you were in penalty.
  • Or, you simply chose not to take the trip before you were in penalty.

With all our plans, if you were not incurring a financial loss, you could change the dates on your policy to cover the new trip.

After Covid arrived in the USA on Jan 20, 2020, countless travelers had their trips cancelled or interrupted, rescheduled and sometimes cancelled and rescheduled a few more times.

I proactively sent out over 39,000 emails to our customers four times in 2020 (March, June, September and November) telling them exactly what they could do to preserve the value of their Trip Cancellation policies so they didn’t lose the money they had paid. I linked to this page and other Blog posts I wrote. Sadly, none of my competitors did this, so now there are many people who unwittingly lost the money they paid for their now-worthless policies. They are understandably angry and skeptical.

If you have a trip that was cancelled due to Covid, one of these applies to you:

  1. You are re-using a policy that insured the original Covid-cancelled trip to cover a new trip: Your Initial Trip Deposit Date is the date you used the Travel Credits as any part of the first payment towards the new trip.
  2. You do not have a policy to re-use and you are booking a new trip that you will pay for with the Travel Credits or a combination of cash and Travel Credits: IMG, TravelSafe and Travel Insured and a lot of the many companies I don’t offer, define your Initial Trip Deposit Date as the date you originally bought the trip that later caused the Travel Credits as the first payment. Since these plans offer the 75% Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR), I don’t have any plans with the 75% CFAR coverage for this scenario.

Your Initial Trip Deposit Date is important because if you want Pre-existing conditions coverage, Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) and Supplier Financial Default you generally have to buy your Trip Cancellation plan within so many days of your Your Initial Trip Deposit Date, aka “Time Sensitive Period”.

By the way, if you have a plan with the Cancel For Any Reason coverage, read this Blog post I wrote two months ago called “Does Cancel For Any Reason Cover Me if the Travel Supplier Cancels My Trip?”.

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I hope this makes sense. If you want the right travel insurance advice, call us at 1-888-407-3854 and we'll help you figure it all out.

Now, a word from our sponsor: TripInsuranceStore.com (Travel Forums' Most Recommended Travel Insurance Website)

PS - If you liked what you read, please Subscribe to my Blog.

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