Trip Insurance

[Longhorn]

We have parents in their mid-70s and I'm undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. It seems like a good idea to get trip insurance with a waiver for pre-existing conditions. I've been to www.insuremytrip.com for a quote. However, since my rail tickets are refundable, I didn't include them in the trip cost. I included airfare, hotels, and prepaid, nonrefundable excursions, totaling up to $1400 if the maximum cancellation fees are applied.

My question is, will the rail portion of the trip be covered -- that is, if my baggage is lost or damaged or delayed or our trip is delayed due to the train being late, etc., is it still covered even if I didn't include the rail in the insurance? The policy specifically mentions delays due to "common carrier" but I'm no insurance expert. I know I won't get a refund of the actual rail fare from the insurance company but I would get that from Amtrak. I just want to know if I'm covered for problems CAUSED by the rail travel. It will cost us $97 for the policy.

I hope this question makes sense!

Thanks!

 

[Amtrak OBS Gone Freight]

We have parents in their mid-70s and I'm undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. It seems like a good idea to get trip insurance with a waiver for pre-existing conditions. I've been to www.insuremytrip.com for a quote. However, since my rail tickets are refundable, I didn't include them in the trip cost. I included airfare, hotels, and prepaid, nonrefundable excursions, totaling up to $1400 if the maximum cancellation fees are applied.
My question is, will the rail portion of the trip be covered -- that is, if my baggage is lost or damaged or delayed or our trip is delayed due to the train being late, etc., is it still covered even if I didn't include the rail in the insurance? The policy specifically mentions delays due to "common carrier" but I'm no insurance expert. I know I won't get a refund of the actual rail fare from the insurance company but I would get that from Amtrak. I just want to know if I'm covered for problems CAUSED by the rail travel. It will cost us $97 for the policy.

I hope this question makes sense!

Thanks!

That is a good question, and it is something you may need to contact their customer service agent (the seller of the policy) about. One thing trip insurance (well almost all insurance IMO) is known for is the extra riders and exclusions they put into these policies. But still trip insurance can be a life saver as long as you have done your homework in advance. Amtrak is a "common carrier," so they should qualify accordingly, but be sure there is no exclusion in the policy that limits the types of delays as well as some not included reasons for those delays! That happened to a friend of mine several years ago when he was stuck on a rather late "Coast Starlate (Starlight)" and was looking to cancel his non-refundable hotel accomodations for the first night as well as a non-refundable excusion he missed that next morning. The policy had an exclusion in it limiting the transportation portion to "cancel of transportation only." This is the kind of stuff you have to watch for with insurance in general! Fortunately, Amtrak gave my friend a $250 travel voucher which made up for the missed excursion, and the hotel was kind enough to work with him! So in his case, trip insurance was a waste of money! But another friend of mine had bought trip insurance for a cruise she was going on, and she had to cancel her trip for personal reasons. Of course the cruise line didn't have to refund her money as like most of them the lower fares/packages are non-refundable! But the trip insurance policy had her covered and she got all her money back!

Good luck...

OBS gone freight...

 

[MrFSS]

I would agree the best way to get questions answered is call the company providing the insurance. I'm a retired insurance adjuster and if I heard it once I heard it a 1000 times, "My neighbor told me, my brother told me, etc, etc, that this was covered." Until you have it from the company, don't accept anything anyone else tells you about what's covered.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

Insurance companies often like to start by trying to recover what they can before they pay you back. If your automobile is totaled in an accident, they will pay you for the value of the automobile (by some valuation that not all will necessarily percieve as fair), but they will also take the wreck away from you and sell it to automotive recycles for whatever they can get.

I'm wondering if this trip insurance company has figured out some way to write the contract so that they'll insist upon taking your Amtrak tickets, collecting the 90% refund from Amtrak, and then giving you that 90% refund plus pay out the last 10% of the Amtrak ticket price, and charge that 90% that they didn't actually lose against the maximum cap of the insurance payout.

 

[Tony]

However, since my rail tickets are refundable, I didn't include them in the trip cost....

My question is, will the rail portion of the trip be covered -- that is, if my baggage is lost or damaged or delayed or our trip is delayed due to the train being late, etc., is it still covered even if I didn't include the rail in the insurance?

I am no expert, but I would think that if your rail travel is not part of the covered trip, nothing with the trail travel, is covered. The covered trip starts with the air flight.

This is based on my own experience that insurance doesn't tend to cover stuff not specifically declared.

 

[Longhorn]

As several of you advised, I called the folks at insuremytrip.com to get my questions answered. The CS agent said that the train portion of the trip should NOT be included in the policy because it is refundable. However, the train is a common carrier so if our trip is delayed more than eight hours (for this particular policy) and we incur nonrefundable expenses as a result (hotel, prepaid excursions, etc.), then they will be covered.

So for $97 to insure about $1400 worth of nonrefundable prepaid reservations, we think this is worth it.

Thanks for your help and suggestions!

 

[AKA]

Off topic BUT, love the longhorn picture. A nice change from the usual train stuff. I know, I know its a train web site.

 

[Longhorn]

Off topic BUT, love the longhorn picture. A nice change from the usual train stuff. I know, I know its a train web site.

Thanks! I took that picture here in Central Texas. He was "posing" next to a fence along the highway.