I bought full travel insurance for a 2-week trip to Latin America and has one of those unfortunate experiences in which everything goes wrong. One leg of the arrival flight was cancelled, our luggage got lost, we had to wait a day for it to catch up to continue as we were booked on a cruise. After the cruise, someone in customs opened my bag and stole an heirloom necklace. Then my husband got ill, we had to purchase medicine and take an early flight home. Travelex first refused to pay anything. After two appeals, they still refused. They never once called me. I finally got someone to call them, and that prompted the first personal call to me — months later. They asked for unreasonable verification (like documentation that the cancelled flight was due to mechanical failure or bad weather), made incorrect assumptions (such as our luggage being able to catch up with us on the cruise, an impossibility since we were on a glacial cruise with no ports of call), and other outrageous demans. Finally, they agree to pay $500 for the lost jewelry, when in fact it was worth much more than that.
I think Travelex tells its agents to refuse payment by asking for these unreasonable demands, and then, when the customer gets angry, they tell the agents to agree to pay one claim only — each claim is limited to $500 thought I was not aware of that when I purchased the insurance. Nor was my travel agent who recommended the company.
This is a real buyer beware story — most travel insurance is not worth the trouble if it is limited to amount of the premium and the company will only pay one claim per customer — and then after months of haggling.
But Travelex may be the worst of the lot. I will never do business with them again, nor will my travel agent.
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