Expensive Tripped Up,
In September 2022, I booked a 17-day Arabian Sea cruise by way of Vantage Journey Companies to rejoice my eightieth birthday with my spouse. The cruise was to set sail in October 2023. I used my bank card to go away a $2,000 deposit and paid the remaining $17,905 shortly afterward by financial institution switch. I additionally purchased the Worldwide Journey Protector plan from Journey Insured Worldwide (for $1,954), partly as a result of it coated monetary default and chapter of cruise strains. Vantage then canceled the cruise and supplied me an alternate date I couldn’t make; I additionally declined their supply of credit score and requested for a refund, which they agreed to. However no refund ever got here, and so they stopped answering the telephone. My bank card returned the $2,000, and I filed an insurance coverage declare for $17,905. It was denied, as was my first enchantment. Then Vantage filed for chapter, and my second enchantment was denied too. The explanations given by the insurer have been outrageous. They cited a imprecise parenthetical phrase within the coverage’s chapter clause, claiming I wasn’t coated as a result of I bought the cruise straight from the cruise line (reasonably than, say, by way of a journey adviser). Then they mentioned my coverage lapsed after I canceled the journey. However I didn’t cancel; Vantage did. I additionally filed a grievance with the New York State Division of Monetary Companies, which was rejected. Are you able to assist? Michael, Smithtown, N.Y.
Expensive Michael,
When Boston-based Vantage filed for chapter final yr, it owed hundreds of consumers a complete of $108 million for cruises and different journey merchandise that they had paid for however by no means obtained. The corporate’s former proprietor is dealing with lawsuits in New York and Pennsylvania. However you had bought an insurance coverage coverage to cowl simply such a threat, a sensible transfer. Or so that you thought till the insurance coverage firm, Journey Insured Worldwide, denied your declare after which used exasperating logic to fend off your two appeals, first deciphering the coverage’s monetary default and chapter clause in a maddening manner after which twisting the which means of the phrase “cancel.”
You made just a few errors as properly — most notably, by making a declare based mostly on a monetary default that had not but occurred. However after talking with legislation professors, insurance coverage specialists and competing insurance coverage corporations, I imagine Journey Insured Worldwide was improper, at the very least by the point of your second enchantment, and may pay up.
What does it should say for itself? For practically 5 months, Journey Insured Worldwide and its guardian firm, Crum & Forster, didn’t reply to my detailed inquiries. Days earlier than publication, nonetheless, a spokeswoman, Amy Whilldin, despatched the next assertion:
“The declare was correctly thought-about, and the proper willpower was made based mostly on the info of this declare, which was to the satisfaction of each the New York Division of Monetary Companies and the New York State lawyer basic.”
