DAN and AIG travel insurance absurd response ; Sinking boat not covered!

[Edward3c]

I'm glad I live in the UK where we have the Travel Package Regulations which require those selling holidays to have the finances to re-pay customers in the event of a holiday not happening.

 

[KathyV]

I'm looking forward to our trip, just want e

I'm glad I live in the UK where we have the Travel Package Regulations which require those selling holidays to have the finances to re-pay customers in the event of a holiday not happening.

Do you always reserve trips through local agents or do you ever book directly with the foreign vendor?

 

[Edward3c]

...
Do you always reserve trips through local agents or do you ever book directly with the vendor?

Depends on where I’m going. But by paying with a credit card, the card provider becomes liable for providing the product or service if over £100.

 

[HBO MD]

It gets increasingly complicated as the boat owners are reluctant to provide information that might be used to reinterpret their own situation and liability.
Originally I looked into the Dive Assure policy, but it was more expensive than DAN, and you still had to purchase a separate Live Aboard rider.
This can come to thousands when a few of you are traveling.
I just have utter contempt for these guys.

 

[KathyV]

This is totally unrelated and entirely fictional but the discussion about the effective date of a travel insurance policy brought to mind the book and movie titled Airport from 1970 with Dean Martin as the pilot, Burt Lancaster as the airport manager, and Helen Hayes as the charming stowaway.

Back then they used to sell flight insurance policies at the airport to passengers on their way to the gate - to provide for your family in case your plane should crash. Van Heflin is the depressed bomber who buys a big policy with his last money and plans to blow up himself and the plane in order to leave some money for his widow, played by Maureen Stapleton.

It was completely shocking and unthinkable back that someone might do something so terrible as deliberately blow up a plane and kill innocent people. In the clip below Dean Martin is trying to talk the bomber down and he says "No one has ever gotten away with something like this!"

It was a simpler and more innocent time.

Airport (1970) -- (Movie Clip) He's Got A Bomb!

Sorry to digress, back to the interesting discussion of trip insurance policies!

 

[mafi]

So DAN does not cover sinking?

Is it the same for EU residents?

 

[Lorenzoid]

It gets increasingly complicated as the boat owners are reluctant to provide information that might be used to reinterpret their own situation and liability.
Originally I looked into the Dive Assure policy, but it was more expensive than DAN, and you still had to purchase a separate Live Aboard rider.
This can come to thousands when a few of you are traveling.
I just have utter contempt for these guys.

Yeah, but the boat owner refunded your money. It seems to me all the expensive liveaboard rider would have gotten you in addition would be the airfare refund on an otherwise non-refundable ticket, and whatever you paid in advance for the hotel that the hotel won't refund. Even if it's a non-refundable ticket, you can probably still use it within a year for a rebooking fee. I know losing any amount of money is hard to swallow, but it seems to me that you were refunded the biggie: the liveaboard. Now you have an airline ticket that isn't totally without value because (I assume) it allows you to re-book. That's not TOO bad. Is it? Of course, if you're looking at it from the perspective of potentially having to coordinate not just your own re-booking but those of your traveling companions, hoping your schedules allow another trip within a year, making that work could indeed be a hardship. This story is not unlike a number of others that have convinced me travel insurance may not always be worth it for the frequent traveler. I just try to keep in mind that every once in a while, I'm going to eat an airfare or hotel cost, and it's part of the cost of this pastime.

 

[HBO MD]

Unfortunately, on a bucket list trip that can amount to a lot of money.

 

[outofofficebrb]

It gets increasingly complicated as the boat owners are reluctant to provide information that might be used to reinterpret their own situation and liability.
Originally I looked into the Dive Assure policy, but it was more expensive than DAN, and you still had to purchase a separate Live Aboard rider.
This can come to thousands when a few of you are traveling.
I just have utter contempt for these guys.

I buy for every trip as every trip involves a liveaboard but I always buy secondary coverage so it makes it a lot less expensive. You can also buy an annual policy which can be good value. Secondary coverage doesn't change what is covered except that it will not pay out if you have other (primary) means but if you don't have anyone else, they would pay. I had to make a claim recently (not the liveaboard part, but for another aspect of the trip) and it was relatively easy considering. I don't always cover the entire cost of the trip because I know I get some credit card coverage as well for trip interruption/cancellation, etc. I am mostly interested in the liveaboard aspect of it and any weather or strike/riot/disasters (Sinkings/running aground as well......... ) and miscellaneous delays that affect my flights to it, so I do the math on what that portion is worth to me, etc., and buy accordingly. I buy it for situations that I'm worried might occur that my credit card won't cover for a particular aspect or portion of my trip. You would have to read the terms and conditions for your credit card and travel insurance provider to determine where that demarcation line would be. For example, if there were a weather issue which caused a flight delay that made me miss some land based pre-paid diving or a hotel, that would be covered under my credit card. I made a claim like that recently and was successful with my credit card. I didn't buy Dive Assure for that portion of my trip. I did buy the liveaboard rider and bought enough coverage for flights and the liveaboard, but not much to wiggle outside of that.

 

[outofofficebrb]

Unfortunately, on a bucket list trip that can amount to a lot of money.

True. Travel insurance isn't "good value" for most people, but the flip side is you have to look at what you are willing to absorb if something came up that was beyond your control. That risk/benefit is different for everyone. To some people like myself, I see it as capping my risk by paying hundreds of dollars for insurance I might not use ("worst case scenario financially") and in the event something happens, I'm not out of pocket on possibly thousands of dollars when I might be stranded and have to make some difficult decisions. I can afford hundreds and budget that as part of my travel budget, but I can't afford thousands on a whim. I suppose one could say I need to factor in an "emergency fund" for issues that come up while traveling.......but it was nice to get a pro-rated refund on an all-inclusive dive resort that I prepaid for plus the extra transportation, hotel costs, meals when options were limited because of a flight being canceled due to weather. It doesn't take much in some foreign countries that have more "primitive" and simple runways.