With over 10 years of experience in the insurance industry, I aim to provide useful information for travelers. However, the content in this post includes specific individual details and is for general informational purposes only. It should not be taken as financial advice. For personalized recommendations or decisions, please consult with a licensed financial or insurance professional.
Travel insurance can be a lifesaver, especially for international trips. In this post, I’ll share my experience with a $145 travel insurance policy that reimbursed my husband and I over $2,600 after a disastrous trip to Spain.
The Trip
The year was 2022. My husband, brother-in-law and I were eager to travel after being stuck at home so long through the covid pandemic. We were off on a nine day adventure to Madrid, Valencia, and Barcelona Spain. Only we would never make it out of Madrid!
I decided to get travel insurance for me and my husband, Brandon. My brother-in-law Anthony decided not to.
Details of our Travel Insurance Policy
It cost us $145.53 for two people in our late 30s. We listed our trip cost as $3,000. This included our plane tickets and AirBNB stay in Valencia (Anthony used his points to book us in Hilton hotels in Madrid and Barcelona).
Insurance policies can offer different coverages and limits to those coverages. Here are some of my travel insurance policy coverages and limits. I’ll get into those details further into this article.
Trip Cancellation: up to 100% of trip cost insured
Trip Interruption: 150% of Trip Cost Insured
You can claim Trip Interruption and/or Cancellation if you need to cancel or interrupt your trip for specific reasons. My policy covered reasons such as sickness or injury of yourself, a family member, or a traveling companion; termination or layoff of employment; theft of a passport or visa; a strike; involvement in a traffic accident; and more. Your brochure or certificate of insurance will outline the specific benefits.
Trip Delay: $2,000 including Accommodations ($150/day) (6 hours or more)
You can claim Trip Delay if your trip is delayed, with specific details on the daily and total reimbursement amounts and the required delay time. My policy required a delay of at least six hours before I could request reimbursement. Each insured person could claim up to $150 per day until reaching the $2,000 total limit.
Baggage Coverage: $2,500
The insurance company reimburses you up to the specified amount if your baggage is lost and not recovered.
Baggage Delay: $600 (8 hours or more)
Your insurance covers essentials like clothes and toiletries to help you until you recover your baggage. Typically, you must wait a specified number of hours before your baggage qualifies as delayed, and the policy sets a maximum reimbursement amount.
Medical Coverage: $250,000
Filing a medical coverage claim usually requires a doctor’s note stating that your sickness or injury prevents you from participating in your trip. If you simply buy a box of cold medicine at the pharmacy and stay in all day, your claim likely won’t be covered!
Rental Car Damage: $35,000
The insurance covers you if you rent a car. It specifies what situations (like theft, collision, vandalism) are covered and outlines the duties you must follow if you’re involved in a covered incident.
Primary Coverage
Primary coverage (vs secondary) means the policy will pay first. You won’t wait to see if other insurance coverage (let’s say your health insurance policy) pays first. Also, you don’t need to worry about providing proof that other insurers will not cover you before you can receive reimbursement.
The policy covered other categories as well, but these are the areas I was most interested in. They also covered sickness due to covid, just in case. It was not an easy process and required organization, lots of receipts, and a little pushback, but we received $2,615.23 in claims reimbursements. This covered most of the cost of our trip and included food, clothes, toiletries, our non-reimbursed Airbnb and a few other things.
When I was originally researching travel insurance, it was hard to make a decision on a policy because most reviewers stated they didn’t have to make a claim. This article aims to show the entire process, what a real-life situation covered, and how the claims process worked.
The Trip: What Went Wrong
We booked a flight on American Airlines, in economy, flying from our home city to Charlotte (CLT) then to Madrid (MAD). Maybe this shows how little we knew about International travel, but we only had a 2-hour layover in Charlotte. Guess what…..we missed our connection to Madrid.
It was not our fault for the delays. Mechanical issues needed fixing and inspection before we could take off. There was a group of about eight people on that original flight to Charlotte that were all getting on the same Madrid flight. Picture this group of eight people RUNNING through the Charlotte airport. Surely, the airline would hold the plane for a GROUP of people delayed because of mechanical issues with their airline. Nope. We ran to chants of “Run Forest Run” and claps of encouragement, only to watch the plane pull away and hear that we’d need to rebook.
4o mini
Select 46 more words to run Humanizer.
American Airlines put us on a flight to Miami then on Iberia to Madrid. It took us an extra flight and we lost us half a day, but we were just glad we didn’t lose more vacation time. The Iberia flight was awful. We had originally paid for upgraded seats with a little more legroom and we didn’t get those when rebooked on Iberia. Our trip insurance policy paid us back $413.58 for the loss of paid upgraded seats. For someone with restless leg syndrome who can’t sleep sitting up, this was the least comfortable and least amount of legroom I’ve ever had.
Travel Insurance Claim: Trip Delay/Loss of paid upgraded seats; Reimbursed: $413.58
At this point, phew, we finally arrived in Madrid… at baggage claim… and then we stayed at baggage claim. They lost ALL of our luggage. All three of us. All of it. We had to file a claim with Iberia (this is separate from the travel insurance claim). That was fun. I’ll skip the dramatics from the next 5 hours. Eventually, we got ONE of our bags. The other two were nowhere to be found, and we weren’t about to wait any longer in that airport. In the end, we got all our bags back just before we flew home a week later. Luckily, the things we bought to get by until we received our luggage were reimbursed by the travel insurance policy, like clothes and toiletries.
Travel Insurance Claim: Baggage delay over 8 hours; Reimbursed $232.08
We took the train to our hotel and stayed at the Hotel Montera Madrid. The hotel is part of the Hilton Curio collection, and I’m so glad we stayed here. We would end up spending the full 9 days in this hotel! Their service was amazing and they were so helpful and accommodating!
Up to this point, the trip wasn’t much fun, but it was only going to get worse! In the middle of the night, Brandon woke up sick and hurting. There was a pharmacy nearby and we were able to get some rapid covid tests. Shockingly, he tested negative. We gave it another day and were still planning on going to Valencia the next day if he was feeling better. The next day he was no better so Valencia was out. I messaged the host of our AirBNB, but she wasn’t very sympathetic and wouldn’t refund us per the cancellation policy (understandable).
Travel Insurance Claim: Trip Interruption/ Airbnb in Valencia; Reimbursed: $366.96
I called the number provided by the travel insurance company. Since it was the weekend, the number connected to a concierge. They couldn’t give me details about the coverage, but they did help us get a physician to come to the hotel. When the doctor came by the first time, Brandon still tested negative for both COVID and strep. We got some prescriptions and advice.
It wasn’t until two days later that he tested VERY positive for covid on a rapid test. We had the physician come out again. We wanted to see what else we could do to help him and also to get a proof positive test for insurance purposes. We had a discussion with the doctor who advised us to NOT stay in the same room with Brandon. Anthony had an adjoining room so for a night until we could make some switches, I had to awkwardly bunk in a king bed and a pillow wall with my brother-in-law!
We also thought ahead and got a note from the doctor saying I shouldn’t stay in the same room. This later proved essential in helping us get reimbursed for an additional room for the rest of our stay.
In total under the medical category, we had:
- Two physician appointments at the hotel
- Doctor-administered covid and strep tests
- Prescriptions
- Rapid tests from the pharmacy
- Cough drops
- Cold medicine.
We spent $349.07 and got reimbursed $349.07 without much of a problem. We were quickly able to realize we needed to keep receipts for everything.
Travel Insurance claim: Medical; Reimbursed: $349.07
Travel Insurance Claim: Trip Interruption/ Accommodations for the remainder of the stay; two rooms; Reimbursed: $965.67
During the remainder of our stay, we wanted to stay close to Brandon. Anthony and I still tested negative and had no symptoms. We spent a lot of time running over to the pharmacy or the El Corte Ingles Calleo shopping mall which also had a Supermercado. The hotel waived room service fees so we ordered room service multiple days.
Travel Insurance Claim: Trip Interruption/ Food; Reimbursed: $287.87
Total amount reimbursed: 2,615.23
The Travel Insurance Claims process
As you can imagine, EVEN IF this claims process would normally be smooth, I had a disaster here. Although there was a place to submit receipts and summaries online, I had WAY too many documents. The website kept freezing and crashing.
Once I returned home, I had to speak with customer service several times to determine how best to submit my information and to determine which category each claim would go under. In the end, I sent three separate emails to their claims email box and tried to separate items and receipts into each relevant claims category. I also wrote a summary of our original itinerary, what happened on our trip, and what I thought should be reimbursed.
The process was understandably cumbersome, but only one item was denied, and I didn’t really agree with it. The code on one of the reimbursement checks was “R18 Additional accommodations not covered,” making it seem like they denied the extra room. Customer service did not give me the help I needed. I emailed their claims inbox and asked for an itemized list of what they had approved and denied. They lumped the amounts in each claims category together, making it hard to tell. I also appealed the denial on the grounds that the doctor’s note stated I should not be in the same room as Brandon. That meant I (a covered person on the policy) had the added expense of another room. A month later, I got that itemized list and an additional $425 for that second room.
Lessons learned
- For travel insurance claims, you must pay for the expense upfront, keep receipts, and wait for reimbursement once the claim is processed and approved—this isn’t instant.
- Organization and patience are key. Just like if you were in an auto accident and submit a claim on that policy, you must provide proof. This can be in the form of receipts, doctor’s notes or other relevant documentation.
- You may receive a reimbursement check, but it may not be clear what was approved and what was denied. If you think it is incorrect, advocate for yourself. Request an itemized list of what was or was not covered
Is Travel Insurance worth it for International Travel?
Yes. Even though it was a lot of work and some aggravation to go through the claims process, this was a terrible trip. Can you imagine also having to bite that bitter lemon of losing all of the money you spent while not experiencing what you paid for?
A year later, the three of us went to Scotland, and we all had insurance! Luckily, nothing happened and we didn’t need to file any claims, but we felt secure knowing that if something did happen, we wouldn’t lose the entire cost of our trip.
Comment below if you had a terrible trip, and whether travel insurance covered it or not!
