7/21/05: Trip insurance 'lite' for air tickets

Trip insurance 'lite' for air tickets

Ticket Protector insurance is a "lite" version of trip-cancellation
and trip-interruption insurance (TCI) focused on nonrefundable air
tickets. Currently, Access America is selling it through three major
airlines—American, Continental, and Northwest—with more lines likely
to sign on in coming weeks. It's a low-cost, low-coverage product
aimed at travelers whose main financial risk is the cost of a
nonrefundable ticket. As such, it could be appealing to many.

The basic purpose of all TCI is the same: to reimburse you for any
prepayments you might lose if you have to cancel a trip after you've
already paid for all or part of it. TCI applies both to pre-departure
problems and unexpected early return if something happens while you're
traveling.

Like other forms of TCI, Ticket Protector protects your prepayments
only for covered reasons. Typical covered reasons include:

* illness, injury, or death of you, a covered family member, or
traveling companions
* strikes, natural disasters, or bad weather that result in the
complete cessation of services by an airline for at least 24 hours
* termination of your employment
* jury duty, court order, subpoena, or armed forces orders
requiring you to cancel your trip
* fire, flood, burglary, vandalism, or natural disasters making
your home uninhabitable
* you or a traveling companion being hijacked or quarantined
* you or a traveling companion being directly involved in a
traffic accident while en route to departure
* certain terrorist acts for incidents that occur in a foreign
city within 30 days of your scheduled arrival
* you or a traveling companion being the victim of a felonious
assault within 10 days prior to departure
* your family or friends living abroad with whom you were planning
to stay are unable to accommodate you due to a life-threatening
illness, injury, or death

The most glaring exception, of course, is that neither Ticket
Protector nor other ordinary TCI policies cover you in the event you
have to cancel or reschedule a trip for purely business reasons.

I call Ticket Protector "TCI Lite" because it omits many of the
features of conventional TCI. The three most important differences:

* It does not include medical or emergency evacuation provisions.
* It makes no provisions to waive the pre-existing medical
condition exception, which means that it will not cover a medical
condition if you have shown symptoms of that condition or seen a
doctor about it within 120 days before departure—even if the condition
is controlled by medication at the time you buy the TCI.
* It is currently limited to nonrefundable air tickets. However,
if you have to cancel such a ticket, you get back the full price of
the ticket—you do not have to change any remaining value in the ticket
for a future ticket you might or might not want.

The main advantage to Ticket Protector is that its price is also lite:
You pay $12 for a ticket that costs less than $300 or four percent of
the price for tickets costing from $301 to a ceiling of $3,000.
Moreover, unlike most other TCI policies, the price does not vary with
your age, so seniors pay no more than younger travelers.

Overall, I'd say that Ticket Protector is a good deal if your only big
up-front prepayment risk is a nonrefundable airline ticket; you won't
need medical, evacuation, baggage, and other benefits of conventional
TCI; and you aren't likely to be able to trade your cancelled ticket
in toward a future ticket by paying an change fee of up to $100.

Otherwise, if you're a frequent traveler who can easily reuse the
value of a cancelled ticket, the up-front risk is no more than that
change fee—an amount small enough that insurance probably isn't
necessary. Alternatively, if you have more prepayments at risk than
just a ticket—a vacation rental, for example—or if you need the other
benefits, look for a conventional TCI policy with broader coverage.

http://www.smartertravel.com/advice/...1&u=SL4F6B4DC5


===
"We have seen the enemy, and it is us."
-- Walt Kelly