Surprisingly, I have a positive story about insurance that I’d like to share in hopes that many of you can benefit from my experience. Last month I wrote a post on travel insurance. It provides some food for thought on trip insurance. Deciding whether or not to spend the extra money is never an easy decision.
This past weekend I had concert tickets to see Celine Dion at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Yes….Celine Dion. Don’t judge me. I purchased two tickets several months ago and paid a little over $175 each. The tickets were expensive, so I decided to add ticket insurance for just over $20 for both tickets. $20 seemed very reasonable to me considering the cost of the tickets. The insurance was through Allianz Global.
Two days before the concert, I started feeling ill. Not coronavirus kind of ill, but more like a stomach issue. It came to a point that I knew I would not be able to attend the concert, and wanted to exercise my option for a refund via the insurance. I knew that I would need some documentation of my illness, so I went to a doctor and requested a note before I left the office.
Later that afternoon I contacted Allianz and filed a claim.
I uploaded all the requested documents to their portal. It was a smooth and painless process.
I have heard some good and some really bad stories about the ease and willingness of insurance companies to payout claims. Although I had solid documentation of my condition and forwarded everything they asked for, I was still apprehensive. A couple of business days later I received this text from Allianz.
Wow. That was easy and straightforward. No red tape. No extra documentation. They covered both tickets–clearly it is not expected that my wife would attend the concert alone, and the insurance company would only refund the cost of my ticket. Success story. Case closed. I was very pleasantly surprised.
Let me say this…I have no affiliation whatsoever with Alliance Global. I receive no compensation or benefit of any kind for speaking highly of the company. This is my story. There may be hundreds of horror stories out there from people who never got a dime back, but fortunately this worked out in my favor.
With that said, here is the important part and how it relates to travel. After all, travel is why we are here. When I book trips, I seldom purchase the insurance. However, there are times where I find trip insurance prudent, and I fork over the extra money. Case in point. Two years ago, I booked a family vacation with my wife and to kids via the British Airways website–four business class tickets, two prepaid hotels. The BA package cost me slightly over $10,000, and the travel insurance cost me about $700. Although that was a tough pill to swallow, I couldn’t chance losing everything if one of us got ill or injured.
My dilemma with travel insurance is that I’m never truly confident that I’ll get reimbursed if the need arises. That is–until now. It just so happens that I often fly with airlines in the Oneworld group and Allianz Global is the default insurance company for British Airways and American Airlines.
You may have a very different opinion or story about travel insurance. I just wanted to share my personal experience with this particular company. Many of us are really on the fence when we come to that final payment screen and are offered the insurance option. My recent experience with the concert tickets will definitely put me at ease should I opt the spend the extra money.
Do you have a travel insurance story you’d like to share?
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