Travel Insurance Reviews Travel Insurance Reviews Plans

My wife and I had to use the doctor while on vacation and Nationwide did pay what my primary medical insurance did not cover. BUT I did not like is the paper work required. Here is an example of what they asked for: "...flight booking confirmation with dates of travel, cost and proof of payment which identify you as the traveler and document your entrance into and exit from the country or countries where medical services were received..." my first response was how the heck to I do this! I ended up sending the receipts from the airlines and that worked. The also wanted the EOB from my primary medical - once they got all of the info they did pay out just a few days later.
Just a lot of electronic "paper work" to get there.

I had booked a trip to Sulawesi in Indonesia back in Nov of 2018. When I made the initial booking, I purchased the travel insurance using the dates of my major flight component from LAX to Bali. I was coming from Colorado and I left the purchase of the first flight segment from DEN-LAX for later as well as the segment from Bali to Sulawesi. This was my mistake, since the flight out of LAX left at 15 minutes after midnight so when I eventually booked my flight from DEN-LAX it actual left the day before my insurance coverage started. I thought about updating the insurance, but since I had never ever used my travel insurance before I elected not to bother with the additional hassle.

I started the trip as planned, traveling from DEN-LAX on the evening prior to the start of my travel insurance. Half-way through the flight from DEN-LAX the pilot announced that due to a power outage at LAX our flight was being diverted to SLC. We arrived in SLC some time before 10pm. Upon arrival, the airline announced that they would not be offering us any accommodation. The airline rebooked me the next day to LAX connecting through OAK. SQ rebooked me on the same flight at 00:15 24 hours later. My flight from Bali to Sulawesi was a non-refundable ticket so I was forced to book a new ticket in business class, since that was the only seat left. I took a Lyft to a nearby hotel and checked in for the night. A check of my flight the next morning indicated that my flight to OAK was already delayed, which meant I now only had 30 minutes to make my connection. I headed to the airport where a helpful SW agent put me on the direct flight to BUR. I ended up renting a car in BUR and dropping it at LAX. From that point on everything, proceeded according to my rebooked plans.

At that point, the costs I had incurred were Lyft, hotel, car rental, and new business class ticket DPS-UPG. I did have some concerns, given that the precipitating event had actually occurred before my insurance coverage started, but I put a claim in when I returned home and hoped for the best. The claim process was very easy, forms were filled out and submitted online. It would have been nice if it generated something like an email detailing the claim or a way to print out your claim, for future reference. After a few months I received a couple of emails with electronic checks that were quick and easy to deposit. All but about $20 of my claim were paid out, so I was pleased and pleasantly surprised by the resolution.

I was happy with the final outcome, but the process could be improved. A "paper trail" just to document your claim for later reference would be a nice improvement. You are given a reference number to refer to your claim while it was being processed, but inaccessible once it has been paid out. It would have been nice to see a breakdown of the payout to understand what had been allowed or disallowed in the claim. Some additional transparency to the process would be a nice improvement.