Need help with insurance documentation
 

So my wife booked a week in France with her girlfriends last October when they were all turning 60. Booked her PHL-CDG on an AA award, back on LH using UA miles.

AA canceled her flight due to it went mechanical and flew her the next day on BA through LHR. She incurred expenses for a private car to take her from CDG to where her tour was, as well as missed 1/7 of her tour.

Insurance company wants proof that the flight was canceled for mechanical breakdown. I filled out the AA webform and got a letter by email from "Vera" saying it was canceled "for maintenance". Insurance company denied our claim, said it needs to say mechanical breakdown. As if a transatlantic flight was canceled at 9 pm for scheduled maintenance.

Letter says if any issues go to URL which is a dead link. Calling AA HQ in DFW and spelling Vera's last name yields no one. Calling HQ and going through the phone tree to speak to customer service yields a message to call back during business hours.

Any suggestions are most welcome.

Thanks in advance.

You should just be able to respond to the e-mail you got from AA for follow-up.

You should tell us all what insurance company you used, though, so we can avoid them since they're obviously just trying to get out of paying a valid claim.

Call back during business hours, assuming that's not what you're already doing.

1. Check your policy language. It will have a definition for what is a "covered event." It is entirely possible that "maintenance" is covered and that the front line employee simply denied.without cause. If that is the case, your beef is with your insurance carrier. I would respond and advise that you will file a complaint with your state's insurance commissioner if the claim is not promptly paid.

2. If the "maintenance" term is not covered:

#A Just respond to the email asking that AA reword the letter with the requested language.

#B Call customer service. It is answered 24/7. That is where you will wind up even if you call the C-suite at HQ.

A is much preferred as this is not going to be resolved on a call.
#1 much preferable to #2 as you can be very specific.

Thanks
 

Thanks all. Some additional info: according to the insurance company, mechanical breakdown is a covered event, maintenance is not.

I did not think to reply to the email and will try that now!!! Fingers crossed.

I am calling customer service during business hours and getting the message to call back during business hours, however I am accessing it through a phone tree and not directly.

Given the weather situation, I would not bother calling until that situation is in hand as you will simply sit on hold. Once things clear up, select the voice or keypad options for "book a new ticket" and go from there.

Incidentally, not just for insurance purposes, but for many others, it is always worth writing down the exact reason for the delay. Usually, a member of the crew or GA will do a bit more than say, "mechanical," e.g. "we're replacing the fuse in the coffee maker." If push comes to shove, that can be helpful as the more you supply, the easier this task becomes.

Am I the only one here who is really curious who the insurance carrier is and how you acquired the coverage?

I can't image a policy being acquired as part of the ticket purchase process being quite so . . . .hair splitting. It is easy enough to verify the flight did not fly. Were they asserting compensation is due from the airline not them?

On the other hand I've had Citi balk at paying money for a cancellation AA was willing to issue a credit voucher of equal value for (even though the event for which the travel was purchased had already happened and could not be "made up for" per se--but the obvious caveat was that was third-party trip disruption insurance bundled with the credit card transaction).

I'd like to know this as well, so you're not the only one!

Why would you assert this? it is up to the claimant to provide the evidence to support the claim. If maintenance is not covered but breakdown is, it is hardly unreasonable of the insurer to want confirmation that it is a valid claim

The issue seems to be AA trying to describe the issue of the aeroplane being that it was having maintenance rather than needing to be repaired ; if AA had accurately described the situation in its reply to the passenger, there would likely be no issue with the insurance claim

FYI, I use Allianz annual travel insurance and have never had a problem getting reimbursed for delays or cancellations. Always send them a .pdf of my receipt and a screenshot of reason for delay or cancellation from expertflyer and they always cut me a check no questions asked.

How does your specific policy define a "covered delay"? The contract terms can work both for and against you.

I would not want a travel insurance policy that attempts to distinguish between the two scenarios. If cancels your flight because they realize they failed to do something required that doesn't leave you any less stranded than if they cancel because something suddenly broke. More to the point, I don't want to be caught between the airline and the insurance company trying to figure out which of these two things is, as is perfectly illustrated in the OP's scenario.

Rather, I want an insurance company that mirrors FAA1996's experience and pays out my claim for a cancellation with a minimum of fuss.

Letter by email?

Here, I'll fix it:

:)

Update
 

I replied to the email from AA and they got back to us with a new reply saying that it was not scheduled maintenance but rather "maintenance mechanical outbound" (the exact words copied from the flight log).

We are in the process of refiling our claim and hope this will fly with the insurance company, which I will name (or shame) once we hear from them.

No, we can't doctor the letter as someone suggested. It would be fraud.

I disagree. I would expect the insurance company to contact the airline for the reason, or have access to the data showing the reason. Routine maintenance canceling scheduled service is a norm for major airlines.
Fixing something that is broken is much larger possibility for canceling flights.

AA offers travel insurance is there any reason to assume that they would be better than "other" companies.
PS: sometimes "self-insurance" is more cost effective in the long run.

It was a joke, hence the :)

But if you want to split hairs, if it was in actual fact, a mechanical breakdown delay, would changing the text to reflect the actual truth be 'fraud'?

Again, :)

I don't see any reason that a travel insurance company would have any access to an airline's systems , nor would I expect it to do the claim form for the insured

I haven't made any claim on travel insurance where the insurance has gone off and done the checks to make sure that a claim is valid and get the proof

The flight was not cancelled due to maintenance ( which is " The process of keeping something in good condition" ) as stated by AA, but due to a failure of the aeroplane

The only issue seems to be with AA describing a cancellation as being due to decding to do some maintenance rather than a failue . I have found insurance companies very good at paying out, but never had one that will pay out without the substantation of the claim

The issue is semantics and the insurer is being unreasonable. At AA the department that repairs broken airplanes is called "Maintenance". Years ago I worked at a company with similar titles... if something broke, we called "Maintenance" even though technically what we wanted was a repair.

We still don't have the answer to the simple question posed to OP as to what is a "covered event". Without reading the policy, one can't know whether the insurance carrier is evading payment or abiding by its contract.

Insurance contracts are intentionally carefully written. There are policies which cover "all perils" and then there is apparently OP's. The former is a lot more costly as a general matter, so it is a matter of risk tolerance.

OK folks, many thanks, the insurer which was CSA Travel Protection administered by Generali has accepted our claim backed up by the second email from AA stating "mechanical" and we can expect a check within 7-10 days.

I don't think the insurer was being unreasonable, I think the first email from AA stating "maintenance" was too vague as our policy covered delays due to weather, strike, or mechanical breakdown. Not maintenance.

And btw we did learn that once we supply proof of reason for dealy the insurer does have a back channel to AA to verify. But they don't do this unless the insured presents evidence of a covered cause first.

lol

+1

If insurance worked that way, there'd be a heck of a lot fewer insurance lawyers.