Made use of travel insurance

This letter is to inform ITN readers of the utmost necessity of taking out travel insurance before any trip, especially with regard to interruption of a tour and, of course, reimbursement of medical expenses.

My husband, Robert, always used to fight me before our trips about the cost of this insurance, but I always won out, and it certainly paid off during one miserable episode in our travels.

We were on a delightful trip with Viking River Cruises (Woodland Hills, CA; phone 877-66-VIKING), doing the rivers through Holland and Germany down to Vienna, when on Oct. 1, ’02, in Würzburg, Germany, I fell on the cobblestones outside of the old Residenz Palace.

I was taken by ambulance to their very good hospital, Juliusspital. I had badly fractured my left elbow and they operated on Oct. 2. I spent one week in hospital.

The Viking River people kept their English-speaking guide, Emma, with me and Robert for one full day and procured a hotel room for Robert across the street from the hospital. Of course, the ship went on without us, but they brought our clothes back to Robert’s hotel and then arranged an upgrade to first class for our flight home after my week’s stay in hospital.

Since returning home, I have had two more operations in Florida and, after having had an artificial elbow inserted, am finally using the arm quite well.

Carlson Wagonlit Travel (2836 W. Main, Kalamazoo, MI 49006-2938) handled our tour, and our insurance was with Trip Mate, Inc. (9225 Ward Parkway, 2nd Fl., Kansas City, MO 64114; phone 800/888-7292).

We paid $598 for the insurance, and they reimbursed me thousands of dollars, with many claims being processed. They were prompt and did not question any of the bills except to ask for verification.

The first claims were promptly paid on the “trip loss,” due to our having been on the ship only three days out of 12 scheduled. Then they were paying the hotel and food bills for my husband while in Germany. Finally, they repaid me for medical bills and continued to do so for up to a year after the accident.

We have done 30 cruises and many other land and air tours and have never had any health problems, but when something like this happens you realize how necessary travel insurance is.

By the way, Medicare does not pay for overseas claims. AARP does reimburse for a hospital stay, but it’s a very small amount, in my case only $75 a night. The travel insurance kicks in after the primary companies pay.

I wrote to Viking River Cruises commending them on their fine help to us and also telling them how much we enjoyed our shortened trip.

At the Frankfurt airport, our wait for a motorized ride to the gate for our Air Canada flight was a long one. The airport was huge and crowded, with not many rest rooms in sight. When our ride did not show up right away (and since it was very painful and I couldn’t do much walking with my arm in a sling and cast), I asked at the Air Canada check-in desk for help finding a nearby rest room. The woman kindly allowed me to use the employee rest room behind their counter. I wrote them a “Thank you” for this gesture.

The cart showed up very late to take us to the departure gate, so the woman made a wild, mad dash through this huge airport with me clutching my x-rays and purse and trying to hold onto the seat rail with my one good arm!

Just passing along our experience to other ITNers.

JOANN HARVEY
St. Petersburg, FL