Travel insurance falls short for siblings in crisis
WATERFORD — There are run-of-the-mill bad vacations. Then there's the heart-wrenching vacation suffered by Marcia Ricci .
Ricci and her brother, James Tracy Sr., in August were taking their annual trip to Colorado Springs, where their niece lives, when Ricci fell and broke her kneecap. She spent much of the day in the emergency room.
That was bad.
But what came next was so much worse.
The following morning, Ricci's brother woke up the color of a pumpkin. Sister and brother went back to the hospital, where Tracy was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer that had spread to his liver.
"They told him to get home as soon as possible," remembers Ricci, sitting at the kitchen table in her Waterford home.
Dazed and distraught, Ricci told her travel agent to arrange a new booking for the pair's emergency return. (Their impaired condition required that they sit in first class.) The cost: $3,632, plus a $2,950 round-trip ticket for a nurse recommended by doctors who feared the effect of altitude on Tracy's cancer-ravaged body.
Doctors were powerless to save Tracy. Ricci lost her brother in September. He was 65 and lived in Troy.
Everything pales in comparison to that loss. But at the very least, Ricci assumed the cost of the emergency flight home was covered, because she had paid $140 for travel insurance.
But after filing a claim, with documentation that included her brother's death notice, Ricci received a check for just $1,068 — the cost of the original airline tickets.
Travel Guard, the insurer, has refused to pay any portion of the $6,585 related to the crisis flight home. That shocks Ricci and her travel agent, East Greenbush-based George Kirsch , who both expected the policy would cover the emergency expenses.
Otherwise, why buy it?
"I purchased travel insurance as protection in case we had to return home for some unexpected reason," Ricci says. "I never dreamt I'd use it.
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The policy picks up what's just about guaranteed to be the less expensive portion of the tab. That's kind of like auto insurance that covers only the cost of the gasoline purchased before a Hummer broadsides your Yugo. Ricci, a 24-year member of the

"We find it a very effective way to get the word out," Sebelius said, sitting with about 20 women in the living room of longtime St. John's Road resident Lynda Burton, who teaches health policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.
The healthcare law lays out 10 categories of “essential health benefits” that every insurance plan will have to cover beginning in 2014. The law left it to the Health and Human Services Department to define the specifics of essential benefits,
Farm Bureau answered Brenda's complaint and filed a counterclaim for a declaratory judgment declaring that it had no obligations to Brenda under the policy as a result of her alleged breach of the policy's provisions. ¶ 2. On May 4, 2009,
“This can lead to travelers thinking they are covered for situations the policy actually doesn't cover.” When comparing travel insurance policies travelers should review the top travel insurance myths to get the best protection and value.
Learn More About Auto Insurance Policies To Suit Your Needs ...
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There are traveling training courses offered which could cheaper your insurance policy premium. Most automobile insurance providers offer different types of discount rates if they understand that you have taken these classes. An additional advantage of having these is that you learn how to drive in a safe way. This kind of course if supplied by a number of local traveling universities. You will be able to locate them around the web if standard classes don’t work to suit your needs.
