Insurance Cuts Risks of Hurricane Season Vacations

H O U S T O N, Aug. 27, 2001 -- You spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars for a few days of rest and relaxation. But if you travel during hurricane season — you're taking a risk that your trip could be cut short.

That's what happened to Danielle Tifft, P.J. Reed, Jeremy Moore and Melissa Fulghum of Houston who came home from a vacation in Cozumel, Mexico, with memories that will last a lifetime and a trip cut in half.

While enjoying their vacation, the four got a phone call telling them they had exactly one hour to pack and be in the lobby ready to check out and go back home. "I was very, very angry," says Reed. "We thought it was our friends playing a joke on us," he adds.

But this was no joke. And the most frustrating part about the whole ordeal was that no reason was given, and "50 people were left behind and told they would have to fend for themselves as far as hotel, lodgings, meals and air fare," stresses Tifft.

Decisions, Decisions

It turns out that the early departure was weather related, and it was Funjet Vacation's charter Sun Country Airlines that made the decision to evacuate the vactioners.

Moore explains that had the four of them known bad weather was at the root of the problem, they would have understood. Funjet officials apologized for the communication breakdown and said that because its airline may have been overly cautious, customers will get refunds for the time they missed within two weeks.

Hurricanes, Tropical Weather Won't Dampen Cruises

The vacation company was not at all obligated to compensate its clients, according to Evelyn Carroll, who has been a travel agent for 26 years. "You know that it's hurricane season and it's just a risk you take in the Caribbean," she argues. "They had to go with what the charter company decided to do to protect planes and people."

Jokes Steve Jarvis, president of Pleasanton, Calif.-based insurer, BenefitHouse.com. "The first thing I would do in a weather emergency situation is probably duck. But seriously, you need to heed all advisories and warnings," he adds. In the case of a hurricane, you usually have two to three days' advance notice, which you can use to prepare, Jarvis advises.

Anticipating the Worst

Consumers can actually help protect themselves before they even pack their bags or leave their homes by purchasing trip cancellation or trip delay insurance — a relatively new companion to medical travel insurance.

Programs tend to calculate charges either by duration or overall cost of the vacation. Insurance for a seven-day trip which cost up to $500 typically ranges from $37 to $45.

The difference is in the coverage. Travel medical plans exist to protect your financial loss due to medical conditions such as illness, heart attack or health emergency. A trip cancellation or delay policy exists to cover your financial loss due to cancellation or interruption, explains Jarvis.

That's good news for travelers because traditional travel insurance used to consider weather problems "acts of God," and did not compensate for damage or money lost. However, new programs such as TripProtector offered by Radnor, Pa., insurance firm Highway to Health, now categorizes cancellation or delay as unforseeable — and covered.

In order to collect, you must advise both your travel agency and the company providing your insurance as soon as possible, urge insurance providers. "We would normally contact the local government agency to verify the claim and make sure that the dates correlate. Then we pay the benefit," outlines Brendan Sharkey, director of business development at Highway to Health.

Had Reed, Tifft, Moore and Fulghum followed that recommendation, they would have been covered for half the cost of the trip outright by the insurance company and would not have had to rely on Funjet's decision to offer a refund. Actually, travel agents urge customers to check on their tour operators' policies before they go on a trip, because many operators do not compensate for weather emergencies.

In many cases, consumers can even recoup money spent on the evacuation, says Traci Goodrish of Council Travel in Boston. "Any prepaid, unused, non-refundable land or sea accommodations arranged by the agency are covered. As well as any reasonable additional expenses for meals and lodging which was not provided free of charge."

She adds, "the insurance is not too hard to sell. We all want to be safe when we're traveling."

ABCNEWS.com's Romy Ribitzky and Nydia Han of ABCNEWS affiliate KTRK in Houston, Texas, contributed to this report.