Vacation Guard Insurance

A few months ago I started a thread asking if anyone had experience with Vacation Guard Timeshare Insurance that is advertised on the HGVC site. I decided to purchase it for our trip to Kingsland which is coming to an end tomorrow (Sunday).

My flight home is to SF the Newark getting in early Monday morning. The SF flight has already been canceled due to the hurricane, so it looks like a few days to get home. Therefore, it looks like I will actually be finding out how they are.

I emailed them asking a few questions so I would not get a "you should have done it this way to be covered" answer. They would not really help other than to send a copy of the actual agreement. If I use points to stay at a Hilton in SF, I lay out no cash, but lose my points and get no reimbursement. If I pay for the room, I should be reimbursed plus any food or expenses up to $1000. So I basically have to take a chance, pay the money with the hope I am dealing with a reputable company.

Any advice?

I will let you know how this works out.

BTW, Kingland was great and if there were 10 people at the pool, it was a lot on any of the 11 days we were here. There is also an adult pool of which they would ask kids to leave.

Thanks
GR

I don't know if the terms of the policy are exactly the same, but I purchase a Vacation Guard Timeshare yearly policy that covers up to $5,000.

Keep receipts for everything. Pay direct and don't use your points, as VGT requires a receipt that shows an exact amount for reimbursement. If there is a dispute on the value of your points, you will not receive the correct amount and it will stall payment of the entire claim.

My only experience was when my MIL passed away, I had to cancel a trip mid-week. They were very confused on the pro-ration of the maintenance fee, etc. It took until December to get paid.

Maria

You should have a 1-800 # to call. I'd call that number and tell them you're situation and speak with someone.

The one question I have is, was Irene a named storm before you purchased your coverage? If so, and, if this event is deemed a result of Irene, there is a chance you might not be covered. I know that for cruise insurance purposes, if you buy coverage after a storm has a name, then incidents arising as a direct result from that aren't covered. Without reading the policy it's impossible to tell what is/is not covered. Travel insurance policies are usually pretty specific in what events they will/won't cover.

At issue is that this is sort of in indirect weather related delay and, the delay was caused by what was probably a named storm when you made your purchase. It's going to depend on how Vacation Guard interprets their coverage.

You'll never get a straight answer from anyone about what will or won't be covered as a payable claim. The people who answer the phone aren't adjusters and, adjusters won't give you an answer until they see the actual claim. They're taught not to say yes or no until they have all the facts.

My advice is to read you're policy carefully. The travel insurnace policies I've purchased have never been comrehensive, covering everything except named exclusions. Instead they've been more like the fire policy's of old where only named perils were covered. We've filed two claimes, one was denied, the other was paid. The one that was paid was for illness. The one that was not was for a missed flight due to the ports being blocked by a fisherman's strike (we were on a cruise).

This was purchased about 2 months ago so the storm was not even being formed. It looks like it will be days before we get home at this point.

It also says they will pay reasonable prices, so it is their call if Hilton is reasonably priced. I hope I don't have to fight with them.

Is open season cash pricing available. That may make the price a lot more reasonable.

Does anyone have experience in getting HGVC points back? Just wondering how/if they are covered. We are taking my elderly mother with us in March '12 and it would be nice to have the points insured if we can't go. We are driving, so no flight expenses at risk.

I am now a few days into this. Could not get a flight home still for a few more days, so we got a flight tonight and flying about 6 hours from home, then rented a car and will drive home.

The open season prices were available at Kingsland but we were afraid if we stayed there and did not fly the first leg which was not cancelled, we would get no coverage. So we are in San Francisco a few days. The other open season problem was it was Sunday, the HGVC lines are not open and we would have to pay full price for extending our stay at least for the first night.

This will cost us about $800 and I will post the reply I get from claims when I get it all straightened out.

I will be mentioning that I will be posting it on this site under all the timeshare names if they turn me down. Who knows, maybe they are a good company and pay their claims. Would that be mice?

Thanks!

Vacation Guard is well respected and is one of the better travel insurance companies.

The other company I like is Access America. American Airlines and a few other airlines use Access America to sell insurance policies that they sell from their website (when you are promted "Do you want to purchase insurance for that trip?".