A Pox on @AllianzAssistUS, Kudos to @AmericanAir

The failed adoption we experienced last month is still an open wound in our family’s heart.  We are so appreciative of everyone rallying around us with love, warmth, and wisdom, because we sorely need it.  In our time of weakness, you are all strengthening us. 

To add insult to the injury of losing a baby girl, our travel insurance company, Allianz Global Assistance, denied our claim for reimbursement for the plane ticket and luggage fee that we ended up not needing.  I’ve pasted their cruelly formal language below.

Thank you for choosing Allianz Global Assistance to protect your recent travel investment. We are sorry that your travel experience did not go as planned.

We have completed our review of your claim, and unfortunately are unable to provide benefits under the coverage you purchased because:

As your insuring agreement indicated, this is a named perils travel insurance program, which means it covers only the specific situations, events and losses included in this document, and only under the conditions we describe. Unfortunately, travel cancellation due to a change in adoption proceedings, is not among those reasons.

Based on the claim documents you submitted, we regret that we are unable to honor your claim.

Please refer to your copy of the Certificate of Insurance/Policy and Letter of Confirmation for more information on the specifics of the policy that you purchased.

If you have additional questions, please call us at 1-800-628-5404.

I have never purchased travel insurance before in my life, as I’ve seen it as a bit of a rip-off.  However, given the uncertainty of our situation at the time, I decided when hastily booking our flight that I ought to take this precautionary measure.  To have to jump through a bunch of hoops to file the claim, to wait for many days, and then to get a soulless boilerplate letter in response, is reprehensible.

In contrast, I made my case to American Airlines, which we booked our flights through, and they provided a full refund.  It is, financially, a trivial amount in the grand scheme of things.  But, symbolically, being made whole on this one part of our adoption experience feels like a step towards being made whole over all, for which I am grateful. 

To the extent that you make your own travel decisions based on the testimonials of others, please consider our story when choosing your vendors.  I salute American Airlines for helping us find out footing, and a pox on Allianz Global Assistance for kicking us while we were down.