Class Action Claims Affinity Insurance, Virginia Surety Fail to Honor Travel Insurance Policies

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A proposed class action claims Affinity Insurance Services and Virginia Surety Company have falsely advertised and sold travel insurance/trip protection plans “they have no intention of honoring.”

According to the case, Affinity (which does business as Aon Affinity Insurance Services) and Virginia Surety have failed to disclose in their contracts for trip insurance products that they would not honor the represented protections. 

The plaintiff, who says the defendants denied his insurance claim after his wife suffered an injury while on vacation, alleges the defendants falsely advertised and promoted certain travel protections to induce him and other consumers to purchase travel insurance. Per the case, the promise of reimbursement for trip interruptions is a material consideration for consumers looking to protect against the unexpected.

“Insurance is of particular value to consumers because they provide a guarantee of the value of a good after it is purchased, and protection for that good if certain unexpected contingencies occur,” the complaint reads. “This is particularly true for trip insurance, where trips and excursions are purchased well in advance of the time of a trip, and unexpected occurrences that can result in a trip interruption are common.”

The suit alleges the defendants, therefore, made false representations and “took advantage of Plaintiff and similarly situated consumers unfairly and unlawfully.”

Per the complaint, the plaintiff purchased in November 2018 two tickets for an April 2019 Princess Cruise vacation, as well as a three-day shore excursion to Machu Picchu to take place during the cruise. The purchase was made with the plaintiff’s Citibank credit card and included trip interruption insurance through Virginia Surety Company, the case says.

“Defendant Virginia’s policy/contract clearly states that any qualifying travel interruption, including a medical incident interrupting the trip or requiring cancellation, would be covered under the policy,” the complaint states.

For additional protection, the plaintiff also purchased trip protection insurance through defendant Aon from the ticket agency that sold him the cruise, the lawsuit continues. According to the complaint, the Aon insurance policy included the following trip interruption protection:

The plaintiff claims he relied on the defendants’ representations when deciding to purchase trip insurance for himself and his wife.

In March, the plaintiff and his wife flew to Santiago, Chile to prepare for their cruise, the suit says. While disembarking from the 17-hour flight, the plaintiff’s wife felt severe pain in her foot, after which the plaintiff and his wife “quickly reported” to the Princess Cruise ship physician, the lawsuit states.

Per the physician’s instructions, the plaintiff’s wife was relegated to a wheelchair for the duration of the 17-day cruise and for a month after returning home due to soft tissue damage in her foot, the suit says, adding that her injury prevented the couple from engaging in the $5,000 shore excursion to Machu Pichu.

“Princess Cruises urged Plaintiff and his wife to cancel their excursion, and informed them that due to the amount of walking and hiking involved, there was simply no way that Plaintiff’s wife would be able to do the excursion in her current medical condition, as she was wheelchair bound,” the complaint relays.

Upon his return to Los Angeles, the plaintiff requested reimbursement for the canceled excursion under Aon’s insurance policy, the suit says. Despite documentation from the ship physician of the plaintiff’s wife’s injury and the insurer’s “clear representations that this was a covered incident,” Aon denied the plaintiff’s claim based on “pretextual reasons,” the case alleges.

“Every time Plaintiff challenged AON’s pretextual reasons for declining the claim, they did not defend their position but instead came up with another, different, pretextual reason,” the lawsuit alleges. “They did this at least four times, and many of the ‘excuses’ they used, were in fact, false (such as claiming that Plaintiff did not purchase shore excursion tickets at the same time of purchasing the cruise tickets, which was decidedly false.)”

The plaintiff then attempted to seek reimbursement through the Citibank travel insurance issued through Virginia, who allegedly denied his claim despite “clear and explicit travel protection benefits” stated in the policy. According to the case, Virginia refused to reimburse the plaintiff “because he did not get in writing from the doctor that they should not go on the shore excursion, even though the doctor verbally informed them of the same.”

The plaintiff says he had “no reasonable way of knowing” that the defendants would not honor their policies, stressing that Aon’s claim that shore excursions were not covered was “clearly omitted” from the contract. He says he would not have purchased the trip protection insurance from Aon, prepaid for non-refundable shore excursions, or used his Citibank credit card for the purchase had he known the defendants would refuse to provide the represented travel insurance protections.

“Rather, Plaintiff would have considered purchasing a different type of trip, not purchasing travel insurance at all, and not pre-paying for any non-refundable trip expenses,” the lawsuit says.

The case claims the insurers’ representations are part of a “common scheme” to mislead consumers into purchasing travel insurance products that the companies have no intention of honoring.

The lawsuit, which was removed to California’s Central District Court in the beginning of August, looks to cover anyone who, within the applicable statute of limitations period, purchased trip protection/insurance policies guaranteed by Aon or Virginia and were denied coverage, as well as several proposed subclasses.

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