American Express Travel Insurance AMEX Assurance Company This is a fraud, don't buy it! Internet

This insurance company is a fraud. Check out my story: I traveled to Key West in November of 2011. Saw on TV that November is still within the hurricane season. Decided to buy travel insurance for this 4-day trip. Did a quick search on-line and found AMEX travel insurance company. I though it was reputable, simply by association with AMEX. Paid $160 to cover my 4-day trip, I would say quite steep a premium. The trip went fine (no hurricane), but on the way back we were stranded in Houston for one night because of bad weather (lightning storm) and missed our flight connection. Since weather conditions is not airline's fault, the airline would not pay for a hotel. I had to pay $80 for one-night hotel stay out of pocket. Well, it could be worse.

After returning home, I filed a claim with my AMEX insurance. I followed their instructions and send them my hotel receipt and the description of what has happened. No response from them for about a month and a half. I actually forgot about it, but came across the insurance paperwork while cleaning up my desk. Tried calling them. I am a bit obsessive-compulsive about things like that, so when I could not reach anybody alive on the phone, I just kept calling. The things that answering machine told me were, in fact, quite inventive. Nothing usual like "all agents are busy, call later". I recall something "Our system is undergoing regular maintenance, ..." or even "we are having a department-wide meeting, please call later". These guys take dealing with unpleasant calls seriously. Of course, nobody calls you back after you leave a message. After 5 or 6 tries, I eventually ended up speaking with a real person. He told me that my loss was not supposed to be covered because this was a "delay", not a "cancellation" of my trip. I am sure that if there was a full-blown hurricane in Florida, and I was stranded in Key West, they would not help me either, because that would be a delay as well. Luckily, that was not the case for me. Just stay away from these scammers. I am surprised they are still in business selling insurance and not in business of paying up their legal expenses. (Maybe they are?)