The cascading waterfalls of Ribeira Flores on the Azorean island of Flores is worth the flight delay to visit.
Since I travel full-time, one of the most important things I buy is travel medical insurance that includes travel delay coverage. I’ve been using SafetyWing for years and have previously written a review of my experience with medical claims. During a three-month Europe trip this spring, I used the travel benefit coverage for my SafetyWing Nomad Insurance plan when my flight to the Azores was canceled in May. In this post, I share my experience about filing a travel benefit claim with SafetyWing.
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Who is SafetyWing?
SafetyWing offers two types of travel medicial insurance polices, Essential and Complete.
SafetyWing is a fully remote startup founded in 2018 by expats and nomads providing travel medical insurance. The company provides two types of policies: Nomad Insurance Essential , flexible coverage from 5 to 364 days, and Nomad Insurance Complete, long-term full health insurance with additional travel protections. U.S. residents are not eligible for the latter. Neither policy covers preexisting conditions. For a full breakdown of each policy, SafetyWing has a nice visual chart of coverage options.
What are SafetyWing’s Travel Benefit Coverage?
SafetyWing covers delayed transportation more than three hours for flights, boats, trains and buses. A delay over three hours qualifies for a $60 reimbursement, while an eight-hour delay is $150 per night and up to $450 USD per trip and $900 per active insurance period.
The travel benefits also include inaccessible or canceled accommodation, lost checked luggage, stolen passport/travel visa, theft of wallet, along with trip interruption coverage. Visit the SafetyWing website for a full list of travel benefits.
My Review of SafetyWing’s Travel Delay Benefit
Poço do Bacalha waterfall near Fajã Grande on Flores island, Azores.
In early May, I visited Flores and Corvo, the two most remote islands in the Azores, which are not easy to reach and often involve multiple flight connections on tiny propeller planes. On our way to Flores, we flew from Lisbon to Terceira for a six-hour layover (ugh!) on SATA Airlines, the only airline that serves the remote islands.
Roughly an hour before our flight, the airport made a cancellation announcement because the incoming flight was canceled due to mechanical problems. My friend and I lined up at the airline service desk and were given tickets to the same flight the next day, a 24-hour delay.
After getting our new boarding passes, my friend said we should get a proof of delay letter from the airline, which is something I would not have thought to do. It’s very important to gather all the required documents and proof of delay before leaving the airport. Double check the airline fills out the form correctly.
SATA included the wrong flight number (the canceled incoming flight that in turn canceled our flight) on the form and listed an “irregularity” as the reason for the delay. (The form was in both English and Portuguese.) I didn’t catch the flight number issue because the numbers were so similar, and I was exhausted from being up at 5 a.m.
While the airline did offer some compensation, including a round-trip taxi to the main town, SafetyWing’s travel benefit was a huge help . The airline offered a hotel, which we declined due to the inconvenient location, and chose our own.
Since the delay was over eight hours, I was entitled to a $150 benefit from SafetyWing, which covered our hotel (with free breakfast) and my dinner and lunch exactly. The airline was only offering vouchers for airport cafe meals (ham and cheese sandwiches), which we declined.
Due to our flight delay, we got to spend a night in the UNESCO town of Angra do Heroísmo on Terceria.
The delay happened on May 2nd, and I filed the claim on May 5th. The form was very simple and provided a place to explain the situation, so I typed a short paragraph. I submitted my receipt for purchasing the flight, the airline proof of delay letter, along with the boarding pass for the canceled flight and the new flight. I also uploaded receipts for the hotel and meals, totaling $150.86. It only took a few minutes to fill out the claim form because I had the documents organized in advance.
I got an email from a real human the following day requesting proof of the transportation delay, which was likely due to the error on the form. Since Flores was small, I stopped by the airport to correct the issue. The staff corrected the flight number but could not change the “irregularity” line to canceled. I submitted the new form and got a similar email the next day. I explained the issue with the form and attached a screenshot of a text from the airline saying the flight was canceled. The claim was approved the next day (May 8th), and the payment was direct deposited on May 19th. The entire process was completed in less than two weeks and would have been expedited if the airline hadn’t made a mistake on the form.
Under the new EU flight delay rules, SATA Airlines also owes us additional compensation, which we applied for the same day as the SafetyWing claim but have heard no response from the airline in over two months!
Overall, the process for filing a claim for SafetyWing’s travel delay benefit was fast and easy , and the 24/7 customer service always responded promptly. It was a much more pleasant experience than dealing with the airline support.
