[Paul Silasvaage]

American Airlines Trip Insurance
My mother was diagnosed a few months ago with Glioblastomas a terminal brain cancer the same cancer that Senator Edward Kennedy was diagnosed with, this cancer is terminal. The cancer victim goes through treatment weekly to slow or decrease the rate of the cancer growth, this is to both too extend the patient’s life and give the patient a quality of life. My mother who is battling this cancer wanted to come and see my new home in Texas, since her diagnosis she has not had the time to come. She spoke to the Doctor and he said she would be fine to travel. So I bought my mother and father tickets to come and visit her son and her grandchildren. I decided to buy her and my father tickets. Because of her condition I thought it would be prudent to purchase travel insurance in the case that she feel too ill to travel. My father purchased the tickets on 4/10 for 5/15. Unfortunately on 4/24 my mother took a turn for the worse and was emitted into a hospital. (We sent proof of this in our claim)
I thought I would follow up on getting a refund for the airfare. Because my father was the person that went online to get the tickets he first looked into getting this refund. He was told that American Airlines uses a third party to handle their travelers insurance. He submitted a claim and was told that he had to fill out a claim form, this in itself a long a tedious process, for a service we paid for, but we understood that this was their policy; we had our doctor fill out the forms of her illness. We were told that this claim was denied because of her cancer was a preexisting illness. I called American Airlines they told me that they could not help me because they do not have “anything to do with the insurance company.” I then called the insurance company Access America 1-800-628-5404 your insurance vendor. They told me they could do nothing and that they denied the claim. I was also told that any preexisting case they do not cover. The person even went as far as to analogize, the fact that she has high blood pressure and went to a doctor for it in the last four months and if she had a heart attack before her flight she would not be able to be able to make a claim.
This is wrong! I have never been more upset at a situation and how it has been handled. My mother is going to pass but until then she had to live life with cancer, we were being prudent in paying for coverage; we had no idea she would fall ill so quickly, her doctor cleared her to fly. Under these policies of the insurance company anyone with cancer could not be covered, because you are doing weekly and monthly treatments to keep you alive.
I am appalled at this and that you use a company that can find a way to deny any claim with small print loop holes.
Our family is very much hurting right now for funds because of the enormous weight of the financial pressure of this cancer and I believe, this is not the type of company you are. Since moving to Dallas I have made American Airlines my choice of carriers but I do not know if I can any longer. I work for a larger hotel chain and there have been many times that vendors have not done the right thing or their service did not work and because they represented the hotel, I did the right thing by my customer and guest.
Sincerely,
Paul Chris Silasavage