The call came when Kathleen and Dennis Casale, of Lindenhurst, were on a cruise ship in Bermuda.

Their daughter, Diana, was in intensive care in a Long Island hospital.

"We had to come home immediately," says Kathleen, 70, who owns a marketing company. She and Dennis, 73, missed several days of their late-October cruise, had to buy last-minute airline tickets and laid out money to pay for rides to and from airports in Bermuda and New York.

Fortunately, they had taken out travel insurance before their trip last fall. Even though it wasn’t one of them who was injured, their policy covered the need to return home if immediately family was. They paid $358 for their coverage and got back about $2,000, says the Casales' travel agent, Christine Earls, of Islip-based You and Me by the Sea.

"Wh

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