Small print, big travel insurance questions...

You're right that different companies have different rules but they all seem to reserve the right to bend the rules when it suits. The reality is that you've little power as a consumer. These insurers are protected by the fine print. New services like [URL removed] will help to bring about a new transparency and encourage these insurers to have more integrity.

Hopefully the insurers will take heed of your coverage and change for the better but we may be waiting.

Brilliant programme, shame I couldn’t follow the dialogue, background music being used again! I wish I knew who believes that background makes for a better programme? I myself can’t follow the dialogue; I wish I could turn the volume of the music down. I have to use subtitles (which detracts from the programme) or I just switch to another channel I'm afraid. Will someone from the programme respond?

Excuses and Small Print - the insurers must be insured against it!

We were stranded in Cyprus due to the volcanic eruption (first time round!) and as business owners had to start making our way back. We travelled by plane to Athens, then by car to Patras, Overnight ferry from Patras to Ancona before being driven all the way home [post edited]
Thankfully [company name removed] and [company name removed] agreed that their insurance would pay out - good news!

Bad news? [company name removed] underwrite the policy and they have been nothing short of a walking disaster. Claim was submitted 3rd May (following their compulsory 7 day 'do not contact us until you've been back 7 days' message to the letter). I was advised that the claim would be dealt with within 3 - 5 working days.

After the 5 days were up, I called again to check on progress and was advised 'all claims are currently taking up to 10 working days to clear'. Great.

I received a call on the 19th advising that they needed confirmation from my travel agent that I had been given no refunds - they sent a letter within 30 minutes.

I called today to find out what else needed to happen (having been told on the 19th that the claim had been processed and added up) to be told, 'your paperwork has now gone back to the bottom of the pile as we deal with everything in date order'

Surely it should be from the date of the original claim!?! What other reason could they have for this delaying tactic of a further 21 days other than not wanting money to leave their accounts? They had already said that everything was ok - so surely the letter from the travel agent was just the rubber stamp that would allow final sign off?

I spent 45 minutes on the phone to [company name removed] and got the whole:-

- Process
- Date Stamp
- We understand your frustration

chat repeatedly. The notion of being passed to someone else was poo poo'd and when raising a formal complaint was advised 'it may take up to 3 days for someone to get back to you'. Of course, the 45 minutes wasted on the phone to me could have been time spent rubber stamping the letter!

Having gotten nowhere with [company name removed], I remembered my policy is actually with [company name removed] and therefore, I am their client, not [company name removed]. I called them to advise what had been happening and to see if they were aware of the poor service their customers were experiencing? Whether they were aware of changes to the service level agreement they must have (i.e claims being processed in 10 days instead of 3). They were very, very helpful and actually seem to be taking my complaint seriously.

Since contacting them I have missed 3 calls (typical!), but am hopeful that now that they have been alerted to the nonsensical 'process driven 'rubber stamping' service their customers are receiving, they may well take action to stop the current process (i.e all documents to the bottom of the pile rather than by date of initial claim submission)

I can only hope!

Anyone else having similar issues? I wouldn't mind if it were a couple of hundred pounds, but the amount to get home was substantial......

Thank you for bringing this to public attention.

I learned the hard way last year that some illnesses are not deemed worthy of insurance coverage even when there is no medical history of the condition and a doctor has advised against travel. The exception clause that invalidated my claim was on the third sub-level of the numerous terms and conditions,

I ended up losing my holiday at a cost of nearly £2000, at what was already a very difficult time as a consequence of my husband's illness.

I rang Esure to ask if my husband was covered, re: the ash cloud as he is travelling to Turkey in a couple of weeks time. They told me no. I asked where in the policy does it explain the exception. They said it is not in the policy as it has never happended before! I suggested that it had to be somewhere in the policy even under a general term, but I was told once again it wasn't and if I had a problem with the wording I would have to contact the underwriters as they didn't write the policy!. I took the policy out last September. I have sinced booked a cuise and found out they didn't cover that, so I had to pay more!.. Turns out to be an expensive policy with little cover! Beware...... all advice welcome.

ACT OF GOD!!!
Just like the BBC, The insurance companies are a BUSINESS!!!

They aim to make money from us, in the hope that we never claim,
They have to pay out every now and then, but the majority of people do not claim....

how can you expect a business to survive if you want them to pay out for every TV aerial that is struck by lightning? Or every living room that is flooded by rain?

Get real!!

The programme kept referring the policy document and advising the individual to check the small print of the policy, there is no small print in a travel insurance policy document, although the FSA registration numbers and who the ultimate insurers of the policy are may be in slightly smaller print. The document is called the policy wording and will clearly tell you what is and is not covered and this will not be in small print. After purchasing an insurance policy you have by law a 14 day cooling off period, if you cancel the policy in that period you are entitled to a full refund of premium paid. The cooling off period is designed to protect the customer so they have a reasonable amount of time to read through the policy wording and ensure that the cover provided meets their requirements and to check back with the provider if anything is not clear. People have to take some responsibility, if you are buying a life insurance policy or a medical insurance policy you would read the policy document and check it provides the cover you wanted, travel insurance is a relatively cheap one off purchase in the norm, so people don’t bother to read it until it is too late and only check it when they want to make a claim, and then complain that it does not provide the cover that they wanted. I am not saying that all travel insurance companies are completely justified in turning down some of the claims, but if the individual reads the policy and queries anything that does not make sense or anything that is unclear with their travel insurance provider, then they are showing they are doing their best to safeguard against further problems. Travel Insurance is mainly bought on price, you pay as little as possible for the cover assuming you will never need it, but with travel insurance as with everything you do get what you pay for, so if you are only paying a couple of £ for your policy don’t expect it to cover you for every eventuality that may happen, they are cheap for a reason, the cover provided has been reduced. With regards to the actual programme, I thought that the research on the programme was particularly lacking and just wanted to tell everyone that travel insurance providers are bad and just want your money, I notice that they had a travel expert on giving his opinion, it was obvious he had only a basic understanding of travel insurance, having a travel insurance expert on would have been far better, they would not have given the inaccurate advice the “travel expert” gave. Yes travel insurance providers are businesses, but there are many travel insurance providers who do go the extra mile for their customers and we never hear about them, I suppose that does not make good TV. With the recent volcanic ash cloud disruptions many insurers made good will payments to customers as this was an exceptional circumstance which was not clearly covered or excluded under a vast amount of the travel insurance policy wordings. The insurance industry does not get thanked for this, instead they are now being vilified because they are now tightening up their policy wordings to make it clear that the ash cloud is either covered or not and also to what limit the customer will be covered, again trying to make it clearer for the customer so they are fully aware of what is and is not covered when purchasing a policy, so if they need to make a claim they are clear what will be covered. Anne Robinson’s parting shot was “there is no point in having travel insurance”, maybe she should think about a programme that shows all the benefits of having travel insurance and speaks to the many thousands of people a year who have been helped by their travel insurance provider above and beyond what is covered on their travel insurance policies, but she probably does not think that would make good TV! Finally everyone must remember, insurance is not a charity and was never designed to be, it is a business, and like all businesses it has to make money.

An interesting feature from Watchdog as usual, but it could have been produced to help people buying insurance in the future rather than just highlight previous problems that people have had.

Anyone buying travel insurance should firstly look at the Key Facts, which will highlight any significant features and limitations. It is a much easier document to use when comparing cover from different insurers.

If you dont have time to read all the details, at least look at what is defined as a pre-existing medical condition - this should then prompt you to declare what is relevant to your requirements.

Consider who you are buying from - do they only offer cover online like one of those companies featured or can you speak to people by phone (you'll welcome speaking to somebody if you need to claim).

Dont just tick the box and assume a policy will provide cover for everything that you need - remember you are buying a financial product and it requires careful consideration. Please dont just go on price, try and find a specialist travel insurance company [removed] who know their products.

And finally, if you want cover for something specifically make sure the company confirm that it will be covered in writing. Dont rely on verbal confirmation, get it emailed to you.

I was due to travel to Dublin with [airline edited] on April 16, however due to the volcanic ash for days, I had to cancel the whole trip. I clicked on the link to apply for a refund & had great difficulty submitting my details as it kept prompting me to check my reservation confirmation which was correct. When I finally got to submit it, I never got any emails confirming receipt of my claim. To date, I have still not gotten my refund back for the trip & have just re-submitted the form again. I do not know how to check if my first refund request has originally been accepted! Am I suppose to wait this long for a refund!?!? [Personal details removed by Moderator]

We were caught up in the last volcanic ash delays and twice went to the airport to get the flight and twice it was postponed- it finally flew on the Thursday - 4 days late, but we were too worn out to return to catch it and have a 3 day holiday instead of the week we planned. Jet2 are refusing to refund our expenses for the night we spent at the airport hotel in cash they want to refund in credit vouchers. They handed out letters at the airport saying you could rearrange a flight , but only in the next 7 days- contary to 261/04 which states rearranged flights if you accept that option should be open ended. Saga refuse to cover us as they say it is down to the airlines. So who loses- as usual the customer not big business. We will be £400 out of pocket.

Four of us, husband and I and another couple were due to fly back to Manchester, UK from Newark NJ on night of 14 April, New York time when all flights were cancelled. [edited] abandoned the airport, giving their passengers no help whatsoever and in the eleven days that we were stranded we had to keep reporting back to the airport where we queued for several hours. Eventually they gave us a freephone no. to rebook our flights.
I tried to contact SAGA insurance, with whom we were all insured to find that the advertised 24hrs helpline was only for medical emergencies. All attempts to contact the claim line for advice were frustrated and I emailed SAGA, giving them our policy nos. and names. Three days later I received an email from a SAGA customer service advisor that advised us that we were all insured for additional accommodation and travel and to keep receipts to support our claim. We tried to live as economically as possible and we are not claiming for food but on our return to the UK we have all been told that we are not covered, despite the fact that we had been advised that we were. I was told that we can only claim for delay at £35 for the first 12 hrs. and £15 per subsequent 12 hrs. to a maximum of £215 per person if we were actually checked in. She said "and you weren't, were you". Yes, we all were and have boarding passes which had been checked as proof. My friend was told that her and her husband cannot claim because flights were not cancelled until 15 April - in New York we were five hours behind the UK.
Despite me sending several further emails, none have been answered, phone calls that I have tried to make have kept me on hold for in excess of an hour and we now realise that SAGA is definitely not the insurance company to use in future.
We have submitted claims but they have not even been acknowledged.

Following a negative experience where by I found I was mistaken to think I could insure and go on holiday with piece of mind, I would advise people to check online reviews - e.g. search on insurance claim problems. Don't pay to much attention to the ratings, mostly reviews are written by people who've had bad experiences, but check the number of reviews. There are a number of company names that stand out massively as giving customer claimants a poor experience.
In one respect I'm lucky, for the loss of 3 or 4 hundred pounds I've discovered that my long term insurance company choice is the very worst - so bad that I have to wonder whether my policy is worth the paper it is written on. I can now look for a more reliable company that won't let me down in a time of real need.

Well coming from someone who knows i would never travel anywhere in the world without travel insurance about 20 years ago i was on holiday in Spain with my parents where symptoms of a server illnes stated to show being meningoccoal septicemia with only 24 hours to live i was transported to the local hospital which was obviously private and they would not even let me though the door without insurance documents or a valid credit card from my parents, straight away my dad phoned the travel insurance people and that was it everything was taken care of only one parent allowed to stay with the child and the other to go on original flight after spending a week or so in intensive care and being transported by the police to Barcelona and on a first class ticket where my dad was treated like a king back to the UK with a private nurse all the way to change my drips and so forth my dad worked out it probably cost in the region of £60,000 plus for all my treatment and this was 20 years ago so please please please never go away without travel insurance if it is only for sickness and they could have said i was a carrier which i probably was as was my dad and mum so could have been months before i went on holiday so could have left us to it with no help - i think it was medivac who helped us out otherwise i would be dead

I want to pass on a good experience regarding travel insurance.
I tend to travel independently, in the main, but also occasionally using package holidays through [edited].
In the last 18 months I h ave undertaken 7 foreign holidays ranging from 5 days in Poland to 5 weeks in Tunisia, Thailand, and Malta.
I have just returned from what was supposed to be 15 nights in Hisaronu in Turkey: a place I have visited around 16-18 times.
For the first time ever I was ill and in need of medical attention. I had gastro enteritis symptoms the day before I was due to fly home. I was admitted to the local hospital suffering from dehydration. The morning after I contacted my insurers, Saga, as I had, by that time, missed my flight. I was travelling independently, with my wife, and was worried how I was going to sort out return flights.
The insurance company, via thei r agents FirstAssist, were excellent.
They offered to find hotel accommodation locally for my wife. This was declined as the hospital allowed her to stay in the 2nd bed in the 2 bed ward. They also agreed to arrange and pay for a return flight home, any extra nights at our original hotel, as we hadn't vacated our rooms, together with transfers at both ends of the flights, as we had 'lost' our free transfers from friends. They also offered to pay £25 per day for each day in hospital towards phone calls etc.
Everything was handled for us. When I retured home I phoned Saga to advise, and they arranged to send out claim forms.
These were completed and returned, and today, less than 2 weeks since I sent in the claimformm I have received cheques to reimburse my out of pocket expenses (i.e. the extra days at the hotel, the taxi transfer to Dalaman airport, and my payment for the days I was an inpatient.)
I have been very impressed with Saga and their agents, and would strongly recommend their cover. You never know how good your insurance is until you have a claim. I would have no reservations about renewing with Saga, and felt I should put forward an altrrnative experience to those horror stories previously recorded.