Hopefully you already know that you should compare travel insurance based on cover options and then price in order to find the best travel insurance for your needs. Here are a few case studies from the Financial Ombudsman’s office that highlight some possible problems with claims and how they were resolved, in case it helps you in the future.
These first cases are particularly timely considering the recent earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan. Two policyholders in 1999 had a holiday disrupted by an earthquake. Though the tour operator returned them home at no cost, the policyholders made a claim for curtailment of their holiday which was refused on grounds that curtailment after earthquake wasn’t included. The policyholders argued that Acts of God were not excluded from the policy. This complaint was upheld as reasonable by the Ombudsman’s office and the insurer paid the claim.
Other earthquake survivors were not successful, however. Another policyholder and family were in Cyprus during a series of quakes that required their apartment to be evacuated. The family returned to the apartment but cracks began to appear in the structure, and the policyholder claimed the costs of rearranging the rest of the holiday. The insurer rejected the claim on the grounds that the policy only covered curtailment if the family returned home, not if they relocated their holiday destination. This policyholder’s claim was rejected by the Ombudsman because the family did not return to the UK and because there was no natural disaster cover in the policy.
In another case, a policyholder and his wife returned home to the UK after the policyholder’s mother in Kenya died. The insurer refused the claim on the basis that the policyholder’s mother was not a UK resident, referring to the policy section covering curtailment because of “the death, severe injury or serious illness of an immediate relative resident in the United Kingdom.” However, the Ombudsman’s office upheld the claim saying that regardless of where the mother lived, the couple’s first action would be returning home to the UK.
