Are ANY insurance companies paying out for Ash?

bagand96

Just to add to this, Columbus Direct are covering claims due to ash. And single trip policies are automatically extended for your enforced stay outside the UK. Quite good for a company I always thought were at the cheaper end of the market. I'm not affected by the ash events but they seem to be dealing with it fairly, makes me reassured that my travel insurance is with them!

http://www.columbusdirect.com/Travel-Features/Important-information-regarding-continued-disruption-of-UK-flights.cfm

shellybelle

FH_Brit wrote: »

UKHCGIRL - Fortis (mainly available as Post Office Insurance) is my personal recommendation from my view as a biller and getting IC's to pay they are second to none. An excellent company.

They are not the cheapest but they were first to announce that they are covering the Ash delays and they are very quick in after claims service. If you get a quote and iif t is not too much then I would advise get it. But do check the prices and compare to Insure&Go (they are not covering all ash claims, only some) but your loyalty may make it not worth changing. Check before it runs out.

How can they "not cover all ash claims, only some" how do you find out which ones they are covering? When we spoke to them they had a blanket no cover due to "act of God", as dictated by their underwriters. This was their stance from last Saturday.

Leigh-Anne_60

shellybelle wrote: »

How can they "not cover all ash claims, only some" how do you find out which ones they are covering? When we spoke to them they had a blanket no cover due to "act of God", as dictated by their underwriters. This was their stance from last Saturday.

Shelley - I would check with them again, they may have changed their stance. Saturday was only day 3 of the disruption, a lot of the Insurance co's were still all up in the air (unlike the aeroplanes:D)

Have you actually checked your wording & does it specifically mention anywhere in there 'Acts of God'? bet you it doesnt

shellybelle

Leigh-Anne_60 wrote: »

Shelley - I would check with them again, they may have changed their stance. Saturday was only day 3 of the disruption, a lot of the Insurance co's were still all up in the air (unlike the aeroplanes:D)

Have you actually checked your wording & does it specifically mention anywhere in there 'Acts of God'? bet you it doesnt

Hi Leigh-Anne
Did that its not in exclusions but their response was "its not in exclusions but it also doesnt state that its covered " Where do you go from there ??

Leigh-Anne_60

Shelly

Its a tricky one. As although 'Act of God' is not in the policy wording, your policy probably covers you for specific causes only, so maybe cancellation due to redundancy, accident, illness etc. As you do not fall within one of these categories, your not covered, hence why they have rejected it.

You could always follow their internal complaints procedure which will ultimately end with the Ombudsman - See what view they take! If they have acted dubiously on any count, they generally side with the insured party

LA

malc_b

You have to be a bit careful here as in what is meant by paying out. I asked the question of my annual insurer, columbus. Their answer which might apply to many is "yes" but. If you are in the uk ash is cover under travel delay / abandonment due to bad weather. So you get all your holiday costs back but then you might have got them back anyway from the travel agent or airline. If you are abroad then you are also covered for travel delay but the kicker is that this is £20 per 12hours per head up to a max of 100 per head (i.e.2.5 days). Not exactly enough to stay in a hotel is it.. And there is 60 excess too.

So the question is more what insurers are covering ash and which have decent return travel delay rates.

Coupon-mad

Has anyone heard any updates from the insurance provided by Airmiles? They were saying 'Act of God' when we phoned from Lanzarote when stranded last week.

I think Airmiles arrange their cover with Europ Assistance and we bought it over the telephone a week before we left.

At no point were we ever sent t&cs nor taken through them over the phone, in fact as we bought our accom and flights separately I especially asked 'does this insurance cover our flights and everything as we are not buying a package holiday?' and was told 'yes, it's the same as any package holiday cover'.

I think because of that, we may well have cause for a complaint to the Finanancial Ombudsman if Airmiles don't deal with it themselves - but would rather know that Airmiles Insurance will cover at least some of our expenses.

EMG_2

Totally agree with dacouch.

We were stranded for 5 days in Mallorca then successfully repatriated by Inntravel (great company) over three days.

SAGA claims that a cancelled airline isn't "delayed" so are threatening not to pay out a measly £155 for each of us under their delayed departure clause. I see from the press that AA are doing the same. They are both part of the same group so I will no longer use either of these businesses. I currently have car, house contents, building and travel insurance with them. Can I encourage others to also boycott these bad payers?

dacouch wrote: »

Hopefully this event will make people buy cover not solely on price but on quality of cover and quality of Insurer.

Make a note of the honourable Insurers who have agreed to pay out at the earliest possible time and reward them with your future business.

Or just forget about this event in a few months, keep buying the cheapest possible policy and boasting on MSE about how cheap your cover was. Then when the next unusual event occurs that most companies do not cover come back on MSE and complain about it

wave_rider_2

One of the best 'insurances' we've currently got, if you're stranded abroad by a flight cancellation or delayed overnight is EU regulation EC261/2004 - and it comes 'included' with all EU airline tickets. This regulation ensures that the basics of life - food and accomodation - are fully met until the airline can get you a flight back to your destination. No limits, no exclusions. Its existence means I will always choose to fly with an EU airline, whenever feasible - flight delays and cancellations are all too frequent these days.

FH_Brit

UKHCGirl wrote: »

Thank you for this.

The Post office version of fortis seems to be about £10 more than i pay for the insure and go policy (worldwide annual insurance, Platinum with no excess fee). Insure and go would have to half that to keep me to be honest. One of the reasons i chose that policy was i was really paranoid about my stuff being stolen after my friend got mugged in Barcelona when i was with her (and had no insurance) and they offer a pretty good deal with mugging and loss of valuables.

But now that i dont trust them, i dont want to be with them anymore.

Do you know if fortis covers for anxiety attacks? I know that I&G dont but i couldnt find anything in the post office policy that says that they dont.

£10 - Think - the recent volcanix ash thing - Foertis were first to say they were paying out - I&G are not paying = worth £10?