Unfair to read 25 pages of T & Cs for very important factor

humpy_2

Hi,

My colleague's baby got ill before they went on holiday.
They (genuinely) bought insurance ("insure and go") a few days before the baby got ill and the baby was seen by a doctor and they have a note to confirm these facts.

They cancelled the initial holiday and rebooked another holiday for a few weeks later.

Now Insure and Go are saying that the insurance doesn't cover the initial, cancelled holiday even though they had been led to believe that it would be covered, otherwise they wouldn't have booked it.

The reason Insure and Go state that my colleague is not covered is that:
- he chose the start date of the cover to be the date the holiday started
where as
- Insure and Go state for an annual policy it should have been the date the holiday was booked.

Rather than stating this information when he was selecting the start date, Insure and Go hid this information inside 25 pages of terms and conditions.

Surely such an important factor could have easily been stated when he was choosing the dates? They should have an on-screen notification to explain this vital factor as you choose the dates?
Presumably they choose not to so as to create a loop hole to get themselves out of paying claims.

I appreciate that terms and conditions are important and should be read, though surely Insure and Go are responsible for not having stipulated such an important factor which could have easily been prevented when my colleague chose his insurance start dates? Insure and Go know their product and how it works, my colleague does not. To me it appears that Insure and Go deliberately chose to add this curve-ball into the insurance process. People buy insurance for peace of mind, not to be screwed over! :mad:

Any ideas and feedback welcome!

Cheers,
Humpy

stevemarsh1976

welcome to the age of the internet where people buy on price alone instead of getting the correct advise from specialists.

Your friend hasnt a leg to stand on unfortunately as regardless of teh fairness of 25 pages of T&C's its still in there. It might only be travel insurance but a broker would have got this aspect of it right or at least offered the alternatives

cogito

Cancellation cover on a travel policy should always be arranged from the time the holiday is booked not from the day the holiday commences.

As the above poster says, a good broker would not have made this mistake or would have been reponsible if he had.

MrsManda

Not that I'm saying I'd have looked but Insure and Go have a FAQ section on their website and one of the FAQs is when should I start my travel insurance.

Plus the Key Facts document (which is only 8 pages long) does say that the period of insurance starts at the time you book your trip or the date on the validation certificate which ever is the latest date.

I'm used to looking up this kind of detail because I have a pre-existing condition but the Key Facts document at the very least is essential reading I think when buying insurance. Hope your friend's baby is now better and they do manage to get a holiday. At least their newly booked holiday will be covered.

mjm3346

"he chose the start date of the cover to be the date the holiday started"

If I insure my house and set the insurance to start tomorrow and then the house burns down today I am not covered and would not expect to be. Same with travel insurance why would I be covered before the date I have chosen to start it?

dunstonh

The FOS ruled on a case like this very recently. I saw it in one of the publications. It focused on the wording of holiday commenced or when holiday was booked. They ruled against the consumer and in favour of the insurer. That was also an internet arranged policy with no advice given or sought (no person contact). However, there is an older one where the was contact with an insurance company representative and that was upheld:

76/09
travel insurer turns down claim for cost of cancellation as policy did not come into force before the holiday began
In mid-October Miss W booked a holiday to Tenerife, due to depart a month later on 17 November. She was planning several other foreign trips over the following 12 months, so she told the travel agent she would not take the single-trip insurance policy it offered.
Instead, she contacted an insurer direct and bought an annual travel policy. This was set up to come into effect from 17 November – the date of her departure to Tenerife. Like most travel policies, the benefits it provided included cover against cancellation.
On 1 November, Miss W visited her doctor as she was feeling very unwell. The doctor diagnosed a ‘cardiac arrhythmia’. When Miss W mentioned her forthcoming holiday, the doctor told her that, in the circumstances, it might not be wise to travel abroad. Miss W therefore cancelled the holiday and put in a claim under her travel policy.
The insurer told her it could not meet the claim, as her policy had not yet come into force. Miss W was very upset to learn this and she complained that it was on the advice of the insurer itself that she had agreed the start date for the policy.
She said that the insurer knew the date of her forthcoming holiday, so it should have explained that there was a risk in having a policy that did not come into force until the day that holiday began. If it had done so, she would have insisted on an earlier start date.
The insurer would not discuss the matter further with her but simply repeated that it would not pay the claim. Miss W then referred the matter to us.
complaint upheld
In order to decide this case we had to establish whether the insurer had made Miss W sufficiently aware that, by buying a policy that did not start until the actual day of her holiday, she would not be covered if she had to cancel her trip.
We obtained a tape recording of Miss W’s initial phone conversation with the insurer, when the policy had been arranged. It was clear from this that she had told the insurer she was going to Tenerife on 17 November – and that the representative had suggested that would be a suitable start date for the policy.
While it could not be said that the representative had actually ‘advised’ Miss W to have a policy that started on that date, he had not made any attempt to explain the implications of not having insurance in place before then.
When we raised this with the insurer, it said the policy documents made it clear that the policyholder would not be covered if the holiday was cancelled before the policy came into force.
However, in our view the insurer had not done enough to highlight to Miss W the risk that she was taking. We thought it unlikely that she would have agreed to the start date suggested by the insurer if she had understood this risk.
We told the insurer to treat the claim as if the policy had been in force on the date when Miss W cancelled her holiday. We said it should add interest to any payment due under the policy.

---

So basically, if bought off the internet with no insurance company representative contact or no broker contact its going to be a no goer as you take the responsibility for what you buy and how you set it up. If you buy with a broker or insurance company individual involved, it depends on what they say and what info they know.

bebewoo

It's a bit mean of you all to have a go at Humpy, it doesn't seem obvious to me.
If you booked a holiday a year in advance that would mean that you could not insure with Insure and Go because the annual insurance would have run out before the holiday started. Also if you booked a holiday 6 months in advance as lots of people do then the insurance would have half run out before the holiday started, it makes no sense.

mjm3346

bebewoo wrote: »

It's a bit mean of you all to have a go at Humpy, it doesn't seem obvious to me.
If you booked a holiday a year in advance that would mean that you could not insure with Insure and Go because the annual insurance would have run out before the holiday started. Also if you booked a holiday 6 months in advance as lots of people do then the insurance would have half run out before the holiday started, it makes no sense.

How does it make no sense?
If the insurance has not started why should anyone imagine they are covered.
If you book a year in advance then you need insurance for a year in advance.

MrsManda

bebewoo wrote: »

If you booked a holiday a year in advance that would mean that you could not insure with Insure and Go because the annual insurance would have run out before the holiday started. Also if you booked a holiday 6 months in advance as lots of people do then the insurance would have half run out before the holiday started, it makes no sense.

If you booked a holiday a year in advance you wouldn't get an annual policy unless you were going to go on holiday multiple times prior to that, you'd get a single trip policy.

foggytown

Of course none of the lusciously labouring moneysaving luvvies in here have commented on the obvious: the closer to the holiday start date the insurance inception date is, the less exposure the insurer will have to pre-holiday insured events. So it really doesn't pay an insurer to point this out to a proposer, does it! (Now why wasn't that obvious to our resident whiz-kids? Funny, that!)

dunstonh

on the obvious: the closer to the holiday start date the insurance inception date is, the less exposure the insurer will have to pre-holiday insured events.

It increases the risk to the insurer but it also increases the premium to the consumer. Insurance companies are there to price and provide risk coverage. So, it is in their interest to point it out as they earn more as people pay more.

However, the low knowledge consumer who doesnt know what they are doing in known to focus on price.