Travel Insurance Article Discussion

Voyager2002

scottharry wrote: »

Holiday Safe - Natural Disaster Cover - Very limited

After explaining in a previous post how a natural disaster (flooding) cost me an additional £500 to finally get home and my Holiday Safe Premier annual multi-trip (31 days per trip) only paid out £150 leaving me £350 out of pocket I have just got my offer letter to renew! You can imagine what I've done with that.

Checking again on the back of the letter they sent me it says, as part of a list of things covered:
"If a natural disaster occurs [Section B10] £1000 max Excess £60"

SNIP
Scott

Have you been in touch with the Ombudsman service?

scottharry

No as technically you are suppose to read all of the policy before you sign-up to it.
Reading these policies is very time consuming when trying to find a good company with a good policy at a good price.
My annual travel insurance policy is now up for renewal and I'm working on it right now.

A good report done in 2010 on travel insurance starting at page 21 some companies are quoted worth checking out.
Google (include the quotes) "Travel Insurance: How People Search For Insurance" and then download the PDF. (on a credible companies site called icrossing - they work with big companies - see their 'about' page)

scottharry

Firstly may I declare that I have no connections or personal interests in any of the following companies.

Ok back to business - after wasting a lot of time filling-in boxes on websites only to find out that at the end of it the small print was poor... I noticed a few things. Some of the big sites are quoting a rating thing called defacto. Examples on their front pages where: AVIVA Travel, ASDA Travel Insurance, Direct Travel Insurance, etc

So first checkout defacto and if you approve continue...

Google "defaqto star-ratings travel-insurance"

Also watch the video:

Google "Defaqto Star Ratings - YouTube"

Procedure I took:
Discovered defacto star ratings are for quality/comprehensiveness of travel insurance cover - not price/cheapness

Found that GoCompare use defacto star ratings as part of a filter system on their search results. (other comparison sites may use defacto too - try your fav comparison site first)

So I did a GoCompare search and got search results specific to me.

At the top of the GoCompare search results you find ‘Customise Quotes’ - select defacto star ratings of 5 stars if you want the best quality/comprehensiveness according to defacto as I did.

If you have some 5 star results then click the ‘More Info’ on each of them and check the fine print to see if the policy is suitable for your particular requirements.

Note don’t be initially put off by unknown company names. Find their absolute PDF policy document and look through it. It will declare who the insurance is underwritten by or who the company xyz is owned by - then Google them.

For example the first option for me was ‘Coverwise.co.uk’ [never heard of them] yet their PDF says "Policy summary COVERWISE PLATINUM SELECT - AXA Insurance UK plc This insurance is underwritten by AXA Insurance UK plc …." the AXA group have Revenue €86.107 billion (2011) according to wikipedia. So a major player in insurance that I have heard of.

Google "wiki AXA"

If you like this approach please comment or if you have a better system or an improvement to mine also let us know here.

Cheers
Scott
PS the site won't let me use links as I don't have enough posts on the system.

Holidaysafe_Representative

Dear ScottHarry,

Thank you for your post, my name is Amber Howard and I am the Brand Manager for Holidaysafe.

We are sorry to learn of your experience during your trip.

Unfortunately it is difficult for us to comment specifically on the outcome of your claim without a claims reference or policy number. If you are able to provide me with these details I can investigate the matter and ensure that your claim has been assessed fairly by our appointed claims handlers. My email address is Holidaysafe@infinityinsurance.co.uk.

From the brief information you have provided us with, it would appear that your airline and or tour operator should have provided you with some type of compensation, under their obligations as an EU carrier or ABTA member. In circumstances such as these, where contributions should be made by other sources, most travel insurance products would offer lower levels of cover for these sections (e.g. flight delay).

We have taken your comments on board and are sorry that you felt that in your circumstances the summary of cover and policy wording were misleading. We regularly work with our underwriters based on customer feedback to continually improve our wordings to avoid ambiguity or misunderstandings. We are therefore looking to make amendments to the policy to make things clearer for future customers.

Once again I would like to sincerely apologise that you were dissatisfied by the outcome of your claim, and I look forward to hearing from you if you would like further investigation.

Kind regards,

Amber.

teena

Thanks ScottHarry for all the advice. Very helpful.

However I am confused. Have booked a family cruise for next year (April 2016). Thought I could get annual insurance for my daughters ( the rest of us are covered by Nationwide accounts) now so that it would cover them for any trips with friends before then.
Just did a Confused search and it has come up with 3 policies from Insured to go but they have started the insurance from the date next year (rather than now - which is what I thought would happen) plus it says

"You will not be able to make a claim on any part of this policy (including cancellation cover) prior to the cover start date above."

Which means I can't claim if we have to cancel - which I thought was one of the reasons for having a travel insurance.
What have I done wrong? I was assuming I would be covered from now for a year if I took it out today.

Please help - I am stuck and I have waited until this time to take out the insurance

Gamegal

Teena, surely you should contact the insurers, explain the situation?

teena

Thanks Gamegal.
I haven't taken out the insurance yet I was just surprised that it started it from the date of the holiday, it has cancellation cover and yet says that you can't claim before the date you go.
I'll apply for some more and see what they say and then phone if I keep getting the same message.

Victor_Delta

If you are taking out an annual policy, surely you can start it today if you want to? But do make sure that cover for cruises is included as some companies (eg Holiday Safe) make it an 'extra' these days.

lynn44

HELP
I have tried every site on the web !!
literally spent day's & evening's doing quote's,
I'm only 47 with stage 3 copd , cheapest quote I've got is £233 :mad: just for 15 day's in Majorca.. please any help
I have tried all the comparison site's... fill all my detail's only to be told on last page DECLINED :mad::mad::mad:
I've gone via link's on British lung foundation, plus numerous other's and some here on the forum's

Northern_Dragon

Quick warning to anyone thinking of buying travel insurance, particularly from recommended best buy coverwise.co.uk.

Last year I took out 12 months of international couples cover for the very reasonable price of £52. I'm pleased to say that we had no incidents and therefore no reason to claim, although that does mean that I cannot comment further on the quality of the cover.

However, buried in this mornings emails I found a renewal notice. In fairness, it is three weeks until my policy expires and would renew and I then have 14 days to cancel it. My concern is firstly, that I hadn't realised that my policy had an auto-renewal and if I'd missed that email would I have had any other notification? Secondly the great value I got last year is not reflected in this years renewal; they wanted £228 for the same cover!

Thought it was worth sharing, hope it helps someone.