Positive experience with claiming from travel insurer?

DUS

Hi,

I am going on a 2 week trip to Cairo, Indonesia and Thailand in April and started to look into an insurance policy (worldwide, annual cover).

As with almost everything else, reviews you read about the various companies/products are often very negative because disgruntled customers are usually more inclined to report back and to complain about a poor service/experience. Given the reviews on all the insurance companies, you would be forgiven for thinking that none of them offers a decent service and that all of them will try their very best not to pay out on a claim and that they will go out of their way to make life difficult for you the moment you need them the most.

Anyways, with all those negative reviews on the net, I wonder who could actually let me know of an insurer you had a positive experience with in terms of them paying out without putting you through weeks and months of a logistical nightmare.

Maybe this can help me in finding the right policy for me. Thank you!

Best,
DUS

lisyloo

I have had 2 positive experiences of claiming from ACE group (although I have to point out it was a business policy with holiday cover).
Does that make a difference - perhaps in that the permium is thousands of pounds.

I had a positive experience when Easyjet cancelled a flight for operation reasons.
It was the only flight on that day from Bristol.
I was attending a wedding and didn't want to travel on a different day.
We went from Birmingham and the insurer paid for the flight difference, car parking difference and fuel difference (further to travel).
I was impressed because they paid for flights that were convenient for us rather than insisting on the cheapest possible route (which might have meant missing the wedding).

I also had a second claim for a delay.
We were 4 hrs and 5 minutes delayed on take off.
The cut off point was 4 hours.
We were actually less than 4 hours late by the time we landed, but the polciy specified take off.
We were paid out a fixed sum which more than covered our car hire fees for being out of hours and our evening meal.

It's possible we've had better sevice because it's a company policy costing thousands, but I'd be happy to use ACE group.

hollieb_2

I took out an annual policy with winter cover with Go Travel. I picked them because it boasts that AA, Saga and Axa have links with them so felt that they would be reputable.

Sadly my experience was very poor. My partner had an accident on his first day skiing and required surgery and hospitilisation until at least the last day of the holiday; we were passed from pillar to post by three different claims handling companies, First Assist, Global Response and finally Axa. I think that Axa were always responsible but even on our return they were questioning whether they were the company responsible for handling our claim due to the date the policy was taken out. First Assist had even emailed me to confirm that we had a valid policy and also promised later repatriation but by the 4th day of the holiday they had dropped us without notice. We repatriated without any assistance from the insurer on the original flight without any of the support promised.

The claim is still under consideration with a formal complaint. Clearly it seems to be our fault that the wrong claim handling company answered the phone number we were told to ring.

The email trail I have from all three claims handling companies is damning. I would not use this company ever again. When you look into it more closely then you will see that the insurance company behind Go is responsible for several other internet sourced insurance companies so you may want to consider this in determining who you may consider not buying with as once you return from holiday it is the underlying insurance company that you deal with when claiming back under the policy....

Good luck!