Holiday Cancellation Woe - Followed Procedures

mcc100

Any update on this Anna* ?

gc_bus

Just thought I'd tack this onto the end of this thread. We've just had to cancel a Shearings Holiday booked for August 2014 and fully expected to loose the deposit which we did. However, we were not expecting to lose the single-trip insurance payment that we had taken out with Shearings as well! This was £98 for two people to cover 10 days to Austria. Buyers beware of this practice which is buried deep in the T&C's.

peachyprice

gc_bus wrote: »

Just thought I'd tack this onto the end of this thread. We've just had to cancel a Shearings Holiday booked for August 2014 and fully expected to loose the deposit which we did. However, we were not expecting to lose the single-trip insurance payment that we had taken out with Shearings as well! This was £98 for two people to cover 10 days to Austria. Buyers beware of this practice which is buried deep in the T&C's.

But the insurance policy has been operational since you booked, you could claim your deposit back through it if the cancellation is for an insured reason and obviously more than the excess.

Do you expect to get your car insurance back if you sell the car?

lisyloo

I had no other option as they threatened me with debt collectors if I did not pay the rest of the fee over the phone immediately.

I know Anna is probably long gone, but to others I'd like to say that you DO have another option.
It's called saying NO.

gc_bus

peachyprice wrote: »

But the insurance policy has been operational since you booked, you could claim your deposit back through it if the cancellation is for an insured reason and obviously more than the excess.

Do you expect to get your car insurance back if you sell the car?

Indeed and that's whereby customers get confused. I certainly didn't realise it was from the time I bought it as I thought it was to cover the time from when we would be away on holiday. I don't purchase car insurance to cover a car some six months before I purchase the car and therefore your analogy is imperfect.

peachyprice

No, it isn't imperfect at all. You purchase car insurance as soon you buy a car, you purchase travel insurance as soon as you buy a holiday. The policies are active immediately. Why is that confusing?

The fact that you're not going away as soon as you pay is irrelevant, you've bought and paid for a holiday, from the time you take out the policy that holiday is an insurable loss. A quick read of the T&C's on any travel insurance policy will tell you that. It's not a trick to make money, it's not a bad business practice, it's standard travel insurance procedure.

In this instance you 'only' lost £98 and it probably wasn't worth claiming. If you'd have booked a £5k holiday and had to cancel say 8 weeks before departure you'd be damn pleased the policy was in effect from the day of purchase so that you could get the majority of that back and would be hopping mad if it wasn't.

This forum is riddled with people who have lost £1000's because they thought they didn't need travel insurance until a few days before departure only to find they have to cancel and have lost the lot.

Moto2

gc_bus wrote: »

Indeed and that's whereby customers get confused. I certainly didn't realise it was from the time I bought it as I thought it was to cover the time from when we would be away on holiday. I don't purchase car insurance to cover a car some six months before I purchase the car and therefore your analogy is imperfect.

Your money is at risk as soon as you part with it or agree to part with it, so most people insure that risk from that point.
You've actually used the insurance by asking someone else to cover that risk for you and paying them to do so.
Asking for your money back because you haven't claimed is never going to result in them doing so.

gc_bus

All I will say to the above is that some companies (including EasyJet) DO refund the insurance premium when a holiday is cancelled before that holiday is taken, even when understandably the deposit for said holiday is not refunded. I was of the understanding that the insurance covers you for the duration of the holiday but not beforehand. Additionally, I could have bought the insurance the day before the holiday began for the same price and therefore would not have lost the insurance payment by buying it early. Note that this insurance purchased ONLY covers the period of the holiday (i.e. whils "away") yet having cancelled the holiday I find that I am still paying for the insurance which now will cover nothing.

peachyprice

gc_bus wrote: »

Note that this insurance purchased ONLY covers the period of the holiday (i.e. whils "away")

Can you please show us where it says that? Because looking at the policy, it covers cancellation, which means that is in effect before you travel, so I do not believe that is true. Did you try to recover your deposit on your insurance policy?

https://www.shearings.com/documents/pdfs/nonselfdrive.pdf

gc_bus

Hi - the whole travel insurance was paid up front. It does seem a bit of a grey area as surely the insurance should be for the period of travel and not beforehand. Cancelling the holiday with Shearings automatically cancelled the insurance which they surely should not have done if I use reverse logic?