AXA improperly rejecting travel insurance claim - draft complaint letter

Goldiegirl

opinions4u wrote: »

Take the cash and get on with your life.

And well done!

Agreed, why still 'fume' about it.

You got the result your wanted, so be happy and move on

Tirian

Why would I pursue this? Short answer, because their entire attitude throughout strongly suggests that they are adopting an official company wide policy of refusing to pay on claims that, under their policy, should unquestionably be payable.

While the section that they rely on to reject the claim may, under a rather contorted interpretation, be ambiguous on the issue, the policy as a whole is completely clear. If they don't wish to cover UK travel delay, then it is incumbent on them to make that clear in their policy wording - and it would not exactly be be difficult to do.

I refer anyone who still doubts whether UK travel is covered under this policy back to the following sections of the policy:

Policy information

"8 .You are covered for any holiday or journey for pleasure with each individual trip limited to 45 consecutive days, beginning and ending in the United Kingdom."

Section R - Travel disruption

What IS covered

On the way home

We will pay you up to a maximum of £1000 for your reasonable additional travel and/or accommodation costs ... if you have to make alternative arrangements to return to your home ... as a result of the public transport on which you were booked to travel to your home area being cancelled or delayed for at least 12 hours, diverted or re-directed after take-off due to a covered event.

Not to mention, I have yet to hear from anyone what aspect of our journey could be said not to meet the conditions set out in the section they relied upon - nor why, if they did wish to exclude UK travel, they neglect entirely to mention this in their "What is not covered" section, given the general scope of cover indicated by the first quote above.

And why, you ask, should I 'fume' about this?

Because I resent being made to argue, jump through hoops and resort to a complaints process, and ultimately be told I'm being paid as a 'courtesy' in order to get what should simply be paid out immediately upon my production of the required evidence.

Because I don't want to have to go through this rigmarole again if we suffer delays on another UK holiday.

Because they are still fobbing my parents in law off over their claim for the same trip.

Because, although I am fortunate enough that I don't *need* the money per se, many others who might have reason to claim under similar circumstances could be seriously disadvantaged by this.

Because although I am prepared to examine the entire policy and take up cudgels with them over their blatant misrepresentation of what their policy covers, many others won't be and will otherwise lose out.

And because by taking this kind of approach, they discredit the insurance industry as a whole - and, believe it or not, this is something that I actually care about.

Good enough?

And no, I'm not going to push this through to FOS - who in any case only deal with arbitration over individual disputes, and wouldn't be able to do anything about general systemic abuse of process. If you read what I actually said, then you will see that I am contemplating quite a different course of action. It's not one that will take up any more of my time than bundling up the complete correspondence on the matter with a brief covering note and sending it to a few select individuals that I already know.

HarryKUK

I am having this exact same issue. Indirectly rejecting my perfectly valid car hire claim because it was in the UK, where my policy clearly states that car hire benefits are the only benefits applicable within the UK. Tried and tried to get this across to them but they don't want to listen. The claims handlers only read from a predetermined script and if it says it doesn't cover the UK then that's the end of the conversation. EVEN THOUGH THE TERMS CLEARLY STATE CAR HIRE BENEFITS ARE THE EXCEPTION TO THE 'INTERNATIONAL ONLY' CLAUSES OF THE POLICY. AAAARRRGGGGHHH!!