Volcanic ash insurance - your experiences

caezuk

Dear all,

I am currently in the process of purchasing our holiday. However, the recently rumblings of the icelandic volcano has got me concerned. I was wondering who had what experiences with which insurance providers to best judge which company I should go for to cover me against (heaven forbid) it happening again.

It also seems like if I use a comparison site to look for insurance I have to keep going into the fine detail to look for "natural disasters" or "act of god" etc etc. Any tips would be greatly helpful!

thanks for helping this newbie (although have used the site for years!)

elsien

Some of them have the volcanic ash as an optional extra.
I'm fairly sure direct travel do and they were good with us with a medical emergency.

Edit - just found this for you.
http://www.moneymaxim.co.uk/articles/volcanic-ash-cloud-ba-strike-travel-insurance-65789.htm

agrinnall

There's an entire sub-board of this one devoted to Icelandic volcanoes, I'm sure any question you could possibly think of has already been asked and answered in there.

laidback

was out in Spain when last ash cloud caused chaos,phoned my travel insurer to for advice only to get a recorded message saying if call was ash cloud related they could not help and advised contacting airline.There was a crowd of us together but some had flown in with easyjet who were brilliant and even sorted alternative accommodation,transfers to airport etc. and were quick in repaying reasonable expenses,the others who had flown Ryanair were basically abandoned and told to either book the next available flight on line with Ryanair or cancel their flight and sort themselves out,they then refused to pay any expenses unless VAT receipt provided!I haven't and never will fly with that airline again and would dance for a week if they went bankrupt.

Alan_Bowen

There is no guarantee that any of them will follow what happened in 2010. Many got stung, some like Europ Assistance got sued and most have re written their policies. In the past they listed what they wouldn't cover, and few mentioned exploding volcanoes and therefore paid out but now most list what they will cover, and volcanoes are frequently not mentioned at all.

If you travel on an EU based airline, they have a legal obligation to look after you (unless you take matters into your own hands and make your own arrangements when they only have an obligation to refund the unused ticket) until you can return home, some spent tens of millions last time and have been pushing the EU to change the law. They planned to do so next year limiting claims to three nights at a maximum of 100 euros a night per person but at present, the time and the cost are unlimited. Be reasonable if it happens and most EU airlines will take care or refund you. If you book with a non EU based airline and you are stranded abroad you are on your own!

2gorgeousgirls

We got caught at the tail end of the ashcloud when only NI airports were affected. We were in Majorca at the time, travelling with Easyjet and the day we were due to come home NI was shutdown.

Easyjet were great at getting us moved to a flight to Liverpool, but only because we had a credit card. There were others in the queue who said they had no access to funds and were told the only thing Easyjet could do for them was to transfer them onto the next available NI flight but they were on the own as to sorting accommodation etc until that point.

Anyway we flew to Liverpool, stayed overnight and got the ferry back to NI next day and then had to get a taxi to the airport to get our car.

All in all a very stressful, and expensive, experience. With the possibility of another eruption I would definitely be making sure I was well covered by insurance. It may be more expensive but, in my opinion, well worth the cost.