Flight delay: travel insurance for NI resident

nulahoops

We were recently delayed for 24 hours in Cancun with Virgin Atlantic. We subsequently missed our flights back to Belfast from London so waited until the morning of departure of the new scheduled flight, phoned Virgin to confirm the flight was leaving on time and checked with the Virgin rep who arranged transport to and from the hotel we were put up in overnight. Both confirmed the new time was correct, so we booked 4 more flights from Gatwick to Belfast. The new flight from Cacun was further delayed by another 2 hours and we missed our flights to Belfast again. In total we spent nearly £800 on new flights to get us home.
I knew that Virgin wouldn't compensate us for these flights as they were booked separately but I was horrified to find out that my travel insurance, through first direct and Aviva, won't cover them either. They say their policy stops when we get back to the UK rather than my home, which seems desperately unfair seeing as the only physical way to get to the part of the UK that I live in is by air or sea. I think this is hugely unfair and at the very least should be made very clear when I bought the policy. Can I contest this? Any advice/ thoughts would be very welcome.

Caz3121

probably better posting on the insurance board

Alan_Bowen

If your policy isn't clear, and I haven't seen it so I can't comment, then you may wish to advise the insurers that you will making a formal complaint to the Financial Services Ombudsman, details here
https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm It can cost an insurer a considerable amount of money to defend a claim so the threat may work if the policy isn't clear.


The problem may be that for most people, the return flight to the UK is the end of the holiday and that is when the policy ends. I appreciate that for you and others in the Channel Islands for example, that isn't the case but as this is a bank issued policy rather than a travel agent policy, I suspect the bank make it clear they are not offering advice as to the suitability of the policy and if it is written as suggested, then it falls on you to make sure it meets your requirements

glentoran99

I used tesco insurance and they covered me for extra expense to get to NI, I would challenge it because you should be covered until
You are home, you can holiday to England? So would they not cover that?