Travel Insurance - Missed flight & lost holiday

Stravinsky

I guess I already know the answer but I thought I'd at least try for other peoples thoughts. On Monday I was on my way for a flight at Heathrow on the M40 and I was caught up in the disaster caused by the foreign driver going down the Northbound carriageway fast lane in a southern direction. We were delayed by 3 hours or so, and didnt get to check in until after the flight had closed. The airline desk staff had gone home, I couldnt contact anyone

Following day they had cancelled the return flight as well by the time my travel agent contacted them. The offered new flights at £2000 which we couldn't afford to take

The insurance company wont pay anything because it was all caused by a third party, so loss of holiday (£4k) isn't covered, nor is missed flight. I read something about trying to recover airport taxes, which I would have to do through the travel agent as it was a group booking.

Any thoughts please, as at the moment I am down £4k with not much hope of recovering anything

(Insurance was a top product, but only covered me it seems if I broke down, crashed myself or was taken ill, in other words didnt cover anything caused by a third party)

Quentin

If you believed from the cover you bought that this was covered, then make a complaint

Whenever you are not happy with your insurance company the route to go down is a complaint in line with their complaints procedure.

If you are not happy with the reply or they ignore you for 8 weeks you can escalate to the FOS for their adjudication at no cost to you

Stravinsky

Thanks Quentin - It really seems that the annual insurance policy covered me if I had an accident, my car broke down, I fell ill or my wife fell ill. Anything basically to do with ME causing the problem. It seems with such insurance that you aren't covered for anything if someone causes an issue that makes you miss a flight or lose a holiday. That was the verbal opinion from them, but they a suggested I put a claim in anyway. However from what was said, I'm not hopeful

Quentin

The policy wording is the definitive source to see what is covered!


If they told you to try a claim it sounds like whoever you spoke to wasn't the right one to get a definitive answer from!


So follow their advice and see what happens