LV Travel Insurance will not refund if vouchers offered. Canadian Affair will only offer vouchers.

Katrina_Hay

Hi,
I wondered if anyone else was in this situation with LV or any other travel insurance company. My flights with Transat to Canada, booked through Canadian Affair, were cancelled by them due to Covid 19 travel restrictions issued by the Canadian Government. We booked these in Nov 19 and took out annual travel insurance with LV in advance of any Covid Issues. My first port of call was to phone to request a refund from Canadian Affair. They told me that the Canadian Government had said that it was acceptable to offer us vouchers and that Transat and, therefore, they would only offer vouchers and not a refund. They were persistent re this despite me saying that I did not think this was legal. I then phoned Liverpool Victoria (LV) my travel insurers. They told me that as I had been offered compensation in the form of vouchers, they would not cover my claim. I was shocked as I thought this was one of the main points of having insurance and I did challenge whether this was acceptable as I may not wish to travel to Canada In the future as the main reason has passed. I also asked what would happen if the airline or Canadian Affair went out of business and the vouchers were invalid as my travel insurance would probably have lapsed by that point. I also asked what if the vouchers did not cover the costs of flights in the future so it became financially unviable for us to travel as my insurance would have lapsed by then too. If any of these happened I would not have been compensated.

Fortunately,  I did pay with Visa so they will be my last port of call under section 77. I think Visa is going to suffer lots of claims due to businesses who do not refund customers as many of us would think they were legally obliged to. Does anyone have any advice or experience with addressing something similar with any of these companies. Advice gratefully received.

Life__Goes__On

If you are willing to try, I would  say a voucher isn't a refund,  it's just an IOU,  it's a promise of a refund.
You have a right to reject a voucher, and have done so,  this under law means that you have no voucher.
Tell your insurance company that you do not have a voucher as this was rejected under English law.
A unsolicited voucher is just that, and can not deemed to be accepted.

SevenOfNine

See if there's anything here you can use, to support a Section 75 (or appeal the LV result)  The crefit vouchers are not financially protected.The article does refer to Martin Lewis, & I did watch the show where the comment regarding trying a Chargeback before a Section 75 was advised by him.

I hadn't realised you even could do a C-back if it wasn't a debit card, nor that the 120 days you have to raise it only started countdown from the date you knew your trip wad cancelled.

https://theconsumerlawyer.blog/2020/05/05/section-75-claims-uk-holiday-refunds/amp/#click=https://t.co/3zYXmlzIY6

See if there's some advice here as well https://thetraveljournalist.co.uk/warning-the-risk-of-accepting-credit-or-vouchers-for-your-cancelled-holiday/

Look on the Hot News & Hero Guides.

A consumer group on Twitter does advise not throwing together a Section 75, give it consideration & as much research as possible for to assemble a strong case beforehand.

Life__Goes__On

SevenOfNine said:

I hadn't realised you even could do a C-back if it wasn't a debit card, nor that the 120 days you have to raise it only started countdown from the date you knew your trip wad cancelled.

I think many people have learned much (certainly I have) in the last couple of months .
Be it legal issue,  dealing with companies,  going though 3rd partied etc.

Katrina_Hay

Thank you to all for the advice - much appreciated.