Travel insurance packaged with bank account does not cover a package holiday

SQLDba

We have had our travel insurance through Lloyds Bank Platinum Account - the insurance company is AXA. Never really has cause to use the policy in 20 years of having it, but this year we were abandoned in the Maldives when Emirates grounded their fleet. We had to pay for flights back, we couldn't speak to Emirates as we'd booked through an Agent and Emirates were not communicating with our Agent - who kept us informed. The FCO had also advised uk residents to return home.

So we put a claim in for the flights to get us home, highly recommend Qatar, eventually after a couple of months AXA sent a one line email saying

Thank you for telling us about your claim. We are sorry to note the circumstances involved. Unfortunately, your claim has been declined due to the circumstances not being insured by your policy.
Your policy wording lists the specific reasons we can consider coverage for your claim. In this instance, unfortunately, because your holiday was booked as a package, we are unable to offer cover. Please return or seek advice from your package provider.

Apparently the travel insurance we've had for years does not cover a "package"  if we'd booked the flights ourselves and booked the accommodation ourselves then we would have been covered.   So if you have Lloyds bank travel insurance you probably haven't - be warned - it's really medical cover. No-one at Lloyds knew this.

Supersonos

The lesson here is to read the terms and conditions.

visidigi

at the same time, I hope the documents make this abundantly clear. Otherwise this could be deemed an unfair term given the nature of travel insurance is invariably part of a package holiday.
I wonder if this is more a case of not being covered because its force majure and therefore the package holiday booking such as ATOL is supposed to cover you getting home in the case of the airline being unable to do so. Could the claims department have misunderstood the request?

photome

I think it’s because the package holiday company should have got you home, what has the tour operator said 

hollydays

I've no proof for this, but I always had a sneaking suspicion bank account holiday insurance would be bog standard, verging on basic evasive

daveyjp

photome said:

I think it’s because the package holiday company should have got you home, what has the tour operator said 

Exactly this. You aren't insured because the package holiday regulations cover you for situations where there are difficulties with flights getting you home.

Keep_pedalling

I’d does cover package holidays for things that the package company are not responsible for, like having to cancel through illness. I don’t think any insurance covers what happened to you as you made the choice to make your own way home rather than wait for the package company to sort it.

mattyprice4004

That’s not a one line email - a one line email would be ‘go away’ with no further help.

They’ve told you what you need to do next. 

Pennywise

If you expected your travel insurance to pay out for your extra costs, you should have contacted your insurer BEFORE you made alternative arrangements and incurred those costs.  
As others have said, for package holidays covered by ATOL, it's the firm you booked with (or if they've failed, ATOL) who have the responsibility to get you home.  You really can't go running up costs and expecting your insurance to pay when you've not gone down the proper route.