Travel insurance catch 22

SadTraveller2020

Hi - anyone has any thoughts, that would be great. I'm not after legal advise, just personal opinion on if I've made some huge boo boo, or if I should push things further with a formal complaint and follow up with the Financial Ombudsmen.
Sequence of events:

We had holiday booked with Brittany Ferries.

Things started to look sketchy with icky viruses, but we held on as we wanted to go.

Then the FCO advised against ALL non essential travel on 17th March.

Brittany Ferries contacted us to say we could not take our holiday, so we could either:

- take a time limited credit note for the full amount

- OR

- cancel ourselves

They said that as the situation as out of their control, as it was not cancelled through any fault of their own, they would not give a full refund.

They advised that as it was US cancelling, not them, we would only get 50% back, as per the holiday terms, as it was so close the travel date.

Before proceeding, we contacted our travel insurers who advised that we would NOT be able to make any claim if we accepted the offer of a time limited credit note.

They advised that in order to make a claim we had to NOT accept the credit note. Recover what we could, then get back in touch.

They also advised that we also had to try to get the money back from the back with a chargeback / section 50 type claim first as Brittany Ferries had failed to provide us with what was paid for.

So, we needed to get as much cash back from Brittany Ferries as we could, exhaust other avenues like the bank, and THEN we could make an insurance claim for the amount we were down on the holiday we had not been able to take because of the FCO advise.

Sooooo, we refused the credit note, took the 50% refund, asked the bank to do a chargeback (which they could not as it was booked ages ago on a debit card), then started an insurance claim.

All the insurance company wanted to know was the total amount of the holiday, what we had got back, and proof that the bank had not been able to stump up the difference.

We gave the insurance company all that and waited....

...until we got a letter back saying that as we had refused the credit note we were not entitled to anything.

...they said the policy did not cover "recoverable costs" which are any costs we could have recovered from elsewhere, and that the offer of a credit note met that condition.

KEY POINT --> Whist I understand the basics of how insurance works, we ONLY refused the credit note because the insurance people said we could not make a claim unless we did.  <-- KEY POINT

My thirteen year old is doing "logic" at school at the moment, and even she can see that there is something a little odd with:

1) "You cannot make a claim unless you take ACTION A"

Followed by:

2) "Because you took ACTION A your claim has been denied."

If anyone has any tips that would be great. :-)

Life__Goes__On

First of all whoever told you that you couldn't do a Chargeback is wrong, it's either the date of booking  or date the service is due to be provided which ever is later.
If insurer told you to refused the voucher and now refused to refund you a complaint is  in order, then off to the  Ombudsman.

harsh_but_fair

raise a formal complaint with your insurance company and give them time to respond

payless

And the insurer is....  ( UKI .?? . Who act for NWide / DLine) 

SadTraveller2020

Nationwide - yep. Why... do they "have form"?
I can see on their website they now explicitly say that if you refuse credit you are not covered... never used to say that.

sheramber

Do youhave it in writing that you were told that if you refused the credit note you could claim a refund?

SadTraveller2020

:-) Nope, but I can ask for recordings of the phone calls for a small fee....
Spoke to the ombudsman briefly. They said that I might be better just explaining everything clearly in writing to the insurer, explain that I would be seeking the recordings if things weren't resolved, mentioning that I had corresponded with the ombudsman already, and then see how things go.
If things don't get resolved nicely then to pass it on to the ombudsman and they would get the recordings as part of their investigation.
I can't find any details anywhere about what the "small" fees are to get copies of phone recordings....

SadTraveller2020

sheramber said:

Do youhave it in writing that you were told that if you refused the credit note you could claim a refund?

I just naively assumed that doing what they said would at least not prejudice my claim. Woopsie.
I was so pleased with myself at the time because at every step of the way we checked with each party (insurer / holiday provider / bank) what the consequences were of each step. Woopsie * 2

R3dders

Not sure if a holiday through Brittany Ferries is different than a `Ferry Crossing, but I got a full refund from Brittany Ferries for a crossing for a crossing that they cancelled.  From all the posts on this forum that I have read, I think your choices are quite limited if you cancelled rather than Brittany Ferries cancelling.  I don't think any insurers or credit/cash card would cover someone cancelling a holiday/ferry crossing themselves.  It also seems a lot of insurers are not paying out if you are even offered vouchers for future travel, Brittany ferries initially offered voucher for future travel which I declined and insisted on a full cash refund which I eventually received.  If you say recordings are available it may be worth investing in recovering to confirm what was actually said or agreed and progressing this further with `Brittany Ferries and/or your insurers.

SadTraveller2020

They told us we had no choice. Before the FCO statement they said that if we cancelled we would loose 50%, as per their terms. So we hung on until after the FCO statement, when they had said that we would then get a full refund. BUT then when the FCO statement came we were given the option of taking a credit note or canceling the booking... but as it was US cancelling the booking we would loose the 50%. They said that as it was no fault of "theirs" at the holiday couldn't happen we were not entitled to a full refund (they used words like "out of our control" / "force majure" etc..
Again, as with the insurer, we only hung on to the booking on the understanding that should the FCO advise against all travel we would get a full refund - whereas if we pre-emptively cancelled we would only get a percentage back as per our booking terms.

elsien

Were the ferries still running or not?