Travel insurance covering coronavirus - misleading MSE advice

AndyVC

MSE recommends Nationwide FlexPlus annual travel insurance cover for over 65s,  stating that “you get worldwide family travel insurance (including winter sports) up to your 70th birthday, including coronavirus medical cover and cancellation cover if a family member is receiving/received treatment for coronavirus”.  This is not true for any trips booked after 18 March or for annual cover starting after this date.  On Nationwide’s web-site it states that “Your travel insurance with your FlexPlus or FlexAccount will not cover you (for coronavirus related travel insurance claims) for trips in the UK or abroad booked on or after 18 March, now that the risks of coronavirus are known”.

We have annual cover with FlexPlus which is now useless, unless we want to travel without any cover for coronavirus.  The general advice is that we should have at least medical cover for this.  Now that some travel restrictions are lifted, we are planning a trip to family in Poland later this month, so it seems we shall have to buy duplicate travel insurance with another company.

I raised this apparent error on the MSE website with MSE, but was just told to contact the forum.

SevenOfNine

Have you spoken with Nationwide about a partial refund & cancellation of your policy.  It's of no use to you for anything you book now & apparently some insurers are giving partial refunds.

If you want full codiv cover for a trip you're booking now for a few weeks time, Nationwide aren't offering it, leaving you obliged to go elsewhere. So your main claim to obtain a refund of remaining policy months is that you'll end up with some aspects of your trip doubly insured.

What if something happens completely NOT codiv related, break a leg for example, which company are you supposed to contact, to assist you & agree to pay hospital bills.  Check your Nationwide policy & see if there is a clause covering double insurance.

AndyVC

Thank you for your helpful advice.  The Nationwide policy is included as part of a £13 per month bank account with other smaller benefits, so we would have to close our account to stop paying for what is now a worthless policy.  As the primary benefit of this account is the annual travel insurance and this is MSE's reason for recommending it, everyone should be closing their accounts.  Nationwide may be forced to change their policy if they want to keep this business, but probably not soon enough for us.
We're tempted to rely on our EHIC card, which should provide free medical treatment for Covid in Poland, but not medical repatriation.  As we plan to stay for several weeks, one-off duplicate insurance is expensive, and apart from Covid not needed.

blindman

AndyVC said:

Thank you for your helpful advice.  The Nationwide policy is included as part of a £13 per month bank account with other smaller benefits, so we would have to close our account to stop paying for what is now a worthless policy.  As the primary benefit of this account is the annual travel insurance and this is MSE's reason for recommending it, everyone should be closing their accounts.  Nationwide may be forced to change their policy if they want to keep this business, but probably not soon enough for us.
We're tempted to rely on our EHIC card, which should provide free medical treatment for Covid in Poland, but not medical repatriation.  As we plan to stay for several weeks, one-off duplicate insurance is expensive, and apart from Covid not needed.

I have just rung  Nationwide to see when their Covd exemption policy is likely to change.
As I may go to Spain later this year.

It HAS!

If you book a trip (to start from 10th July) to a country that is on the FCO exemption list then "normal Nationwide insurance cover applies"
If after you book the trip and the FCO advice changes then you are still covered.
So you should be covered for Poland.


This policy change came into effect on the 4th July.
They are a bit slow in updating the web-site.

MSE_Tony

Birseh_ said:

They recommend Holidaysafe which is part if tifgroup policies who are now being engaged for fraud the the FCA. Worse still Martin Lewis still backed them when the front page of the Times alleged fraud and malpractice and this the other day https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/miguel-nadal-travel-insurance-doctor-investigated-after-deaths-kvbmsfk60

Hi,
Can you please let me know where Holidaysafe is currently mentioned as a recommendation (so it can be fixed).
Holidaysafe/TIF policies were removed from the site in 2018

AndyVC

Thank you very much, Blindman, for contacting Nationwide.  I was hoping that they would revise their policy, to avoid losing their account holders, and was intending to phone them, but so far have only sent an online query/complaint, to which I haven't had a reply.  It's bad that the web-site is still stressing that Covid is not covered.  Are they providing cancellation as well as medical cover?  However, we can cope without cancellation cover, as we are travelling by car.

blindman

AndyVC said:

Thank you very much, Blindman, for contacting Nationwide.  I was hoping that they would revise their policy, to avoid losing their account holders, and was intending to phone them, but so far have only sent an online query/complaint, to which I haven't had a reply.  It's bad that the web-site is still stressing that Covid is not covered.  Are they providing cancellation as well as medical cover?  However, we can cope without cancellation cover, as we are travelling by car.

Web page has changed now.