Advice for non-covid related holiday cancellation?

samuelmorris

We have a holiday booked with separate flights (TUI) and accommodation (VillaPlus) for the 1st - 8th August. A few days ago, a relative of ours passed away and it's now not practical to travel - we are of course beyond the point where we are allowed to cancel or reschedule either of the above, so the amount paid is a total loss.

My question is, what is the recommended way of going about contacting travel insurers about this? The insurance for myself and some our party is with Columbus, who state that claims for cancellation due to death of a relative are applicable to a defined list of people. This will only cover one member of our party, my brother, as only he is related to the deceased in a way included in the definition used in Columbus' terms. However, he was not the lead passenger on the trip that booked it, nor was his card used to pay for any of it, so I am concerned that we may not even be able to claim for his part of the trip as at least some consolation.

Could anyone offer any advice on how to approach insurer(s) about this?

Thanks in advance

Sam

lisyloo

You’ll need to explain a bit further about the relationships to each other and the insurance.
are “some of you” on the same policy or do you all have separate policies with Columbus.
are you closely related or just a bunch of friends?
have you read what the policies say?
if it was a bunch of friends then I’d expect everyone except the close relation to still travel.
more info required please

samuelmorris

Sure - original group travelling are:

Myself
My Mum

My Dad

My (half) brother

His wife

Their son (my nephew)

Their daughter (my niece)

The family member that has died is my (half) brother's grandmother. They were not due to travel with us. It is simply their passing and the relevant funeral arrangements that prevent him and his wife (and therefore the kids) from travelling. Effectively, me and my parents could just travel as the three of us, though we've no desire to do that without the others. There are some covid-related reasons why we don't intend to travel by ourselves, but nothing that would be covered under insurance, so irrelevant as far as making a claim would be concerned - hence I'm not really expecting us three to get anything.

I am insured with a solo policy through Columbus.

Mum & Dad are insured through dad's Halifax bank account, which I believe is provided by Axa.

My brother's side of the family are insured with a family policy also through Columbus.

sheramber

Your brother and his family need to claim off their own policy. Whoever paid will need to give him proof of the payment but his policy will only cover the cost applicable to  those named on his policy.
You would need to claim off your own policy but you say you are not covered for the relationship to the deceased
 Similarly,, your parents to need check  their policy  to se what cover they have.
 . 
Does your policy / your mum and dad's policy have cover for someone you are  travelling with being unable to travel?

lisyloo

Unfortunately you are never covered for disinclination (whether Covid or the others not going or any other reason). I sympathise as I’m also disinclined to go on my Asia holiday. 

My guess is that the 3 of you will not be covered and the half brothers family would be, but it’s a case of checking the cover you each have. Sometimes it can depend on whether you bought a budget policy or a 5 star one.

samuelmorris

Yes, not sure on the terms of my parents' policy with the bank, since it's a continuously running policy it's not something they'd have terms documents for to hand, so they'd need to call them and ask. I suspect the answer will most likely be no but I have encouraged them to check.

As far as my brother's family are concerned, reading columbus' terms literally, they list a range of relations that they will cover the death of as cancellation cover, but those relations (i.e. grandmother in this case) only apply to my brother himself - his wife and the kids would not be a type of relation that's covered, so my concern is they may only pay for his proportion, not his whole part of the family (i.e. the 4 of them). It's me that booked the flights and accommodation but it was paid for on my dad's card so that only complicates matters further!

lisyloo

In this situation it would be unusual to expect a close family unit (I mean the four) to be split up. I’ve known of a case (ear infection - couldn’t fly) where a family of 4 were split up into two two’s but that’s not the same emotional distress as a death.

when you say it’s not practical to travel what do you mean?
funerals in my area usually take 3-4 weeks and can be delayed if necessary.
insurers understand emotional distress but you said practical issue, so what is it that cannot be delayed? Funerals can be delayed, houses take many months to sell.
If they don’t want to go due to emotional distress that’s completely understandable but you said there was a practical issue stopping them going? There are very few practical issues that cannot be resolved by either delay or paying someone else.

can the holiday also be transferred to a different date?
im expecting to move mine 12 months with no cost impact

you have admitted you are disinclined. If you are looking for a way to get the holiday paid for due to disinclination then I think you will be disappointed due to your 3 different insurances. In general the 3 would be expected to still go unless you’d purchased insurance for the whole party to travel together (which it doesn’t sounds like you have).

why not just move it?
loads of people moving holidays right now.

you get your holiday, they get their money, everyone’s happy (there’s a small issue with COViD cover when you defer that you may or may not have).

samuelmorris

I would be more than happy to move it but due to the proximity to the date of travel and the fact this is not a package holiday, neither TUI nor villaplus will allow this.Our flights cost £2727 originally and TUI are charging us £3954 to relocate them to next year. Villaplus simply demand that the booking be cancelled and a new one be placed at full price. Even if we had needed to rearrange the holiday months in advance, the minimum reschedule fee is 40% with villaplus and 70% with TUI, we would still be out of pocket by half the full amount as a minimum. Free rescheduling has only been offered to people whose holidays were cancelled by the supplier due to COVID-19 (i.e. where they are legally obligated to allow rescheduling for free).

The funeral was arranged for 3rd August which falls square in the middle of the dates we were booked to be away. As we aren't the closest relation to the deceased, it's not appropriate to ask them to move it.

lisyloo

Sorry I’m almost out of ideas.
Could the brother go to the funeral and hop on a flight 3rd/4th if he’s ok about going to the funeral without his wife? Not convenient but at least the other 6 can carry on as normal if that is acceptable.
you each need to check with your respective insurers, but my guess is the 4 will be covered and the 3 will probably not be covered. I could be wrong but insurers are not know for being overly generous if they don’t have to be.
there is no downside to calling your insurers to enquire (unlike car and home ins where any loss/incident is recorded and counts against you and has to be declared once mentioned).
if it was me I’d be calling the 3 insurers independently to find out if covered. I think death of a half brothers grandparent won’t be covered nor will your half brothers family cancelling but I could be wrong.

samuelmorris

Yeah no problem, I wasn't expecting anyone to magically come up with any answers, just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything I hadn't thought of.

My brother pitched exactly that idea re: him joining us later on a separate flight but there are some practical implications to that too - it's of no significance to the insurers but the deceased was the usual dog sitter so that's a bit of a pain, but the bigger concern is that to my recollection, if someone on the outbound flight tests positive, the Greek authorities were going to quarantine all the other passengers for 14 days, even if, as in our case, the holiday is only for 7 days. That would mean having to pay for another flight home (as far as I can tell the Greek authorities would only be covering the accommodation cost) as well as the disruptive effect on our jobs. Now, of course, that was a concern of ours even before this incident, but being quarantined with one of the kids' parents missing (bearing in mind they're 11 and 7 so while not babies, not fully self-sufficient) was a bit of a step too far and not something we wanted to risk. We've done our best to find friends/family who may want to take the trip on instead of us but haven't been able to find anyone, so it's just damage limitation here, any morsel we can claim back to offset the burden would be helpful since this is trip was paid for with inheritance money so isn't something we can afford to rebook at full price next year.

lisyloo

Can you let us know what the insurers say please? In case this comes up again.
it may be instructive for someone else.