Nationwide Flex AC Travel Insurance : How to get proof of insurance

adindas

Dear All

I and many others on MSE ((I believe) ) have a Nationwide travel insurance as part of nationwide flexible account.

Nationwide has issued a certificate annually as proof that you are insured, but since about two years ago they stop doing that. This has created many problems as Insurance certificate is needed in many cases not just when you apply want to claim your money back from the insurance.

For instance, for Visa application, visa on arrival etc. Even for a visa waiver country in many cases they will still ask you proof of travel insurance and money on the arrival gate.

In Ukraine for instance British Citizen passport holders can enter Ukraine without a visa for visits of up to 90 days within a 180-day period but they might still ask you proof of insurance. You could not just show to the immigration and border officer your insurance number and ask them to call your insurance provider like you normally will do when you visit the hospital/doctors overseas. Do that and they will send you right back on the next flight.

I have tried to ask Nationwide about this but they keep saying they do not issue the travel certificate any more.  I actually fail to understand the reason behind it as issuing an electronic certificate will cost them nothing.

I wonder ho to get the insurance certificate from Nationwide. Or it will be grateful If have experience how to handle the situation like this that you could share??

Sandtree

You would imagine it is to do with the data flows between Nationwide (your bank) and UK Insurance (your insurer - part of Direct Line Group).

There is no legal requirement to issue certificates of insurance for travel insurance. You could register a complaint if they refuse to and you may get a token inconvenience payment however if you find it useful to have a certificate then it may be worth looking at a different insurance option. From memory Barclay's only give you a generic certificate addressed to "Barclays Account Holder" or such.

adindas

Sandtree said:

You would imagine it is to do with the data flows between Nationwide (your bank) and UK Insurance (your insurer - part of Direct Line Group).

There is no legal requirement to issue certificates of insurance for travel insurance. You could register a complaint if they refuse to and you may get a token inconvenience payment however if you find it useful to have a certificate then it may be worth looking at a different insurance option. From memory Barclay's only give you a generic certificate addressed to "Barclays Account Holder" or such.

Thank is a helpful reply. Will consider that option. In the meanwhile I am still hoping to hear other people experience whether there is a way they could get the insurance certificate from Nationwide. Or a better way to handle the situation like this that they could share??

oscarward

 Do you still get an email to say you are covered? Will that suffice to say you have insurance.

Have you any declared medical conditions? We have and by declaring ended up speaking direct to UK Insurance.  Cheaper to buy the upgrade to world wide and declared conditions than buy in outright elsewhere. They confirmed we were covered by letter so whilst not a certificate I think it's close as you are going to get.

adindas

Thank you for response,

Indeed, I did upgrade my NW insurance for Worldwide Cover about two years ago and I did get the letter like you said. But this year I do not want to upgrade it as I do not need it.

Also, the reason why I am not going to upgrade it because after thinking that twice I am not quite sure whether the letter like that will meet the requirement of the embassy or border force/immigration. In many occasions you do not need to show your travel insurance, but If you travel abroad the last thing you want is to take your chance being send back home on the next flight.

It is still astonishing me why the NW refuses to give people the certificate. They did it a few years ago and suddenly stop it. I remember the reason for that (as they said) is to save cost, which does not make sense at all as it costs them nothing to provide an “electronic certificate”. Keep in mind they already have that certificate from previous year, all they need to do is to change the date and email it to you or attach in your online banking profile.

I think the reason behind it because the UK Insurance (the insurer itself part of Direct Line Group) wants the NW flex customers to upgrade their basic insurance. By that way they will provide a letter of extra coverage.

Here in MSE we are educated to count every penny are not we?? Let alone buying a new insurance unnecessarily if you do not need it. But considering my time that might be wasted dealing with them I think I will just give up and buy the new insurance from other providers which make the current NW insurance will be redundant. But I am not going to upgrade my NW insrusance as even with that extra coverage letter when you buy an upgrade, I doubt if it could meet the requirement of the embassy or border force/immigration. Also because I do not like the practice of asking people to upgrade something, pay more to provide a person with the one they should have got anyway.

If you buy travel insurance from the post office or from admiral you will get certificate that will meet the embassy / border force requirement.

Sandtree

adindas said:

If you buy travel insurance from the post or from admiral you will get certificate that will meet the embassy / border force requirement.

Here in MSE we are counting every penny are not we?? Let alone buying a new insurance unnecessarily. But considering my time that might be wasted dealing with them I think I will just give up and buy the new insurance from other providers which make the current NW insurance will be redundant.

But the difference there is that you have gone out and bought a policy and so given the insurer all your details for them to be able to issue the certificate.

What we don't know here is what NW are giving UKI to be able to issue certificates (or if NW have delegated authority to issue on UKI paper themselves)... in theory they could give a data feed of all customer names, addresses, dob etc to enable them to be produced. But you then have to look at the terms... presumably if you down grade or cancel your account then you lose the insurance straight away so if the insurer has given you a 12 month certificate they then must send out a termination notice, so another data feed required to deal with that and whilst you are happy with email communications not all customers are and so there will be postal costs on top for both. 

I don't know the T&Cs for the NW accounts/their insurance but I see some previous threads talking about if you don't meet the minimum funding/transactions in any month then the insurance stop... if this is the case then you have termination letters to go again and then presumably reinstatement letters once the T&Cs are met again.

And all this is just the initial letters/emails being sent... the problem with sending these things is that its a call to action and you get customers phoning to ask why their policy has been stopped when they close their account etc.

We are also in the world of GDPR and "unnecessary" data exchanges are looked to be limited. As a travel underwriter I don't really care about your full home address and only need it to issue docs but if I don't need to issue docs I don't need it at all so one less piece of personal data floating around the internet.  As a claims handler I am more interested in it but the proportion of NW customers making a claim each year will be tiny. For example a well known breakdown company charge direct customers 50% more to add European cover to their policies however on the wholesale market (eg to banks who want to give it away to account holders) there is no cost difference because claims are just so rare... but the bank can give UK cover for free and charge to upgrade to European cover if they wanted despite no price difference to them.