Anniversary meal cancelled due to Gov. covid rules

old_dinosaur

Hi Has anyone else had this problem? We had booked a huge house and a chef to serve a meal on the actual day of our 40th Wedding anniversary. The House was covered under our travel insurance and they kindly refunded less £80 for admin fees!!
However the Chef had our deposit but thankfully never requested the balance as by then we were in lockdown. At first he refused a refund saying his T& Cs said no refund then after taking legal advice refunded us half. To claim the other half we immediately contacted the Party Insurance company, as we were advised they would cover the meal as our travel insurance obviously didn't. They asked for numerous documentation and emails etc which we sent. We contacted them by email and phone over the past 5 months always speaking to different people and then this week received an email stating that the policy said they wouldn't pay out for any Government ruling. The money is a smallish amount but its the principle. We have looked in the very very small print and under Section 1 B d any claim arising directly or indirectly from; i. "government regulation or act", So I'm guessing that's it. Am so glad we hadn't paid the £1k for the food!
We didn't choose to rearrange as it involved 7 household with 2 relatives needing to shield and the Big House was booked next year during the School holidays and we wouldn't have the Chef again after all the problems, he did offer a takeaway service, not a great suggestion as we live 200 miles away!. 
The following wording is from the Party Insurance company's website. http://www.party-insurance.co.uk/party-insurance-what-to-do-if-your-party-venue-cancels-news16.html

"Armed with our Party Insurance and this stress free guide to facing this logistical nightmare, we have got you covered. You shouldn't be losing sleep over your unavoidable party venue cancellation because, rest assured, we're here to help." "Peace of mind. Knowing that you have the support of an insurance policy to cover a multitude of eventualities is reassuring"

Just feel miffed that we did the right thing to cover our 5 day stay at the House and in addition the Party insurance for our special day. We took it out end of January and with hindsight don't know why we bothered with this insurance. Our thoughts are with anyone whose has taken out insurance to cover their special day and discovered that actually Companies have got themselves well covered!.

MattMattMattUK

Is there a question in relation this that you have forgotten to add?

elsien

You can make a complaint then take it to the ombudsman if you think they are acting unfairly. 

The_Fat_Controller

Spare a thought for the chef who now does not have any work.

TheAble

The chef is not the op's concern. And in any case he's kept half the deposit, unfairly, in return for nothing.

Thrugelmir

TheAble said:

The chef is not the op's concern. And in any case he's kept half the deposit, unfairly, in return for nothing.

Presumably the Chef did something. At the very least incur time. Precisely the reason that non refundable deposits are taken in the first place. 

elsien

The_Fat_Controller said:

Spare a thought for the chef who now does not have any work.

That's academic though, when the OP took out insurance which they thought covered them for this sort of eventuality. They're after the rest of their money from them. 

old_dinosaur

The chef like many restaurant owners turned his business to a takeaway one so although not cooking meals at Weddings etc was still receiving a turnover unlike some.poor people.

old_dinosaur

Hi Thanks for all your comments. The question was really has anyone had any joy with their insurance company?
As everyone was asked to claim their money back from the Companies they had a contract with, be it air travel or accommodation etc etc and if not to go to their credit card/bank card companies and then insurance. It would be great to find out if anyone has had refund from their insurance policy. Unfortunately the Chef wanted a cheque for deposit not credit card.
Thrugelmir- yes the Chef had emailed us a few times to include menus and so we had offered him £40 for this. No food had been purchased as 3 months before event and in fact, once lockdown occurred we never heard from the Chef to confirm menus, pay the balance etc etc. When we asked for the deposit over and above the £40 he quickly stated he was taking legal advice! After several emails from us he offered us half the deposit and rest we stupidly assumed the Party Insurance would pay, but after many phone calls, even one that said we would receive a refund, the email came in yesterday to say we couldn't claim as it was due to a Gov. regulation / Act. .Looks like the Health Act covers this statement.
Please let us know if you think differently?

jonesMUFCforever

There have been many instances on here of people claiming on all sort of insurances due to covid.
As far as I know NONE of these policies work without an excess. Seems to me you have come out of this pretty well.

TheAble

How much are you actually out of pocket here?