Insurance company trying to claw back flight refund from me.

Grumpy_chap

pinheadplanet said:

But the full Qatar flight costs IS fully refundable to the insurance company, so they are expected to profit from it?

Let's say the Qatar flight cost £1000 and the Emirates refund is £200, so my insurance company can recoup £1200 for a £1000 spend? Is that what you're saying?

No-one can recoup more than 100% of the original flight cost (Emirates).  Let's make it simple:
Emirates flight cost £1,000
Replacement flight cost Qatar £1,200
Emirates can only refund anybody a max of £1,000, though the insurance company will try to recover the full £1,200
Whatever Emirates refunded to you (£400) needs to be passed to the insurance company, who paid the cost of the replacement Qatar flight.
The insurance will try to recover the balance from Emirates
Whatever balance cannot be recovered is what you had the insurance for in the first place.

Why do you think you should have return flights plus £400?

As others said, you have been very fortunate that the insurance company arranged and paid for the return flights.  It is not uncommon that if you are stranded you need to make and pay for your own return and then recover the costs afterwards.

Aylesbury_Duck

You've profited.  Of course they have a right to ask for the money.  Don't be greedy.

GHolmesAdmin

pinheadplanet said:

Hi. 

Our insurance company flew us home on Qatar after Emirates cancelled our flights. Eventually after much fighting we managed to get a part refund from Emirates for the flights they cancelled but now our insurance company is asking me to pay them any money that was refunded from Emirates (about £400).

This doesn't sound right. I know that Emirates will have had a legal duty to book us on to other flights once they cancelled theirs, so I can well see that my insurers have a right to claim back from Emirates the amount they paid for the Qatar flights,   but not any refund paid by Emirates to us, as this amount is not part of my insurance companies costs. 

What is the legal standpoint? 
Thanks. 

Sounds right to me. What's the problem?

kelvinwebb

Evening all, excuse my absence, been working all day. I'm going to go through now and hopefully be able to respond as best I can. Thanks all for the input.

May I ask who here is speaking as a legal representative? Or is this all speculative opinion?

kelvinwebb

Grumpy_chap said:

Yes, the Emirates refund is the cost that needs to go to the insurance company to pay for the Qatar flight.  Emirates cannot pay the costs twice.  You should not expect to profit.

Emirates are bound by law to provide alternative flights when cancelling a flight, they did not. And let me assure everyone here, we will not be profiting from any of this situation. These are just of 2 of 7 flights that were cancelled, along with various hotel stays, trains, visas etc etc. FYI the insurance claim remains outstanding, it was submitted in April, 8 months ago!

kelvinwebb

JamoLew said:

you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding.

Put it this way -- why do you think you should have/keep the £400 ?

You had a flight booked home and you flew home - why should you profit from that (ignoring any possible delay compensation, out of pocket expenses etc)

Because my insurance company will have recovered the full cost of the Qatar flights from Emirates as they are bound in law to do so.

kelvinwebb

Nebulous2 said:

I very much doubt if your insurance company are able to claim anything from Emirates. During the pandemic liability has been limited to a refund of the cancelled flights, not what are known as ‘contingent liabilities’ Equally your insurer cannot reclaim anything, because it is you that has the contract with Emirates, assuming you paid direct, not them. What they usually do is send you away to recover money from the airline and deduct it from your claim. Did you sign anything to say you were giving your right of recovery from Emirates to your insurer?

I’d say you were extremely lucky as it was. I was insured with Directline. I was stranded in New Zealand in April and they offered no help at all.  It cost me almost £4K to get home and after that they only made a partial payment of roughly £2k and sent me away to argue with Barclaycard and lastminute.com about the rest. As it stands I’m still £1000 over and above the original cost of my flight out of pocket. 

Sorry to hear you're still a grand oop. Just goes to prove to everyone else on here that we are not aiming to profit from our situation, we too are in a similar position

Grumpy_chap

kelvinwebb said:

my insurance company will have recovered the full cost of the Qatar flights from Emirates as they are bound in law to do so.

Do you know that, or is that speculation?
How do you know they did not receive the cost of the replacement flights less the £400 refund paid to you?

k3lvc

kelvinwebb said:

Evening all, excuse my absence, been working all day. I'm going to go through now and hopefully be able to respond as best I can. Thanks all for the input.

Who are you ? Have you just let slip an alter-ego ?

[Deleted User]

kelvinwebb said:

Evening all, excuse my absence, been working all day. I'm going to go through now and hopefully be able to respond as best I can. Thanks all for the input.

May I ask who here is speaking as a legal representative? Or is this all speculative opinion?

 Who cares if you were workkng who are you