AXA travel insurance refusing to pay up full refund for a villa booked pre Covid

nurse1972_2

I would like to ask for peoples advice. My husband booked a private villa for my 50th birthday & thereafter paid for flights separately for all our children & grandchildren to attend. we were cancelled because of the coronavirus outbreak so our flights were refunded. As we are covered with travel insurance through our Lloyds bank account (AXA). We have put in a claim (producing receipts to confirm this was fully paid by ourselves). AXA have sent correspondence to indicate they will spilt costs between each adult attending & only refund my husband & I. We stand to lose considerably so I wanted to ask if they can do that?.
Kind regards

powerful_Rogue

nurse1972_2 said:

I would like to ask for peoples advice. My husband booked a private villa for my 50th birthday & thereafter paid for flights separately for all our children & grandchildren to attend. we were cancelled because of the coronavirus outbreak so our flights were refunded. As we are covered with travel insurance through our Lloyds bank account (AXA). We have put in a claim (producing receipts to confirm this was fully paid by ourselves). AXA have sent correspondence to indicate they will spilt costs between each adult attending & only refund my husband & I. We stand to lose considerably so I wanted to ask if they can do that?.
Kind regards

Sorry, I don't quite follow.

The flights have been refunded by the airline? Are you using AXA for the villa?

Manxman_in_exile

You might be better asking for this to be moved to the Insurance board or Overseas Holidays board.  Not to say you won't get good advice here, but you might get more nuanced advice there.  Try Reporting your own thread and ask for it to be moved.

For clarification, what do you mean by

nurse1972_2 said:

... they will spilt costs between each adult attending & only refund my husband & I. ...

I presume that if you have grandchildren attending your children must also be adults?  (I'm aware that presumption may be mistaken, but it seems reasonable...)

EDIT:  Just realised it may be a question of who paid for the bookings and who the insurance covered

Aylesbury_Duck

As I understand it, the flights have been refunded by the airline, and now your insurer is only willing to cover you and your husband's share of the villa booking.  e.g. they'll refund 25% of a booking of an 8-bed villa.

If your husband paid for the villa and it's only you and your husband on the insurance policy, the insurer are correct in only refunding your portion.  He should have taken out a group policy.  Anything other than that would mean the insurer's liability would effectively be limitless.  An extreme example would be if he hired out an entire hotel for 100 family members, would he expect the cost of the whole booking to be on his own travel insurance if only he and you were named and the premium was calculated accordingly?

JGB1955

As I understand it, each (adult) child will need to claim their own share on their own insurance.  Lloyds were only insuring you and your husband... not your extended family.

born_again

As it was via your bank account. I think if you check the T/C of the ins, It only covers account holder's & not the whole party. The rest should have taken out their own insurance.
So if the Villa charged per person then you would only get back for the % of the account holders.

munchpot

I agree with the others. If AXA are refunding you and your husband then they have fully settled your claim. The insurance I have through my bank account will only cover the account holders and any dependents under 18 (or in full time education) it would appear yours is the same, 

sheramber

Check your policy. It will probably state they only cover those named on the policy.
 The other members of the party  need to claim for their share of the costs from their own travel insurance and then repay your husband.

mattyprice4004

Yes, it doesn’t matter who paid for it; the booking was for multiple people so the liability is shared. 

Sandtree

It is normal for each person that is travelling to have their own travel insurance. In the event of a claim each person claims off of their own travel insurance for their portion of the loss. Who initially paid for the trip is irrelevant. 

So yes, what they are doing is how travel insurance ordinarily works. Presumably your adult children can claim from their own insurances and reimburse the monies to you.

meduk1

I had the same recently and its exactly as you've stated.  
Even though I'd paid for the full holiday, given my policy only covered my immediate family my parents were not covered, and my insurance paid out a pro-rata's amount of the total.

I was told my parents should claim on their own policy for their share, even if they didn't pay for it (as it can be classed as the loss of a gift, which can be insured against)