Travel insurance refuse payment

tonymtbiker

Before the lock down last year. Had to cancel the trip to majorca. Spain due to covic19.
Travel insurance company refuse to pay because I was offered a alternative dates but I had turned it down.
Got financial ombudsman involved. Now they agreed with the travel insurance company.
Anyone had a successful claim with similar case? Thanks in advance.
Tony

elsien

You cancelling rather than waiting for the holiday to be cancelled may be the relevant factor. 

Really needs a lot more detail for anyone to offer any comparable situations.
When you booked (pre or post covid)
If the holiday was still on but you chose not to go, which is effectively disinclination to travel.
Why did you turn down an alternative? 

tonymtbiker

At the time. FCO restricted travel to Spain. The travel company have to cancel or change dates. And I  didn't want to commit on the alternative travel dates due to the madness at the time.
Because the holiday was cancelled by the travel company. Thought I can get a refund from travel insurance. 
Me and some friends got the same holiday but different travel insurance company. Some of them received refunds. My got turned down.

sheramber

It will depend on the policy wording.

Some policies say that the offer of vouchers or an alternative date is an acceptable alternative so they won't pay out.

eskbanker

tonymtbiker said:

Before the lock down last year. Had to cancel the trip to majorca. Spain due to covic19.

tonymtbiker said:

Because the holiday was cancelled by the travel company. Thought I can get a refund from travel insurance.

These seem contradictory to me - did you cancel (as implied in the first post) or did the travel company cancel (second post)?

If the latter (and assuming it was a holiday in the sense of a package holiday, covered by the Package Travel Regulations) then the travel company would have been obliged to refund you if you didn't wish to accept vouchers or alternative dates, so insurers won't usually cover losses that can be recovered elsewhere....

Sandtree

The Financial Ombudsman has two layers, the first decision comes from an adjudicator/investigator and either you or the insurer can reject their decision. The second decision comes from an ombudsman (an not The) and is binding on the insurer.  You say the ombudsman didn't uphold your complaint and so did you ask for it to be escalated?

The Ombudsman doesn't have precedence and so finding one ruling thats different isnt that uncommon and doesn't require the ombudsman to follow that previous decision. In what appears to be a straightforward case however 99.9% of cases will have the same outcome. 

If you've already been rejected by the Ombudsman your remaining option is to pay to go to court. The courts aren't bound by the Ombudsman's decisions but generally its considered that the FOS is more customer focused and the courts more neutral so more often than not results in court are less favourable. Again, there are always exceptions. 

mattyprice4004

It sounds like you weren't covered for the event in question - if the Ombudsman has rejected your claim you're not likely to have a better result in court etc.
What was the exact reason they gave for the decline of the claim?

illbeurhuckleberry

That’s such a shame. A lot of people who are offered vouchers are only valid for 12 months.
I got my money back from easyJet. They cancelled my flight and moved the time which didn’t suit me so I argued for a refund. I guess if I had cancelled citing times unsuitable and then requested a refund they would of told me to jump.

lisyloo

tonymtbiker said:

At the time. FCO restricted travel to Spain. The travel company have to cancel or change dates. And I  didn't want to commit on the alternative travel dates due to the madness at the time.
Because the holiday was cancelled by the travel company. Thought I can get a refund from travel insurance. 
Me and some friends got the same holiday but different travel insurance company. Some of them received refunds. My got turned down.

You had booked a holiday. I sympathise with the situation but if you decided you didn't want it anymore then that's called disinclination and it's generally not covered.
Your reason for disinclination is understandable but you're not entitled to your money back.
The company were able to provide it albeit at a different date.

I think your wrong assumption was that you're entitled to a refund when you were entitled to get the holiday albeit on changed dates.
The lesson here is not to make a costly decision until you are sure you are covered. The point you turned down the alternative was when you decided to forfeit without being covered.

Sorry and I sympathise, but I don't think you'll get anywhere.