Leisure Guard Travel Insurance (Partnered with AXA) - my current experience

DullGreyGuy

HUMBUG said:

DullGreyGuy said:

The FCA do not deal with individual complaints other than whistleblowers or people acting without licenses

Consumer complaints are dealt with by the Financial Ombudsman who's authority stems from the FCA. However to get a complaint to the FOS you must first of made a complaint to the company in question and either 1) had a final response/deadlock letter or 2) 8 weeks have passed since the complaint, whichever is sooner.

Your odds however are not favourable if your wording is the same as the one on their website. If you have a look at https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decision/DRN9073779.pdf it is a similar case where two friends were due to go on holiday and the son of one of them received a terminal diagnosis. They both cancelled but the friend and complainant had the claim declined as the friend's son did not meet the definition of close relative

Many thanks for this and yes, this example is close to my scenario.  The fact that my travel companion was too stressed to continue with the holiday (his son has suspected meningitis) and needed to get back home to his wife and other son seems to hold no importance. Maybe I need to email them again and ask them whether they regard their denial of my claim as morally correct.

It doesnt, unless the "stress" is sufficiently extreme to be deemed as a medical condition by a doctor.

Bringing up "morals" isnt very helpful... for a start what I think is moral (eg having too many beers on a friday night at home) doesnt align with everyone else (no practicing muslim is going to argee with me on beers, as some stricter christians wont either). 

You pay a price for your policy, that price is based on what the terms and conditions say, they absolutely could change the T&Cs so that if any travelling companion curtails their holiday that you can too but the price for the policy would need to go up to reflect that. 

HUMBUG said:

nonex_2 said:

Insurers only exclude things that would otherwise be covered by the listed insured events.

Otherwise (taken to an absurd extreme) they'd need to say that: 

You are not covered due to an illness/injury of a friend
You are not covered due to an illness/injury of a friend's close relative
You are not covered due to an illness/injury of your neighbour
You are not covered due to an illness/injury of your neighbour's close relative
You are not covered due to an illness/injury of your neighbour's close relative's friend
etc etc

Instead insurers list what is covered, and then carve-out exceptions (called exclusions) that might otherwise fall under this. They wouldn't exclude something that they didn't imply was covered in the first place. 

Anyway, not trying to be a downer, but just don't want you to waste your time if it's not necessary.

Best of luck taking it forward.

Many thanks but I think a one liner like the one I mentioned in my previous post (copy below) might be all they needed. 

The problem is that this is a one liner for you and your circumstances. The next poster will say that the medical section says they will pay for one person to stay with you whilst you're in hospital overseas but they want clarity on what happens if you were on holiday with your spouse and 5yo, can the 5yo stay as well as your spouse? What about your 17yo kid?

99% of people dont read their policybooks until the point of claim and even then its only really those in a dispute possibly read them. If you covered everyones request clarifications the policybooks would be vast and discourage more people to read them.

Insurance can be written on one of two basis... its only covered if we say it is or its covered unless we say it isnt. The former is by far the most common in mass market consumer insurance, the latter tends to be more high net worth type policies which are priced accordingly but does mean weird/unpredicted type things are covered automatically 

HUMBUG

DullGreyGuy said:

HUMBUG said:

DullGreyGuy said:

The FCA do not deal with individual complaints other than whistleblowers or people acting without licenses

Consumer complaints are dealt with by the Financial Ombudsman who's authority stems from the FCA. However to get a complaint to the FOS you must first of made a complaint to the company in question and either 1) had a final response/deadlock letter or 2) 8 weeks have passed since the complaint, whichever is sooner.

Your odds however are not favourable if your wording is the same as the one on their website. If you have a look at https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decision/DRN9073779.pdf it is a similar case where two friends were due to go on holiday and the son of one of them received a terminal diagnosis. They both cancelled but the friend and complainant had the claim declined as the friend's son did not meet the definition of close relative

Many thanks for this and yes, this example is close to my scenario.  The fact that my travel companion was too stressed to continue with the holiday (his son has suspected meningitis) and needed to get back home to his wife and other son seems to hold no importance. Maybe I need to email them again and ask them whether they regard their denial of my claim as morally correct.

It doesnt, unless the "stress" is sufficiently extreme to be deemed as a medical condition by a doctor.

Bringing up "morals" isnt very helpful... for a start what I think is moral (eg having too many beers on a friday night at home) doesnt align with everyone else (no practicing muslim is going to argee with me on beers, as some stricter christians wont either). 

You pay a price for your policy, that price is based on what the terms and conditions say, they absolutely could change the T&Cs so that if any travelling companion curtails their holiday that you can too but the price for the policy would need to go up to reflect that. 

HUMBUG said:

nonex_2 said:

Insurers only exclude things that would otherwise be covered by the listed insured events.

Otherwise (taken to an absurd extreme) they'd need to say that: 

You are not covered due to an illness/injury of a friend
You are not covered due to an illness/injury of a friend's close relative
You are not covered due to an illness/injury of your neighbour
You are not covered due to an illness/injury of your neighbour's close relative
You are not covered due to an illness/injury of your neighbour's close relative's friend
etc etc

Instead insurers list what is covered, and then carve-out exceptions (called exclusions) that might otherwise fall under this. They wouldn't exclude something that they didn't imply was covered in the first place. 

Anyway, not trying to be a downer, but just don't want you to waste your time if it's not necessary.

Best of luck taking it forward.

Many thanks but I think a one liner like the one I mentioned in my previous post (copy below) might be all they needed. 

The problem is that this is a one liner for you and your circumstances. The next poster will say that the medical section says they will pay for one person to stay with you whilst you're in hospital overseas but they want clarity on what happens if you were on holiday with your spouse and 5yo, can the 5yo stay as well as your spouse? What about your 17yo kid?

99% of people dont read their policybooks until the point of claim and even then its only really those in a dispute possibly read them. If you covered everyones request clarifications the policybooks would be vast and discourage more people to read them.

Insurance can be written on one of two basis... its only covered if we say it is or its covered unless we say it isnt. The former is by far the most common in mass market consumer insurance, the latter tends to be more high net worth type policies which are priced accordingly but does mean weird/unpredicted type things are covered automatically 

I am guilty of skimming through the policy and not considering the lack of cover for an improbable event. I am also guilty of assuming that I am covered for an improbable event that is outside of my control and not any fault of my own (maybe lots of customers think that way too). 

But let's be realistic, how many people read their policy documents trying to figure out how many improbable events are not covered in their insurance policy?  It just seems right that you should be covered when a curtailment event occurs that is no fault of your own.

DullGreyGuy

HUMBUG said:
I am guilty of skimming through the policy and not considering the lack of cover for an improbable event. I am also guilty of assuming that I am covered for an improbable event that is outside of my control and not any fault of my own (maybe lots of customers think that way too). 

But let's be realistic, how many people read their policy documents trying to figure out how many improbable events are not covered in their insurance policy?  It just seems right that you should be covered when a curtailment event occurs that is no fault of your own.

Most don't even skim read.

As noted on another thread, fit & health young person can get a multi trip insurance policy for less than £10 which covers £20m of medical expenses and £1,000 of holiday. It would be fantastic if it covered absolutely every possible "non-fault" situation but there has to be an element of realism and particularly when price is listed as the primary decision making factor by the majority of people.

On the plus side, after a spike in events the industry normally responds and either starts including cover of offering it as an optional extra. Take the terror attacks on the London bridges... most Business Interruption policies didn't respond because the impacted businesses were in the area of the cordons but not impacted directly by the attacks. Insurers started expanding coverages (which ultimately then resulted in the debacle around Covid claims as it too was businesses losing revenue due to an illness but not because their staff/premises were directly infected).

If you want a reasonably priced policy it will cover specified risks, insurers are comfortable modelling known risks. Cost for covering unknown risks are much more expensive as modelling is much harder so more contingency/risk margin  needs to be included.