Trip cancelled due to Hurricane Ian - looking for advise

gimmeabargain

Really sorry if this isn’t the right place to post this, it seemed the most relevant to me. Our flight to Florida in sept/oct was cancelled due to Orlando airport closing due to hurricane ian. Virgin cancelled our flights and when we contacted them we were offered flights a week later and returning a week later. 

We initially accepted these but when we started looking into our villa, it wasn’t available for the last week so we’d have to move villa and find another one at the last minute, with prices sky high. Our Disney tickets would also have to be cancelled and rebooked, losing genie plus and in the end costing us more, our car hire would have to be cancelled and rebooked and would cost significantly more as it was a last minute booking. You get the idea, everything was costing more and as 2 adults and 3 children under 5 we couldn’t afford it. So we contacted virgin and asked if we could cancel (as this had been an initial option: cancel or rebook). Luckily we could. 

We got the money back for everything except the villa (there’s a whole story about virgin not refunding, but we have completed a chargeback through our cc) which was non cancelable. We did get the deposit and the lady kindly refund the tax, cleaning and pool heat, so we are down £2.5k right now.

I had chatted with our insurance about it, about another element of the holiday which I ended up managing to get refunded, and they said oh you can’t claim for that.
 Our insurance was with staysure, annual multi trip comprehensive. Apparently you can’t claim for cancellation due tk airport closure or airline cancellation, only a really specific list of reasons, none of which we meet. So we are hoping to try claiming for delay then abandonment. But honestly, we’re not hopeful and we just don’t have a clue. I don’t have anyone to ask advice from. So that’s why I’m here, is there some other way we claim? It wa soaked via bank account so I don’t think that route. Is there some magic insurance clause I can claim with? I’m just feeling really overwhelmed with this, it’s taken a lot of time on the phone and emails to get to this stage with the refund. This is my last hurdle and I’m just bewildered. Hoping someone has more of a clue and can advise. 

I don’t know clear it’s is what I’m looking for here, tbh not sure what I am looking for. Is this even worth trying, does delay then abandonment sound like an option? How should I be framing my wording in the claim, do I go into we initially booked for a week later and then changed or minds an hour later or do I just say that we were offered a week later but knew it would be impossible due to costs?
I honestly, possibly naively, didn’t think this would be an issue. When the airport closes due to an impeding hurricane and the airline cancelled the flight, I just assumed I’d be able to claim through insurance. I got refunds for everything I could and thought it would be straight forward. But the only way you can claim for a hurricane is if the fcdo advised against travel, which they didn’t. 

TELLIT01

I used Staysure once and thankfully didn't have to claim.  Due to something I had read about unusual T&Cs I had a close read of policy documents.  Yes, I know I should have done that when I was taking the policy out.  The specific section was around Foreign Office advice not to travel to a country.  I had assumed that if the FO gave 'do not travel' advice the insurer would pay out.  Staysure would only pay out if the reason for the advice was one of 4 or possibly 5 specific reasons.  These were flood, hurricane, volcanic activity and a couple of others. 

After that I looked at other policies which provided much broader cover.

Sadly the OP has been caught by the same restrictive list.  I would advise anybody looking for insurance to read documentation very carefully.

To the OP, do you have Legal Assistance on a Home Insurance policy?  That might be the next route for advice if you have.

sheramber

To be covered for the hurricane you would need the add on cover

Travel Disruption Cover

This add-on covers you for cancellation or cutting your holiday short if the FCDO advises against all, or all but essential travel to your destination because of an unforeseen incident such as earthquake, fire, flood or hurricane.


Was your holiday booked with Virgin as a package or only the flights?

gimmeabargain

sheramber said:

To be covered for the hurricane you would need the add on cover

Travel Disruption Cover

This add-on covers you for cancellation or cutting your holiday short if the FCDO advises against all, or all but essential travel to your destination because of an unforeseen incident such as earthquake, fire, flood or hurricane.


Was your holiday booked with Virgin as a package or only the flights?

Flights only. We booked everything ourselves. So even the additional travel disruption cover wouldn’t have covered us, from what that says. The FCDO didn’t advise against travel to Orlando. 

gimmeabargain

TELLIT01 said:

I used Staysure once and thankfully didn't have to claim.  Due to something I had read about unusual T&Cs I had a close read of policy documents.  Yes, I know I should have done that when I was taking the policy out.  The specific section was around Foreign Office advice not to travel to a country.  I had assumed that if the FO gave 'do not travel' advice the insurer would pay out.  Staysure would only pay out if the reason for the advice was one of 4 or possibly 5 specific reasons.  These were flood, hurricane, volcanic activity and a couple of others. 

After that I looked at other policies which provided much broader cover.

Sadly the OP has been caught by the same restrictive list.  I would advise anybody looking for insurance to read documentation very carefully.

To the OP, do you have Legal Assistance on a Home Insurance policy?  That might be the next route for advice if you have.

Thank-your for the reply. My aunt was also due to travel with us and took her own insurance out, I looked at hers to see if she could make any sort of claim and her list for claiming for cancellation was even more restrictive. 

I’ll have a look at my home insurance, but to use the legal advise for what exactly? Checking over our policy to see if we can claim? 

sheramber

What are you out of pocket  of £2500  for?

Travel isurance pays for travel cancellation but not for additional booked trips etc unless you include additional cover for it.

Virgin have refunded your flights 

gimmeabargain

sheramber said:

What are you out of pocket  of £2500  for?

Travel isurance pays for travel cancellation but not for additional booked trips etc unless you include additional cover for it.

Virgin have refunded your flights 

Our villa costs. Managed to get everything else; flights, car hire, Disney tickets, all refunded at source. The villa she kindly gave us back the pool heat and cleaning fees etc, which reduced our losses from £3k to £2500. So it’s just the villa. 

CKhalvashi

gimmeabargain said:

sheramber said:

What are you out of pocket  of £2500  for?

Travel isurance pays for travel cancellation but not for additional booked trips etc unless you include additional cover for it.

Virgin have refunded your flights 

Our villa costs. Managed to get everything else; flights, car hire, Disney tickets, all refunded at source. The villa she kindly gave us back the pool heat and cleaning fees etc, which reduced our losses from £3k to £2500. So it’s just the villa. 

Yes, but you booked a non-refundable villa which remained available for your sole use. That you chose not to use it isn't the problem of the owner.

Any Chargeback will therefore potentially be Fraud by False Representation, a criminal offence punishable by up to 10 years inprisonment. The exact wording of the legislation can be found here. If you've used S75, this will only cover a breach of contract by the supplier of the villa, of which there isn't one.

This should be a matter solely down to your insurance and unfortunately you don't have an adequate coverage for this.

gimmeabargain

CKhalvashi said:

gimmeabargain said:

sheramber said:

What are you out of pocket  of £2500  for?

Travel isurance pays for travel cancellation but not for additional booked trips etc unless you include additional cover for it.

Virgin have refunded your flights 

Our villa costs. Managed to get everything else; flights, car hire, Disney tickets, all refunded at source. The villa she kindly gave us back the pool heat and cleaning fees etc, which reduced our losses from £3k to £2500. So it’s just the villa. 

Yes, but you booked a non-refundable villa which remained available for your sole use. That you chose not to use it isn't the problem of the owner.

Any Chargeback will therefore potentially be Fraud by False Representation, a criminal offence punishable by up to 10 years inprisonment. The exact wording of the legislation can be found here. If you've used S75, this will only cover a breach of contract by the supplier of the villa, of which there isn't one.

This should be a matter solely down to your insurance and unfortunately you don't have an adequate coverage for this.

 Woa woa woa, I didn’t say anything about a chargeback against the villa. I think you need to go back and re-read this thread. I did a chargeback against virgin as they were taking so long to refund (2 months). You’re going in a bit gung-ho they’re speaking about fraud. I appreciate it’s probably for insurance and I’m asking here if anyone has any advice about what clause to go under etc. 

sheramber

You can only claim under the clauses in your policy.

Each policy has it's own clauses so there is not one 'magic clause' you can use.

If your policy doesn't cover it, then you can't claim for it.

So, you need to read your policy. 

Staysure  have Travel Disruption Cover available but  it is an extra., which presumably you  did not add.

https://www.staysure.co.uk/travel-disruption/