Travel insurance - cancelling holiday

dander

Hello
Hoping for some advice. I have a holiday booked through BA which is about a fortnight away. I bought and paid for it, travellers names are myself and a friend. My friend's father has now been taken ill and she won't be able to travel, so we will have to cancel. 

As it was all booked for by me and paid on my card, does that mean a claim should be done on my travel insurance - or will her travel insurance cover it? Or do we both have to individually claim for our halves? 

My travel insurance says I can claim for cancellation if a close family member is taken ill -  does that mean a close family member of anyone on the booking, or does it have to be a close family member of mine? And will they need to see doctors letters? I feel a bit awkward asking my friend to supply personal information about her father's illness :-(

Any advice on navigating the small print on this would be much appreciated!

Mark_d

First thing to do is check whether BA will do anything.  Maybe they'll give a voucher for you and your friend to take a holiday at a later date.  If they don't...

Your friend's travel insurance will likely cover her half of the costs depending on the seriousness of her father's condition.  I suggest you call your travel insurance and explain the situation regarding your travelling companion needing to cancel.  There's a fair chance they won't cover you and instead they might suggest trying to find another friend to travel with.  Perhaps you could sell the holiday to another couple and then transfer the booking into their names.

lisyloo

You'll need to check your policy and see if it covers cancellation due to serious illness of a family member of the travelling party.
Can you tell us who you are insured with and which policy you have e.g. gold, silver, bronze or whatever.
We can probably find the detail.

yes of course they will need to see medical details (not you necessarily) and it will need to quality as a "serious" illness and not just because your friend is concerned.
I know what its like where something like flu or covid could be very concerning for those worried about an elderly relative but it doesn't mean it qualifies under the travel insurance. It's also a fortnight away, so they may not considering cancelling now is justified (depending on the circs of course).

dander

BA definitely won't do anything - I've spoken to them - if we move the holiday it has to be moved to a new set of fixed dates and they'll charge us £200 for the pleasure. That £200 is an adjustment charge so I assume they'd hit us with that if we did any changes to names as well. I have no interest in going with anyone else so wouldn't do that anyway. 

@lisyloo it's a Nationwide FlexPlus policy. 

newatc

I can't see FlexPlus insurance covering you but you can put a claim in online and hope for the best.

I'm covered by Flexplus and I've had to cancel 2 holidays this year due to wife's illness and they accepted the first one online without documentation proof. Perhaps not surprisingly I had to through a few more hoops for the second one but they paid up eventually.

It might be an idea to see if your friend's insurance covers some of the cost beforehand.

DullGreyGuy

dander said:
My friend's father has now been taken ill and she won't be able to travel, so we will have to cancel. 

Each traveller claims off their own insurance for 50% of the cost (assuming its the two of you travelling).

Is the illness a new condition for the father or is it a pre-existing condition? 

dander

@DullGreyGuy thank you! It's a new out-of-the-blue thing, so I'm very confident it meets insurance requirements for her. 

lisyloo

The phrase I've found is

FlexPlus WW Family Travel Insurance Policy | Nationwide

Reasons for cancellation 1. Death, illness or injury: the death, serious injury or illness of any insured person, your travelling companion, a close relative, a colleague or anyone outside your home area that you had planned to stay with

I am not an insurance expert but I don't think this will extend to a close relative OF a travelling companion, but you need to ask Nationwide.

Are you unable to take the holiday alone?

DullGreyGuy

lisyloo said:

I am not an insurance expert but I don't think this will extend to a close relative OF a travelling companion, but you need to ask Nationwide.

There is often wording to the effect that if your Travelling Companion has to cancel for any reason that you'd be entitled to cancel for then you too have the option to cancel too. Nationwide have gone a different path it appears and instead against each cause said its just you or you and your travelling companion (eg Unemployment is if either you get let go whereas Pet Emergency is only for you)

As such it's not as clear that cover is in place for a close relative of your travelling partner as it is on other policies. That could be down to poor drafting (or poor scan reading by me) or it could be there is no cover. 

For a few reasons there is benefit of having everyone insured on one policy, had the OP paid for their associate to be added as a "guest" to the policy then it certainly would have been covered because of the definition of "you"