Can we trust Travel Insurance web sites

Mid_Dweller

My wife and I are in our mid 70s and are looking for travel insurance.  We picked up on the MSE payingtoomuch (ptm) and got a quote, which was pretty good.  We looked at Trustpilot and found loads of 5* recommendations but all from people who have just purchased, which we think is pretty meaningless as all that was being rated was the ease to part with the buyers money.  Looking at the 1* reviews highlighted problems with claims.  After further investigation we provide the following: Some companies take the excess per claim whilst others take the excess per person per section of the policy.  We tested this at ptm and they advised that if we had a claim on lost baggage we would lose the excess on the clothes and again on any valuables (e.g. an ebook).  One wonders what would happen if our clothes and ebooks were in the same case.  Would we end up with four excesses?  Ptm quotes included for a company insureme4 (is4).  We decided to check out is4.  Their web site link took us to Staysure, as did a telephone number we found.  Staysure say they do not know who is4 are! We tried the is4 claims number and ended up with yet another call centre dealing with claims for multiple companies and they would not provide any information unless we had a policy number.  We looked at the governments web site for registered companies and there is no record for is4.  Ptm would not provide contact details for is4, other than the claims number.  Both Staysure and is4 state that they are underwritten by Great Lakes.  Great Lakes confirm that they underwrite many companies but would not confirm that these included Staysure and is4.
Ptm appears to have been around for some time so has anyone got any claims experience with them?  Has anyone ever successfully dealt with is4 or is this a ghost company?
At our ages travel insurance can in no way be considered cheap and it is even dearer if there is nothing behind the policy other than excessive excess charges.  Does anyone have any recommendations based upon claims as opposed to the front end ability to part with your funds?  Is it time for travel insurance to be more transparent?
Finally, MSE lists ptm as a good priced supplier but also state that all they have checked is the price, so buyer beware.  Initial price on insurance is not necessarily the sign of a good deal.

DullGreyGuy

It's standard that the excess is applied per claimant but then what most people don't realise is that the limit is per person too so most find they have more cover than they thought but higher excesses. Obviously some make the mistake in thinking only the payer for the holiday needs insurance and they can reclaim the costs for everyone if you have to cancel last minute etc but that's not true either. 

InsureMe4 is an old trading style for StaySure, they started in 2008 and whilst its still on the FCA register as a trading name for them they seem to have retired it some time in 2015 as in early 2016 it was redirecting to the Staysure website. 

Mid_Dweller

Thanks DullGreyGuy.  I agree with your comments re both needing to be insured.  If InsureMe4 is an old name and was redirecting 7 years ago is there any known reason why PayingTooMuch is still using the name?  What now further confuses me is that if they are the same why was the PayingTooMuch less than 50% of the price of Staysure with exactly the same data on the same day and why does the documentation with the quote still give the details for InsureMe4?  It might take some time to change paperwork but 7 years is a bit of a stretch.  Your answer possibly explains why the current Staysure staff do not know who InsureMe4 are.  I would still love to hear from claimants.

DullGreyGuy

Mid_Dweller said:

What now further confuses me is that if they are the same why was the PayingTooMuch less than 50% of the price of Staysure with exactly the same data on the same day and why does the documentation with the quote still give the details for InsureMe4?  It might take some time to change paperwork but 7 years is a bit of a stretch.  Your answer possibly explains why the current Staysure staff do not know who InsureMe4 are.  

Many insurance companies have multiple brands to target different segments of the market, if you take Direct Line Group for example in my day they had:

Direct Line - broad spectrum appeal in the middle of the spread
Privilege - aimed at the mass exclusive
Churchill - aimed at cheap & cheerful other than in Scotland where the brand just didn't land well
UKI - an affinity brand, so not customer facing but behind their partnerships with the likes of Tesco, Nationwide, RBS etc

Different brands could have different policy terms, or not, and did have different pricing, even when the terms were the same. Insurance pricing is more than just pure evaluation of risk and it is the pool that overall needs to be bringing in the right monies not individual policies. 

DLG now also has Darwin which is a brand aimed at those buying from aggregators like confused.com


Back in the day the aggregators were all about who's got the largest number of insurers or the biggest names on their list. Hence the owners of this site, Money Supermarket, got constant cease and desist letters from Direct Line's lawyers when they were listing them without their consent, they wouldn't have received any commissions for sales generated but clearly thought being able to say they are the only aggregator with DL listed was worth the fights and lost commission


InsureMe4 is still a registered name so they can still use it if they want to. They dumped the website for direct customers but it could be a more budget proposition that's still offered on some of the aggregators or even recently resurrected 

Dragon92

The administrator for Insureme4 is Ergotravel. I have had this confirmed in an email this morning. I too, have been checking out Insureme4 but cannot find a website or phone number for them. Staysure categorically deny any association with them. 

Hoenir

Staysure is ultimately controlled by TICORP Limited a financial services company located in Gibraltar. 

Whereas Ergotravel is part of the ERGO Reiseversicherung insurance group based in Munich. 

DullGreyGuy

Dragon92 said:

The administrator for Insureme4 is Ergotravel. I have had this confirmed in an email this morning. I too, have been checking out Insureme4 but cannot find a website or phone number for them. Staysure categorically deny any association with them. 

Its simple to check the FCA register of financial firms...

https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=001b000000NMcVXAA1 

Howserv Limited is an authorised firm and is licensed to operate under names such as Staysure and InsureMe4

If you look at the bottom of StaySure's website it states:
Staysure Travel Insurance is administered by Howserv Limited 

Staysure itself used to be a regulated entity in the UK (see https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=001b000000MfgnBAAR) and again you'll see under the trading names it used InsureMe4

Staysure is now based in Gibraltar and is a trading style of TICORP

If you get a quote from PayingTooMuch then InsureMe4 does appear as a brand underwritten by Great Lakes which is part of Munich Re (which Ergo is too). If you look at their policy book https://travel.payingtoomuch.com/policywording/IM4_Safeguard%20PD_NOV23_4.pdf it states:

Insure Me 4 is a trading name of TICORP Limited. Insure Me 4 travel insurance policies are arranged by TICORP Limited which is registered in Gibraltar company number 111526. Registered office: First Floor, Grand Ocean Plaza, Ocean Village, Gibraltar. TICORP Limited is licensed and regulated by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission number FSC1238B and trades into the UK on a freedom of services basis, FCA FRN 663617. Insure Me 4 travel insurance is administered by Eclipse Financial Management Limited which is registered in England and Wales number 07412856. 

If you look at the bottom of the PayingTooMuch website it also states:

PayingTooMuch is a trading name of TICORP Limited

Look up Eclipse and you will find contact details https://register.fca.org.uk/s/firm?id=001b000000NMYbMAAX 

Now maybe if you bought from a different channel to PayingTooMuch then maybe @Dragon92 yours is administered by Ergo, it is a sister company to the underwriter after all, but its in the stable of brands that TICORP uses including Staysure.