Insurance won't cover flights for cancelled cruise

janoid19

Hi, I hope someone has some advice.

We had a cruise booked with Virgin Voyages and we booked flights separately.

Virgin have cancelled the cruise and we received 2/3 of the money for the flights back from the airlines however we are still a bit out of pocket.

I have travel insurance and so I filled in all the details and as much proof as I could, however the insurance company have come back to me and said they won't pay out as the cancellation reasons only cover if we cancelled ourself for a list of reasons.

This seems really odd as it was totally out of our control and when I originally asked the insurance on the webchat before submitting the claim, I was told it was covered.

Has anyone got any advice or if I could take it further.

Thanks 

eskbanker

Insurance typically works on the basis of a policy document setting out clearly exactly which risks are covered, so that's the obvious place to start, i.e. what do the terms say about this situation?

sheramber

As you booked the flights separately, presumably they were still available.

They were cancelled because the cruise was cancelled, 

Your insurance would cover what is stated in the policy.

They say you did not cancel for any of the reasons stated in your policy. These reasons are normally to do with illness of thise travelling.etc. 

Presumably it does not cover consequential losses, which is  what the balance of the cost of the flights would be.
This is often a separate section and an additional charge on the policy.

DullGreyGuy

Generally travel insurance doesn't cover cost of transportation if the reason for you wanting to travel disappears (eg you book a trip to Aruba for your daughters wedding, she calls the wedding off, you cannot claim for no longer wanting to travel as now there's no wedding to go to). There are a minority of policies that do cover this. 

stoneman

If Virgin cancelled the cruise they should cover your flights as well, surely. You would be out of pocket if you went through your insurance because of the excess. 

eskbanker

stoneman said:

If Virgin cancelled the cruise they should cover your flights as well, surely.

janoid19 said:

We had a cruise booked with Virgin Voyages and we booked flights separately.

Virgin can't be held liable for something booked independently, that's one of the inherent risks associated with doing it this way....