Download festival and Allianz Protection not honoring their insurance.

DarrenShan

My wife has purchased a 5 day arena access ticket and 5 day accessible camping ticket for this years Download festival, including paying for the optional cancellation insurance.

She has just had an emergency MRI and the results came through and her condition has

deteriorated quickly and probably going to need surgery on her back.

She contacted Allianz protection who handle the ticket insurance and they have refused the refund claim stating that as she knew she was disabled so should have foreseen the sudden deterioration in her condition!

She obviously doesn't have x-ray eyes or a time machine to enable her to foresee this, isn't this why we take out insurance?

Can anyone offer any advice? where does she stand? (no pun intended)

eskbanker

DarrenShan said:

...as she knew she was disabled...

What do the policy terms state about pre-existing health conditions, and what did she declare at time of purchase?

Aylesbury_Duck

DarrenShan said:

My wife has purchased a 5 day arena access ticket and 5 day accessible camping ticket for this years Download festival, including paying for the optional cancellation insurance.

She has just had an emergency MRI and the results came through and her condition has

deteriorated quickly and probably going to need surgery on her back.

She contacted Allianz protection who handle the ticket insurance and they have refused the refund claim stating that as she knew she was disabled so should have foreseen the sudden deterioration in her condition!

She obviously doesn't have x-ray eyes or a time machine to enable her to foresee this, isn't this why we take out insurance?

Can anyone offer any advice? where does she stand? (no pun intended)

Was her existing health condition or disability declared when taking out the insurance?  Was it required that she declare it?

Edited to add:  Just saw eskbanker's post above, for some reason it wasn't showing when I posted.

DullGreyGuy

Normally these types of policies simply exclude any pre-existing conditions which this sounds as if it is. You need to check the terms of the agreement you signed up for. 

Okell

DullGreyGuy said:

Normally these types of policies simply exclude any pre-existing conditions which this sounds as if it is. You need to check the terms of the agreement you signed up for. 

This  ^^^^^

Even if the condition had been declared it wouldn't necessarily be covered.  Depends on the T&Cs

pinkshoes

DarrenShan said:

My wife has purchased a 5 day arena access ticket and 5 day accessible camping ticket for this years Download festival, including paying for the optional cancellation insurance.

She has just had an emergency MRI and the results came through and her condition has

deteriorated quickly and probably going to need surgery on her back.

She contacted Allianz protection who handle the ticket insurance and they have refused the refund claim stating that as she knew she was disabled so should have foreseen the sudden deterioration in her condition!

She obviously doesn't have x-ray eyes or a time machine to enable her to foresee this, isn't this why we take out insurance?

Can anyone offer any advice? where does she stand? (no pun intended)

The only thing you can do is check the T&Cs carefully and look for any mention of pre-existing conditions, and more specifically deterioration of a pre-existing condition and whether it needed to be declared in advance or not.

If there was no mention of having to declare any medical issues then you may be able to argue that she has always lived with a back issue with no problems and this was highly unlikely to occur. After all, most insurance is based on statistics and odds of things happening.

My dad had insurance that was supposed to cover salary if he was unable to work for medical reasons. He had emergency and very serious heart surgery, was told by the doctor that returning to his high stress job would kill him, yet the insurance refused to pay out as they declared that he could still work, just something less stressful like stacking shelves in a supermarket!

DullGreyGuy

It would certainly be good if they surveyed for pre-existing conditions and offer cover at an additional premium for those with them but this is a low value easy cross sale product and no everyone is going to want to start telling Ticketmaster about their haemorrhoids etc when they are half way through buying concert tickets. As such I suspect it will simply exclude them all with no option to declare 

pinkshoes said:

DarrenShan said:

My wife has purchased a 5 day arena access ticket and 5 day accessible camping ticket for this years Download festival, including paying for the optional cancellation insurance.

She has just had an emergency MRI and the results came through and her condition has

deteriorated quickly and probably going to need surgery on her back.

She contacted Allianz protection who handle the ticket insurance and they have refused the refund claim stating that as she knew she was disabled so should have foreseen the sudden deterioration in her condition!

She obviously doesn't have x-ray eyes or a time machine to enable her to foresee this, isn't this why we take out insurance?

Can anyone offer any advice? where does she stand? (no pun intended)

The only thing you can do is check the T&Cs carefully and look for any mention of pre-existing conditions, and more specifically deterioration of a pre-existing condition and whether it needed to be declared in advance or not.

If there was no mention of having to declare any medical issues then you may be able to argue that she has always lived with a back issue with no problems and this was highly unlikely to occur. After all, most insurance is based on statistics and odds of things happening.

My dad had insurance that was supposed to cover salary if he was unable to work for medical reasons. He had emergency and very serious heart surgery, was told by the doctor that returning to his high stress job would kill him, yet the insurance refused to pay out as they declared that he could still work, just something less stressful like stacking shelves in a supermarket!

There is no arguing about the likelihood of the condition deteriorating... if it meets the definition of a preexisting condition which according to https://www.magroup-online.com/TMS/GB/EN/TMS_GB_en_TCs.pdf is:

In the last 12 months any condition which you have:

• Suffered symptoms of;
• Consulted a medical professional about; or
• Received treatment for which includes routine medicines

Then there is no cover unless it was a last minute ticket purchase (within 14 days of the event) and you were well/stable when you made the purchase. 


As to Income Protection insurance, shows the importance of getting Own Profession cover rather than any work. That said some will pay the salary difference between the shelf stacker job and your former job in the situation that a doctor says you are fit to do some work but not all. 

DarrenShan

Thank you to everyone who replied, your advice has been very useful.

jogto

My group of four couldn't attend recent concert due to me testing positive for COVID. Allianz wanted proof we were all related, plus a medical report. Insurance is a scam and completely worthless. Save your money.

born_again

jogto said:

My group of four couldn't attend recent concert due to me testing positive for COVID. Allianz wanted proof we were all related, plus a medical report. Insurance is a scam and completely worthless. Save your money.

Do you all live together?
If not there is no valid reason the other 3 can not go.
Also covid is treated just like flu now. No isolation required.

Arunmor

jogto said:

My group of four couldn't attend recent concert due to me testing positive for COVID. Allianz wanted proof we were all related, plus a medical report. Insurance is a scam and completely worthless. Save your money.

Which suggests you weren't related, did you get a medical report or how did you decide you had covid?  This won't have been the insurance company's first rodeo.