Travel insurance expires before trip.

litjo1

Going abroad in September but my travel insurance expires in August, at which time I have to change insurance company. My question is, if I have to cancel before my existing policy expires, will my present insurance company pay out, even though my policy with them will have expired before trip time?
Thank you in advance for any advice.

Exodi

I'm not sure whether you'd be covered for your choice to cancel, but if we consider the question based on an insurable event happening, then yes the insurer whom you held a policy with at the time the insurable event happened would be liable. The fact the trip is in the future is irrelevant.

The risk would be that you decide to go abroad, your policy ends in August, you don't take out any new insurance before your trip, and an otherwise insurable event happens which you're not covered for. We saw a thread like that quite recently on a thread about a cruise. You don't need insurance till you do.

DullGreyGuy

Why do you have to change insurer rather than just renew this policy?

Ultimately what is and isn't covered comes down to the terms of your particular policy. 

Gandalf2

My wife and I are a a similar position, with one key difference.

We are going to Italy at the end of the month.  This holiday was booked, and paid for, some time ago and at that time my wife had valid travel insurance.  Much more recently, my wife has had a medical issue that necessitated her taking various tests.  The results have been very slow to come back and have not yet arrived.  However, the policy runs out tomorrow and the insurance company will not renew it until the test results are back.

I can understand that, but is the insurer still liable for any claims that might be made for a trip that was booked when the insurance was valid?  Exodi's post suggests it is.

TELLIT01

I would think the current insurer is only liable until the end date of the current policy.

Gandalf2

So you can be left uninsured through no fault of your own, even though you took out appropriate insurance?  That doesn't seem very fair.

It suggests that you should never book a holiday for a time after your current policy expires - which often isn't practical.

Annemos

Does it mean that your only option is to try and claim for a complete trip-cancellation, before the old policy expires? On health grounds? 

(Cancel the trip, too.)    However, please see my next post. I don't think this works in practice! 


Or is one left to try and source a new policy with a Broker that would cover the new circumstances. And maybe you would not be able to get one, depending on the tests. 

Annemos

FOS says this on their website. But they are talking about where the Insurer stopped the cover in the middle of the Policy. Yours seems to be a refusal to renew cover where a trip is to take place AFTER the policy end date. 

Which would bring us back to what you said.... it is a risk booking a trip that is to take place AFTER an annual policy expires. The only way round that would be to purchase single trip insurance which can be more expensive? 

Here is what they say:  https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/complaints-can-help/insurance/travel-insurance/change-in-health   

======================

The following gives an idea of our approach:

• If you did tell your insurer about a change in health

  If you tell your insurer about a change in health, they might:

  • cover the medical condition for no additional premium
  • charge an additional premium to provide cover for the medical condition
  • apply an exclusion to the policy about the medical condition
  • withdraw cover altogether

  If we don’t think there has been a significant change in health, then we don’t think it’s fair for your insurer to alter the terms of the contract mid-term. So, we’d usually expect them to cover the condition for no additional cost.

  If we think there has been a significant change in health, then we may think it’s fair for your insurer to alter your contract – as long as they can provide evidence to support what they’re doing and why.

  If your insurer withdraws cover entirely, we’d expect them to offer to cover the costs of cancelling any holiday which was due to be taken during the policy year. Even if cancellation isn’t medically necessary at that point, we think this is the fair and reasonable thing for insurers to do.

  Often, you may want to go on the holiday anyway, so you’ll find cover elsewhere. So we might think it’s fair for your insurer to pay the difference in premium up to the value of any cancellation claim we would’ve expected them to pay.

daveyjp

Gandalf2 said:

My wife and I are a a similar position, with one key difference.

We are going to Italy at the end of the month.  This holiday was booked, and paid for, some time ago and at that time my wife had valid travel insurance.  Much more recently, my wife has had a medical issue that necessitated her taking various tests.  The results have been very slow to come back and have not yet arrived.  However, the policy runs out tomorrow and the insurance company will not renew it until the test results are back.

I can understand that, but is the insurer still liable for any claims that might be made for a trip that was booked when the insurance was valid?  Exodi's post suggests it is.

If a medical situation has arisen which means you can't now get insurance to travel cancel the trip under your existing policy.