Travel Insurance Claim

Dash787

Hi, I'm in need of some advice please.  We had an overseas package holiday booked, flying from & back to London Gatwick.  The holiday had to be cancelled as I was admitted to hospital with a serious illness 2 days before the holiday. We also had flights to/from Gatwick to join our package holiday start/finish, that we have already received refunds from the airlines.  The travel insurance company are trying to get details of these flights, though we are not claiming for them. The addition of these flights would have taken us just above the maximum claim value, hence not claimed.  Can the insurance company add these to make us under insured and therefore not pay out anything?  Thanks for any advice.

eskbanker

Do the policy terms suggest that a total trip cost in excess of maximum claim value would negate any liability to pay anything out?  Which company is it?

DullGreyGuy

Have you looked at the policy wording? Travel doesn't typically have an Averaging or similar clauses, if you had a £5,000 per person policy and had a holiday that was £10,000 pp the payout is simply capped at the lower level, they wouldn't payout £2,500 because of an averaging clause. 

Dash787

It's  CEGA that are the claims team.  The policy is by Europesure Insurance.  It does state 5k per person covered and the package holiday cost was about 9.6k total for the two of us.

Dash787

They've asked for documents for the extra flights "Your booking invoice for the EasyJet & British Airways flights that show the details of your travel dates, the cost of the trip, date of booking and names of all travellers. We need to see this to verify that you were travelling within your policy limits."

Dash787

I've told them I'm not claiming for the extra flights.  Also told them that these airlines have refunded me for these flightstoo.

twopenny

That doesn't answer the OPs question though "Can the insurance company add these to make us under insured and therefore not pay out anything"

Hard to say without knowing the terms and conditions of the insurance.

They will want to know about the flights because it is part of the package you insured.

However, it's worth stating in writing that you have been reimbursed for the flights and that you are only claiming for the part of the stay and transfers.

I say in writing with the flights, hotel etc listed in a column and the specifiy the parts you would like to claim for because that gets the most reliable information back. Be nice and polite - in the first instance.

BTW who instigated the flight refunds? Holiday company or airline?

Dash787

Two penny, I think I may have miss led you.  The flights that have been refunded, that I am not claiming for are not part of the package holiday.  I am claiming for the whole package holiday that had to be cancelled.   These extra flights were to get us to Gatwick to take the package flight away and from Gatwick back home again after the package holiday ended (at Gatwick).  Hope that clears things up.

DullGreyGuy

Dash787 said:

They've asked for documents for the extra flights "Your booking invoice for the EasyJet & British Airways flights that show the details of your travel dates, the cost of the trip, date of booking and names of all travellers. We need to see this to verify that you were travelling within your policy limits."

So your package was £4,800pp, how much were your internal flights?

Having a scan reading of their current wording, noting it did change in the middle of this year so you may be on older wording, there is nothing in there to worry about. Simply states the limit is the limit with no clauses about additional penalties for going above the limit. 

The claims handlers are part of Charles Taylors who are a massive insurance outsourcing firm. It's likely that they have common messages/wording across multiple clients which may or may not have stricter wordings etc. Provide what they ask for and if they come back with a negative response then firstly ask them to point you to the relevant clause in the policybook and then come back here.

TELLIT01

There would be some irony if the insurer is trying to get out of paying because the total cost was above their limit.  The policy documents generally state something along the lines that they won't pay for any costs which can be recovered from other sources.  In this case the airline cost has been refunded by the airline.

sheramber

When does holiday cover start? 

Is it from when you leave home or from when you start package holiday?

However, you can’t change anything now. 

You will have to wait and see what the insurance company decide and go through their complaint process if you do not agree with their decision.