Travel Insurance - Finding Reviews

ChilliBob

Hey everyone,

I was about to buy some travel insurance from Admiral until I read the reviews (bit ironic as I've had it before for about 5 years!). Then, I filtered on Money Supermarket for the 5 star ones, and also looked at reviews. Basically it seems on Trustpilot loads of places get say 4.7 4.8 - great! - Until you filter down and realise hardly any are actually about claiming... and all those ones end up being 1 out of 5!

So, is there a different way to filter for reviews somewhere?

For context - just a family of 4, no existing conditions, under 50 etc.

Any help much appreciated - at the moment most stuff looks pants and loads look to be AXA anyway!

MyRealNameToo

Personally dont think reviews are a good way to select an insurer

Its well know that generally people who've had a bad experience are vastly more likely to post than someone who's had a good experience. Secondly if you read them a good proportion are false complaints, remember one where the insurer refused to payout when their flight was delayed for 10 hours but the policy terms say they pay out for delays over 12 hours so why is there a complaint? No review platform will seperate out if a bad review is because the insurer did something wrong or if the customer bought cheap and then is really complaining that cheap policies dont pay out as much. 

Axa is a big wholesaler of Travel insurance, whilst they are providing the financial backing to the policies a reasonable proportion its the seller that is dealing with claims etc and so the vendors name is more important in those matters unless you are concerned that they'll go bust and not be able to afford to pay out in which case that'd be Axa thats carrying the can on those. 

Have held travel insurance with various middlemen and insurers including Axa but have only ever had to make 1 claim which was on an Aviva policy. Simple claim, accepted same day, payment received in 2-3 days... it was before Faster Pay was a thing. Wasnt enough of a "test" to make me think I would favour policies written by them but no reason to avoid them either. 

ChilliBob

Thanks. Yes, I've healed Travel insurance with various providers, Admiral for the longest, as yet, never needed to claim. 

Yeah, I know what you mean, trawling through the reviews for a little while it became aparant this wasn't very useful. 

So I guess I wondered if there *was* a more useful way - besides choosing the two cover options the MSE form provides - both of which are more than double, almost triple, than a supposed 5* cover option.

At this rate it feels like any of the 5* options might work 

MyRealNameToo

ChilliBob said:

Thanks. Yes, I've healed Travel insurance with various providers, Admiral for the longest, as yet, never needed to claim. 

Yeah, I know what you mean, trawling through the reviews for a little while it became aparant this wasn't very useful. 

So I guess I wondered if there *was* a more useful way - besides choosing the two cover options the MSE form provides - both of which are more than double, almost triple, than a supposed 5* cover option.

At this rate it feels like any of the 5* options might work 

If you mean Defaqto ratings, treat them like hotel star ratings, they are based on product features not on quality of service. Like hotel star ratings they can be gamed if you want to. ie you can get a 5* policy that provides the bare minimum on everything to just scrape into being 5* whereas another policy may have much better terms and higher cover but is only rated 4* because they miss a single coverage (that you may not even want) thats required to be 5*

The classic example was on a TV program about guest houses/small hotels, they recommended a property close its box room because it was only ever used a couple of weeks a year but it was reducing the average room size. By doing so it got an additional star rating and could charge an extra £50/night for all the other rooms 

ChilliBob

Yeah, I know what you mean, and that it's not for service. I guess you still would find a 5* is likely to be better than a 3* - which most of the bargain basement ones are. 

MyRealNameToo

ChilliBob said:

Yeah, I know what you mean, and that it's not for service. I guess you still would find a 5* is likely to be better than a 3* - which most of the bargain basement ones are. 

It's likely to have more coverages and/or higher limits but could still be outdone by a lower rated policy. 

To continue the hotel analogy, one the best hotels we've stayed at without paying silly money was a 4* and is way better than many 5*s we've stayed at. The reason it's a 4* not 5* is because it doesnt have a swimming pool. For a long weekend city break there is precisely 0% chance I would want to use a hotel's pool so it makes no difference to me at all. 

I haven't seen the Defaqto grading criteria in years and even when I did it wasnt for Travel so can give no true insight to the differing levels but you can imagine that things like Winter Sports, Cruise, Ski Equipment are all features that could differentiate one level from the other but unlikely to be relevant for your 2 week fly and flop holiday to Aruba 

ChilliBob

Yes, you're right, our needs are fairly basic, we're not engaging in any winter sports or anything, and it's not like our belongings are LV suitcases filled with designer gear and gold. M

TELLIT01

Most people will only post reviews of insurance if they have had problems.  You are unlikely to find many positive reviews.  Unless there are many negative reviews, on a consistent basis, I wouldn't worry unduly.

ChilliBob

Yeah, that is the problem isn't it - who's going to review to say yeah, it worked as planned!

I guess the stats mse use about payout rates must be industry only metrics, and not available to the general public. 

MyRealNameToo

ChilliBob said:

I guess the stats mse use about payout rates must be industry only metrics, and not available to the general public. 

Stats are posted by a variety of organisations but they like reviews have to be taken in context, ABI, FCA, FOS etc all post information. For example the FCA states that about 10% of people claim on their travel insurance, 81% of claims payout and complaints are about 4% of claims. 

That 19% that dont pay out will include people who are trying to claim things that simply arent covered like travel delay after 3 hours whereas the policy requires 12 hours delay etc. Its probably not much of a suprise given the relative complexity of the product compared to say Motor where over 99% of claims result in a payout but that 1% will include claims where the car is worth less than the excess, cases of mistaken identity etc. 

https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/data/general-insurance-value-measures-data-2022 gives a fair amount of data, including firm level values, but it is 3 years old now. Again you need to ask yourself if a firm with a lower than average rate is actually harsher on settlement or is dealing with more complex needs 

ChilliBob

Thanks for the detailed reply. I'll take a look.

Must remember to actually buy some travel insurance today rather than just doing research!