Travel Insurance problem

S

spud26

Registered User
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36
Hi there,

I hope I am posting in the correct forum. Its a long story but I will be as brief as possible.

I booked a holiday for my parents for last july for 1 week in France. Booked flights and accomm separately and took out travel insurance through Aer Lingus website.

My Mum's brother went into hospital on 1st July last for a serious but not life-threatening operation. However, complications occured and he subsequently was on a life support machine, and he died at the end of July.

He had been diagnosed with a tumour in 2007, but at that time it was in no way life-threatening. He was told it was not serious and in fact quite treatable. In fact up until July last he was not known to be in any danger.

I cancelled my parent's holiday 2 days before they were due to go, and he died a few days later.

I subsequently applied to the travel insurance company in order to reclaim the cost of the holiday(approx €1600), and they have replied and stated that there will be no refund as the illness was initially diagnosed in 2007.
I find this very hard to understand, as there was no threat to his life whatsoever at that time, he died as a result of complications of the operation last July.

Can the insurance company do this? Yes, the illness was diagnosed in 2007 and the holiday was booked after this date, but the illness was not known to be life-threatening at that time.

My Mum is still understandably distraught, and the money doesn't matter to her, but I feel outraged on her behalf, I had thought that as this was a very genuine case we would have no problem in re-claiming the money and it would be a nice sum for my Mum to receive before Christmas.

I would appreciate any help or advice that anyone could give me. Is there any point in contacting the Insurance Ombudsman?
 
Just took a quick look at their policy wording. The health questions relating to pre-existing conditions are about the people travelling or the person they are intending on staying with.

Its a bit ambiquous as to whether her brothers illness was a material fact.

If I was you I would appeal the matter. Before you go to the Ombudsman you will have to write to the company complaining first.

In the first instance, please contact:
The Quality Standards Manager,
Mondial Assistance Europe N.V.
C/O Mondial House,
102 George Street,
Croydon, CR9 1AJ United Kingdom.
Please supply​
​
​
​
us with your name, address, policy number and claim number where applicable and enclose copies of
relevant correspondence as this will help us to deal with your complaint, in the shortest possible time.​

If you are not satisfied with our final response you can refer the matter to the UKʼs Financial Ombudsman Service.
 
Sorry Spud about your uncle...
Sorry,also, to advise that in my opinion you have no case.

All travel insurance policies state that if anyone named on the policy or a relative has a medical condition at the time of booking you will not be covered for any claim arising from that medical condition.

In fairness to Aer Lingus's insurance company their wording is actually much clearer than many such policies. Page 8 point 2 is very clear.

As a travel agent I sell thousands of travel policies each year and we always tell people about the pre-existing medical condition clause.
We emphasise how strict insurance companies are, and how it doesn't matter how benign someones condition may be at time of booking.

We ask people who may be affected by this clause to contact the insurance company's helpline . Usually the insurance company is quite sympathetic and ask for a doctors note- and in 90% of cases the insurance company OKs the policy.

I dont know if Aer Lingus's insurance company operates such a scheme. One of the problems of buying insurance on the inteRnet is that most people don't study the policy before pushing the purchase button.

Sorry if that last sentence sounded a bit harsh -but the policy you bought was very clear and is no different from any other insurance company's.
 
Thank you both for these very helpful replies. It's what I expected but I very much appreciate that you both took the time to reply.

It is not a huge issue, I know it could be much worse, but I just thought that it was worth enquiring in any case.

Thanks again
 
Yep Spud, Insurance companies are great at insuring you until you claim and you discover you were not insured in the first place. Furthermore, you will probably find that the insurance company is based in the UK and not an Irish company as you may have previously thought.

Was burnt myself with an insurance claim some years ago. Therefore, I can empathise.
 
Did you consider getting medical reports from the GP and the specialist stating that the tumor was not life threatening at the time of booking the holiday.
 
I had a very similar situation a few years back. cancelled holidays after a family member went into hospital with one thing, should have been ok, but died as the result of something else. Got nowhere.
 
Thank you Leper and AlbacoreA for the empathy. Yes, I have definitely learnt a lesson and will be researching the policy that I am taking out in future. It just seems such a convenient option when you are booking a flight, and all you have to do is tick the box to say you would like travel insurance (too convenient in hindsight).

mercman, GP filled out the forms that the travel insurance company sent out, we kept copies of the forms so I am trying to find them at the moment to see what exactly GP had written down. At the time there wasn't any requirement for the surgeon/specialists in Dublin to sign or fill out anything, they only required my Uncle's GP's info.

Another issue is that to go looking into it more I would probably have to get back on to my Uncle's GP and also the specialists in the hospital, and to do that I would have to get my Uncle's wife/children involved, and I don't want to cause any additional grief for them either so I may have to just let it rest and put it down to experience.
 
Well that remains your choice but the purpose of Insurance is to indemnify one against future events. This would be a normal request to a GP or a specialist.
 
You didn't pay with any type of Gold credit card by any chance?

Some standard credit cards cover very basic holiday insurance, but some Gold ones cover more, some automatically & some for an extra charge.

If you did you may want to check the terms & conditions to see if you might be covered.

A long shot I know.
 
Spud's story-and those we can all share from past experience with insurance companies - shows how bad it is to just ask people to tick a box when entering into such a complicated contract. And insurance definitely is complicated.

For those with experience of insurance there is less of a problem. But for the majority ,especially young travellers ,it really is wrong to simply ask them to tick a box.

Comumer groups in U.K. have asked that websites selling insurance should have a system that when you tick the insurance box
-a screen comes up with a large warning indicating the main points
- a strong recommendation that you print out the whole policy and read it
- offer a 24 hour cancellation period

I'd like to blame the airlines but I suspect most seellers of insurance -banks and even my fellow travel agents don't explain what they are selling at quite inflated commission levels.

At least, Spud, your sad tale may have made a few more people cautious in the futre.
 
I agree that people need to be careful when reading these. But most of these contracts are not in plain english and you need to be a legal expert to understand them. So that one problem.

Many policies say they won't cover, if a pre-existing condition is present and (my understanding of the wording of the contract) the cause of the cancellation. But if a person has say cancer in remission, but then dies of something else, like a hospital bug, or food poisioning then the insurance company may claim theres a pre-existing conditon.

Also trying to get confirmation of something like a hospital bug, or a problem with treatment of a patience, getting this admission from a hosptial or doctor is going to be very hard. In our case they went as far as "making mistakes" on the Death Certificate that they were forced by the coroner (I think) to correct, to give the true cause of death. Trying to get the same doctor to fill in an insurance form?

I'd also agree with shopping around, the price of travel insurance varies enormously regardless of what they cover.
 
Hi there,

Just seen this message now. I am having a problem getting a claim from this same company. If you ask me, travel insurance isn't worth it because it seems very rare that you will get your money back. My story:

Had a problem with my back/leg a year before i booked my holiday online with Aer Lingus. Went to Doc and she told me i probably had sciatica and told me it was common. She sent me for an MRI scan. However i never received the results of the MRI scan from hospital and my doctor didn't recieve them either. This was a hospital error which i found out later.
Anyway i didn't really query it as the pain down my leg and lower back pain seemed to disappear so i didn't think any more of it.
A year later booked flight in Mar to go on hols in September 09. Then in August i got severe pain in my leg and couldn't walk etc and had to go into hospital. The MRI results were then found from the hospital and it showed i had a slipped disc.
Couldn't go on hols and insurance company are refusing to give me my money back even though i cancelled the flights a few days beforehand. I also got letters etc from my Doc who completely supported me. The insurance company are basically telling me that i was investigating the complaint.
Anyway i forwarded my complaint onto the UK ombundsman and hopefully there will be some resolution but i think the whole thing of travel insurance is a scam and i'd never waste my money on it again.
 
Should you not take a claim against the Hospital then? As they were the ones who did not provide the information to you in time.
 
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