Find out more about the types of complaint we’ve seen about travel insurance, our top tips to avoid problems and how we can help if you have a complaint about your insurer.
Travel insurance is there to give you a peace of mind if things don’t go to plan.
Whether you’re backpacking through Asia, skiing in Europe or going for a short weekend getaway, unexpected issues like flight cancellations, medical emergencies, or lost luggage can quickly ruin the trip.
If you feel that your insurer isn’t helping you out the way they should, we may be able to help.
Planning to travel?
To help avoid problems with travel insurance and be more prepared for your trip, you should:
How we can help
If you feel you’ve been treated unfairly by your insurer, you should complain to them first. But if you’re still unhappy and want to take your complaint further, we may be able to help.
When we investigate a complaint about travel insurance, we’ll check what the policy says and what type of cover is offered to decide if you’ve been treated unfairly.
What happened next?
These examples are based on cases we've seen. They'll give you an idea of how we look at complaints and – when we have – what happened next.
-
Belinda and Karen’s shared suitcase went missing on their trip. When they got home, they filed a claim with their travel insurer. When the payout wasn’t what they expected, they felt they’d been charged more than they should have been. They complained to their insurer but the insurer said this was in line with the terms of the policy. Belinda and Karen weren’t sure they’d been treated fairly.
What happened next?
Belinda and Karen contacted the Financial Ombudsman Service to make a complaint and asked us to look at what had happened.
We checked the insurance policy, saw the insurer was applying an 'excess' in line with the terms and conditions, and explained this to Belinda and Karen. Overall, we felt they’d been treated fairly by their insurer.
-
Rion’s flight home from his holiday was delayed. But to avoid waiting around for a day, Rion paid for an earlier flight home. When he got back, he contacted his travel insurer to make a claim. His insurer said it wouldn’t pay for the cost of the new flights. It pointed out there was a fixed benefit of £50 for delay of 12 hours or more, but they didn’t think this was payable as he hadn’t been delayed and had flown home sooner. Rion was unhappy with this and felt he’d not been treated fairly, so made a complaint to his insurer.
What happened next?
Unhappy with the outcome of his complaint, he contacted us to complain. We looked into what had happened and what the travel insurance policy said. Overall, we agreed with Rion’s insurer, the cost of new flights was not covered by the policy. But we agreed with the insurer they’d pay Rion £50 to settle the complaint - the amount of the travel delay benefit he’d have been entitled to if he hadn’t made his own arrangements.
Bringing your complaint to us
Our service is free and easy to use.
When you bring a complaint to us, it’s our job to weigh up all the facts. We’ll make a decision about what happened using evidence from you, the insurer and any relevant third parties. We'll also consider:
- the relevant law
- any regulations that applied at the time
- any industry codes of conduct that were in force at the time
When we’ve finished investigating, we’ll tell you whether we think the insurer treated you fairly or not. And we’ll explain how we reached our decision.
If we think the insurer treated you unfairly, we’ll tell them to put you back where you’d be if they hadn’t made a mistake. We might also ask them to make an award for any distress and inconvenience caused.