Sandeep was due to return to the UK from a holiday abroad. But, because of Covid-19 travel restrictions, his return flight got cancelled and had to extend his stay abroad. He made a claim on his insurance policy to cover the cost of the new return flight and his accommodation but the insurer declined his claim.
What happened
Sandeep was abroad and was due to return to the UK. Unfortunately, his return flight got cancelled because of the travel restrictions caused by Covid-19 and had to extend his stay abroad.
Sandeep received a refund for his original return flight from his airline but had to pay for a new return flight – a repatriation flight arranged by the UK government.
Sandeep made a claim under his travel insurance policy to cover the cost of extending his accommodation abroad and for his new return flight.
Sandeep’s insurer declined his claim and said it wasn’t covered under his policy.
Sandeep felt this was unfair. It was due to unforeseen circumstances that his flight got cancelled and he didn’t have a choice. So, he made a complaint to the insurer. Unhappy with the outcome, Sandeep brought his complaint to us.
What we said
We reviewed the terms and conditions of Sandeep’s policy and couldn’t see that the situation he found himself in was covered under any of the following sections of cover;
- Cancellation – his trip hadn’t been cancelled in its entirety
- Curtailment – his trip hadn’t been cut short
- Missed Departure – cover only applied where a flight was cancelled when the policyholder was already at the airport, for certain listed reasons
Sandeep’s policy didn’t provide any cover for catastrophes or travel disruption as standard.
So, while we said we understood that Sandeep effectively had no choice but to remain abroad, this wasn’t something that his policy provided cover for.
We also said, at the time Sandeep bought his policy, any gap in cover arising from a claim related to a pandemic wasn’t something we’d expect an insurer to have included in its policy documents.