Travel insurance claim advice

DrPhilG

Hi all

Had a bit of a nightmare holiday last month in Canada. We have annual multi trip insurance via Insureandgo - the Gold level cover. I'm going to contact them but I just thought I'd check for advice before contacting them. Not that I'm cynical, but I want to check what I am or am not eligible for. Some of the issues were our own stupidity, some were "acts of God" and some were airport issues.

• On the way out, my wife left her hang luggage unattended. As I say her own fault. As a result it ended up being lifted by the cops and left at lost property. We collected it again on the way home, but she was left without the contents obviously. Is there generally any allowance for this inconvenience?

• We were due to arrive at Jasper National Park on the 23rd of July. On the evening of the 22nd, out of control wildfires resulted in road closures and the complete evacuation of the park. (Google it for the details, but basically nearly half of the town was destroyed and the fires are still burning). We had accommodation booked, and we will in due time get our deposit back, but again it's a question of inconvenience and upset plans rather than actual financial loss. The 3 days in Jasper would have been the highlight of the trip, and we ended up having to drive east ahead of schedule and spend 3 nights in our friend's house (one of them slept on the couch to accommodate us).

• We had originally booked a direct flight home. This was changed (without notifying us btw) to a connection as the direct flight was cancelled. We knew that a few weeks out though. When it came around, the first flight (Calgary to Toronto) was delayed by an Air Traffic Control issue resulting in us missing our connection. The airline said that they were not responsible as the delay was caused by ATC (fair enough, although they were also bloody rude) which meant that although they rebooked us for the next day, we had to sort out our own accommodation which ended up costing about €250 for B&B at an airport hotel. We also ended up spending more money the next day as we had a day to kill in Toronto but that was our own choice. We were offered a flight at 5:30pm which would have been a delay of 19.5 hours but we opted for the 10pm flight as the early one would have landed us in Dublin at 5am and Lost Property (to recover her luggage) didn't open until 7am.

Thoughts? I'm guessing that we would certainly be eligible for the cost of the hotel required by the flight delay but is there generally anything in these policies to cover the inconvenience of the other issues? I'll start digging through the policy document now too but that's probably a zillion pages long and deliberately confusing so thought I'd seek advice here too. I'll update any relevant info I find in the policy.

DrPhilG

Pulled this from the summary of the document, removed the irrelevant stuff like injury, fraud etc.

This would seem to rule out any cover for the Jasper diversion:

o. Any claim which is directly or indirectly caused by, results from, or is in connection with a Natural Disaster

And this one will kill any claim re the lost & recovered bag:

3(a) Duty to take care:You must take proper and due care of Your property including examination of Your Personal Luggage on arrival at Your destination. In the event of loss or damage, You must take all reasonable steps to safeguard and recover Your property. You must not leave Your property unsecured or outside Your reach or Unattended at any time in a place to which the public have access or in the custody of a person who is not a Travelling Companion.

I wonder if this will rule me out of claiming for the missed connection. I'm guessing that it refers to a traffic jam on the way to the airport etc, but will they also say that it refers to air traffic control decisions?

• Any claim caused by traffic congestion.

Guffy

1. You recovered the baggage so you're not at a financial loss. I appreciate that you may of had to purchase items for the trip but there's no section on the policy to cover you leaving your luggage unattended (even if it wasn't returned to you).
2. There is accommodation cover under the policy that will cover you for any additional costs or funds not being returned (you would need confirmation from your accommodation that deposit won't be returned to you) this would include additional travel expenses that would not have been ordinarily incurred in order to continue your trip(once substantiated) and fire is covered. However, if it was a "natural disaster" than there would have to have been additional cover taken out prior to the event taking place.
3. The airline would be required to cover accommodation/meals. There would be a flight delay section on the policy but your flight was cancelled so not sure if it would be applicable and even if it were it only covers emergency expenses, silver is 30 euro for first 12 hours of DELAY and 20 euro for subsequent 12 hour periods. I can't remember how EU261 applies to flights departing outside of EU, but I think Canada has something similar so you would probably have better luck googling that.

DrPhilG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122478338#Comment_122478338

Hi @Guffy

Thanks for the response. Yeah I've come to the same conclusion re 1 & 2.

On 3 however, EU261 doesn't apply because the delay was caused by air traffic control, not by the airline. The airline used the same logic to deny any hotel or food cover. I'll look into possible Canadian equivalents but I'd say that the same will apply. EDIT, just checked and although there is similar legislation, it's generally not as good as the EU one, and it DOES have the same exclusion for air traffic control instructions.

$30 each for the 12hr delay under the travel insurance is pretty comical. I'm more interested in getting cover for the €250 accommodation costs.