My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 800

Dies irae - dies illa !

Forgive me, please: I am nearly two months late in passing on this news.

Finally, there is closure of a kind.

It is the wrong kind, sadly: the Ombudsman has rejected my complaint.

I am not too upset, for several reasons. Firstly, the FOS is so busy that it was apparent to me that a complaint such as mine was not going to have a good chance of attracting adequate attention: it's always easy for an adjudicator to say "no".

Secondly, time had inevitably dampened my outrage.

I may post at a later date summarising why, in my view, the complaint in fact raised serious issues, but "don't wait up".

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 647

Some readers, I know, are curious as to what happened to this.

I apologise for keeping you all in the dark. I will now give you a totally implausible excuse for not telling you what has happened

NOTHING has happened

Implausible it may be; nevertheless, I assure you that it is true :-(.

And, yes, I have considered the possibility that the FOS mislaid the case file, but regular apologies for further delay rather suggest that it has not.

Note for pedants: I do not regard the regular apologies as representing a contradiction of "NOTHING".

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 470?

As the case awaits final decision by the Ombudsman, it is an opportune time to summarise the story so far.

In March 2009, I booked a weekend break in Rome for She Who Must Be Obeyed and myself, paying in advance a total of €334.60. But for €23.60 - which was a deposit for our accommodation - all of this was paid to the airline. The trip was to be in late April.

On the last Sunday in March, I suffered a bad injury in a fall, and had to cancel the trip. I was able to recover €83.04 of my expenditure from the airline. Of the remaining €251.56, €18 represented insurance premium and under the insurance contract, we had agreed to suffer the loss of the first €50 (2*25).

That left €183.56 spent on unused travel arrangements which, you might think (I certainly do), the insurer should have paid without fuss. What does one buy insurance for, if not for the security of knowing that the cost of such mishaps will be minimised ? Insurance is for peace of mind.

The Claim Form

My problems started with the claim form.

As well as imposing irrelevant, un-necessary and - as I recently learned from Edward McGarr - illegal evidential requirements, the form was designed (see penultimate paragraph of this post) to stop policyholders from claiming cover to which they were entitled under the terms of the policy.

This is a form of insurance fraud often described as "underwriting at claim time" whereby the insurer attempts through its claim-handling procedures to introduce restrictions to cover which it failed to do when writing the insurance contract.

(One of the oddities of current public discourse is that the term "insurance fraud" is taken to always involve insurance companies being defrauded. In my - admittedly unrepresentative - experience, insurance fraud is more commonly perpetrated by insurance companies.)

Used or Unused

Note that there is no rule of natural, eternal, divine or positive statutory law or regulation, or even of good practice, compelling a travel insurer to cover any particular kind of loss. But the insurer wrote the contract, invited me to agree to it, and I did. What we agreed was that this wording would apply:

[The insurer] will pay up to €4,500 in total ... for your part of unused personal accommodation, transport charges and other travel expenses which have been paid

I have added emphasis (it is not highlighted in the policy document) to the word "unused" because that word, and its meaning, became crucial to the claim.

Before going further, I need to explain that what I paid to the airline included, it said, €20 in respect of a charge for using my credit card to pay, and €123.54 in respect of taxes. When the trip was cancelled, €83.04 was refunded to me in respect of the taxes, €40 being withheld as an administration charge. (The credit-card charges of €20 were not refunded.) Of the €23.60 deposit for accommodation, €1.50 was also an administration charge.

The insurer contends that the amount of €61.50 (40+20+1.50) was not "unused". It has never explained this interpretation, even (as far as I know) to the FOS, but one may speculate that it wishes to say that the €61.50 was spent on services that were "used": the travel did not take place but use of the credit card and administration occurred. The charges associated with the latter activities therefore, the argument may run, are not

unused personal accommodation, transport charges and other travel expenses which have been paid

Taken out of context, this might be an ... interesting view of the meaning of words. But the context is crucial. This is a policy insuring consumers for some of the costs of cancelling a trip. The insurer wrote the contract knowing that it was being provided as part of a package, that the airline's price for the package was composed of several elements (fares, taxes, charges), that some of these were partially refundable in the event of cancellation, and that some were not.

Policyholders, to the extent that they were aware at all, would not be as familiar with the position. In general, they (and, in this case, we) view the cost of the package as one indivisible whole. We do not consider that, for example, use of the credit card to pay for the flights is a separate transaction distinguishable for any purpose from the rest of the cost.

(Imagine if the airline had chosen, for its own reasons or otherwise, to label its various charges differently e.g. reducing what it called "airfare" by, say, €150, and increased the "credit-card fee" by a similar amount.Would it acceptable for the insurer to then argue that my claim had no value at all?)

Regulator ! Regulator !

It is surely preposterous to suggest that travellers look on the credit card processing of their ticket purchases as a discrete service which is part of their expenditure on financial services, rather than as part of the cost of their trip.

Moreover, it is, surely, very likely that the insurance company is aware that its customers approach matters in this way. That being so, it is difficult to believe that there is not an element of dissimulation in wording the policy in the manner in which it has been done. It would have been easy for the insurer to insert a clear statement that the cover did not extend to credit card processing or refund administration charges. To have done so, however, would have made the cover being provided for cancellation look significantly less attractive, and some prospective policyholders would have moved elsewhere to seek more generous cover.

For this reason, I suspect strongly that the contract wording demonstrates bad faith. Insurers are just as bound by the duty of utmost good faith about which they often delight in lecturing policyholders. Unfortunately, the only remedy available for it is cancellation of the contract, which would not suit me in this instance. However, in due course, the regulators of the insurance company will be asked to consider whether disciplinary measures might be appropriate.

Interpretation

If the contract involved here were a commercial one, agreed by two parties after each had used its own lawyers to negotiate the wording, the approach taken by an impartial adjudicator tasked with deciding what "unused travel expenses" It seems to me that - if it could be done at all - it would take quite an effort to persuade that such a meaning could be ascribed to the provision in question even if it were part of a contract negotiated between two commercial entities. Is it the plain meaning of the words used ? Is it likely to have been what both sides intended to be the position in the case of a cancellation claim ? I doubt that it is either.

A fortiori where the contract is not one whose terms were freely negotiated between equals, but as here, a contract of adhesion between a business and consumers, it is difficult to believe that an eccentric linguistic usage would be upheld. (A contract of adhesion is written by one party only, and the wording of it is not open to negotiation. The only decision for the other party - which is not always a consumer - is to "adhere" to the contract or not;in plain language to "take it or leave it").

To be clear, though, the FOS adjudicator has not suggested that she would uphold such an interpretation. My problem with her is that, despite her expressed disapproval of the administration of the claim, she recommends rejection of my complaint, simply because the insurer finally and grudgingly agreed to pay the claim in full, while still maintaining that it had no obligation to do so. Along the way, the company revealed procedures which were - it is hard to avoid the conclusion - designed to illegitimately discourage claimants from keeping it to its bargain. I refer not only to the claim form but to the absurd play-acting in regard to the Quality Standards Manager.

It seems to me that, in the light of the aggravation which this behaviour caused me, to uphold my complaint even if only awarding fairly nominal compensation, is the minimum that is required of a fair and impartial adjudication service. After all, what have been revealed here are procedural improprieties, which almost certainly means that plenty of policyholders have been treated as badly or worse. Because, as the FOS well knows, a large proportion of them will have simply taken what was offered, it is important to "come down hard" on the cases that come to it for adjudication.

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 409

You may recall that my last report on this matter had the news that I had heard from an adjudicator, which might have been expected to herald further progress.

Indeed, I was soon telephoned by the adjudicator, who had the enviable opportunity to hear my passionate oral advocacy. Lucky girl ☺ !

Alas ! She was not long after replaced by another adjudicator and months of silence followed.

However, today* I received the new adjudicator's considered View of the case. This View is not a decision, unless the parties accept it. If either the insurer or the policyholder contest the View, the complaint goes before an Ombudsman for final decision.

The adjudicator's View does not so much disappoint as perplex me.

Briefly, while acknowledging that the insurer had handled the claim in an unsatisfactory manner, she suggested that the final result, in which it had grudgingly offered the full contractual value of my claim, was O.K., and that no further action would be appropriate.

It should not surprise you to learn that I am contesting this view.

*Not really today. Today (June 10 2010) is day 423. Apologies for resuming a bad habit

Go here to read the story of the claim so far

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 283

Maybe I am psychic. No sooner had I posted the last entry on this topic than a letter arrived from the FOS adjudicator introducing herself to me, and asking to be informed of any developments before she commences work on resolving the dispute.

This is sooner than I had expected, but then I realise with a shock that Spring is only 11 days away.

(See here for the full history of the claim.)

My Travel Insurance Claim

I have created a separate section for my posts on this topic, accessible by clicking on the heading "My Travel Insurance Claim" in the right-hand column of every page on this site.

New posts relating to it, however, will continue to be published here in the main journal.

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 226

Apologies for my long silence on this subject.

There were three reasons for this silence. Firstly, we had reached the end of the road with the insurer. Secondly, it had been taking up a disproportionate amount of my time. Third, nothing much was going on, anyway.

When I last reported, I was about to involve the Irish Financial Ombudsman. To my surprise, he declined jurisdiction and the UK one did in fact accept jurisdiction.

My case now awaits adjudication. I don't expect that to occur until the Spring.

Update on Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 10:22AM by Fergus O'Rourke

This post re-appeared in my Twitter feed (and therefore on LinkedIn and FaceBook also). I have no idea why. There have been no developments.

My Travel Insurance Claim Day 88

Last week, I finished on the question of which Ombudsman I should be considering for the dispute which has now reached deadlock concerning this claim.

I wrote (on Day 87) to ask the insurer's quality standards' official - she (there are no male employees evident so far) had suggested that I could ask the UK Ombudsman to review her decision if I was unhappy with it - why a UK adjudicator would be appropriate.

In passing, I do wonder why an apparently junior official is tasked with reviewing the decision of another official of apparently similar status.

Be that as it may, she replied

Dear Mr O'Rourke

The policy you have purchased is regulated by the Financial Ombudsman Service in the UK and for this reason any continuing dissatisfaction relating to the policy would need to be addressed by them as per the advice contained within the leaflet which accompanied my final response letter.

Kind regards

Is it just me, or is this kindergarten stuff ? In brief, her answer could be expressed as "it is because it is". And, incidentally, the FOS is not a regulator of anything (it is a dispute resolution service).The FSA is the UK regulator, but here is what my policy says about the applicable regulator:

[The insurer] is authorised by [the financial regulator of an EU state] and regulated by the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority (Financial Regulator) for the conduct of Irish business by way of the Freedom of Services into Ireland in accordance with the European Union Third non-life directive.

And here is what the FOS says about people in my position: in short, "buzz-off".

I should interpose at this point the information that the claims handler and the QS official are both London-based employees of a company acting as agent for the insurer in respect of Irish claims. So, there is one UK connection to the matter. Another UK connection is that the policy does refer to the FOS as the body to which complaints should be addressed.

Clear ?

Pause here for lawyers and others with relevant expertise to consider the effect of this situation on the average policyholder.

My reply to the insurer reads in relevant part

[A]ccording to the policy (page 24), the insurer is regulated in regard to this matter by the Irish Financial Regulator.

As far as I know, complaints in respect of firms regulated by the Irish Regulator must be handled by the (Irish) Financial Services Ombudsman. Certainly, the FOS do not want to know, according to this page of their website (long URL abbreviated): http://short.ie/getlost .

I therefore propose to direct my complaint to Dublin. That is, unless you want to reconsider your position, in the light of the additional inconvenience to which you have now subjected me.

I will now approach the Irish Financial Services Ombudsman.

My Travel Insurance Claim Day 80

Well, I now have, potentially, the full value of my claim. The insurer has, by somewhat ungrammatical letter received today, offered the balance of £21.50. All I have to do is to sign a form agreeing to accept it in full and final settlement.

I am not inclined to sign.

Firstly, if I do, my struggle to be paid my entitlement will benefit only me. No precedent will be set, as the insurance company has not admitted that it was always my entitlement. The last two improvements in payment have been offered ex gratia, that is "out of the goodness and kindness of its heart". The insurer will continue to unjustly treat other claimants.

Secondly, if I accept the offer, I will in truth receive no benefit beyond what I should have been paid anyway. I would like some recompense for my time and trouble in resisting what I continue to see as attempted fraud.

Because of the "F" factor, I am prolonging a dispute essentially as a matter of principle. Life being short, and dispute resolvers being over-worked, this is not a position with which I am comfortable: there are plenty of better uses to which I can devote my time, and more substantial disputes for the Ombudsman to decide. Nonetheless, I cannot walk away from this, permit the insurers to behave so egregiously badly and allow others to be cheated in the future.

The insurer's "final response" sets out its position on the credit-card fees as follows (original punctuation and wording faithfully retained)

Having looked into this situation I can confirm that the booking/handling fee levied by the airline and hotel was done so in order to process automated payments. Whilst you subsequently, cancelled your travel plans the airline and hotel still incurred the administration costs involved with debiting your bank account. Therefore, as the monetary transaction still took place the booking/handling fee was not 'unused' and for this reason would not be included in any settlement payment.

My reaction to this line of reasoning is, to quote Winston Churchill, "in the plural and they bounce".

For a more legalistic expression of the same sentiment, see here(final paragraphs thereof). To what I said then, I would add that the company's stance would fall foul of the unfair contract terms regulations, in my opinion.

As a final comment for today, I was somewhat surprised to be told by the insurer that I did have the right to refer this matter to the U.K.'s Financial Ombudsman Service . I reside in Ireland, the contract was made in Ireland, following an introduction by an Irish airline, with a company having an office here, and the contract is both governed by Irish law and denominated in the Irish currency. I am all in favour of supporting my old friends and colleagues at Canary Wharf where appropriate, but I am pretty sure that they are fully stretched already, and there is an Irish Financial Services Ombudsman.It seems odd to be using the former when the latter is so obviously more suitable.

I plan to explore this apparent anomaly and will keep you posted on further developments.

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 71

I forgot to mention in my previous entry that, in asking the QSM to review the exclusion of part of my claim, I added a suggestion that the mis-handling of the claim warranted a payment of a modest amount to compensate for my inconvenience and stress.

To be fair to the insurer, my e-mails querying the lack of progress (see last entry) this morning received, as usual, prompt replies.

The claims-handler apologised for (but did not explain) the delay in the cheque but said that it was in the mail.While I was actually reading her message, the postman arrived with it. It was posted from London on Friday (day 68).

The QSM said that she had indeed sent the promised formal acknowledgement by post, and enclosed an electronic copy. So, here we have a second letter - the form allegedly sent on Day 2 has still not shown up - from the insurer that fails to arrive.

From the said electronic copy, I learn that I may have to wait until July 9 (Day 87) to get a final reply.

My Travel Insurance Claim - Days 54-70

Day 54-58

In the words of the late Harry Chapin

time went by, as it always does ...

Day 59

Today, I request the Manager of the insurer's Quality Standards Department to review the refusal to pay the remaining €21.50. You may remember that the claims-handler originally claimed that there was no such person and that it was not possible to send e-mail to the department. Although she subsequently gave up the manager's name, she did not provide an e-mail address for her. She did offer to transmit my complaint if I e-mailed it to her.

It is almost certainly a breach of the applicable regulations on the insurer's part to suggest this, but I decide that ordinary mail would be too slow. In deference to the matter of principle, I resist sending the complaint to the claims-handler, e-mailing it instead to the Travel Claims Department.

Of course, my "friend", the claims-handler, acknowledges the e-mail which "has been passed to me" and a few hours later it turns out that the Quality Standards Manager has, after all, not only a name but an e-mail address, because I receive a further acknowledgement from her:

Dear Mr O'Rourke

Thank you for your email.

Your concerns will addressed by a member of my team and a formal acknowledgement will be sent to you shortly detailing our complaints handling process.

Kind regards

S***** B****

Quality Standards Manager

Let's pass over the "Kind regards" in silent astonishment and note the signature as "Quality Standards Manager", a post that did not appear to exist a few days ago. Note also the first initial of the manager - the claims-handler knew so little about her "referee" that she thought that her initials were CB rather than SB.

Days 60-69

That Chapin line is a good one, isn't it ?

Day 70

Well, more than two weeks have now passed, and there is no sign either of the cheque for €40 promised on Day 52 or of the formal acknowledgement promised by the QSM.

Tomorrow, I will be asking the company to explain the delay.

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 53

Today, the first cheque arrived, in the amount of €122.06, which, with the refund to my credit-card account, brings the amount recovered to €205.10 (out of total expenditure, net of insurance premiums, of €316.60). As we saw yesterday, another €40 is on the way, leaving only €21.50 still outstanding before I reach my minimum acceptable figure of €266.60 (€183.56 from the insurer) which is the €316.60 minus the "excesses" of €50.

By the way, the arrival of the cheque proves that the postal system does work. This makes it all the more mysterious why the claim form allegedly posted on Day 2 has not yet arrived.

I am confident that the €21.50, which represents the "credit-card booking fees" paid for two return airline tickets and for reserving accommodation, will be paid, if only as "nuisance-money" to "get rid of" me. There is no doubt in my mind that I am entitled to it, though. I am therefore going to continue to fight for it, not only for my own sake but for all the future claimants who will hopefully benefit from the "softening-up" I give the insurer.

Let's look now at the excuse being offered by the insurer for continuing to with-hold the final €21.50:

due to the fact this is a booking charge as such this is a used cost and the policy only provides cover for unused travel costs.

I have to admit that the term "used cost" is not one that meant anything to me, but I eventually decide that it refers to this sentence in the policy

We will pay ... for your part of unused personal accommodation, transport charges and other travel expenses...

(emphasis added by me)

What the claims-handler is contending for is that this means that if an expense can plausibly be described as "used", it is not recoverable. I "used" the €21.50 not to pay for my trip - if I had, so the argument runs, I could have recovered it - but for the convenience of using my credit card to pay for the flights and to reserve my accommodation.

Ingenious, huh ? I am more inclined to see it as verging on fraud, and I am tempted to ring Insurance Confidential and report the insurance company. Every time I look at this poster:

the inclination to do so grows. Time will whether I will be able to resist - after all, it might give rise to a saga at least as interesting as the current one !

Let's note in passing that the airline - which introduced this insurer to me - facilitates this kind of chicanery by breaking down what is essentially one cost into several component parts.

I may explain later why the insurer's excuse for excluding this €21.50 is legal nonsense.

Update on Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 07:12PM by Fergus O'Rourke

To see why the insurer's argument is legal nonsense, I don't think that it is necessary to go further than here (final paragraphs thereof), although I would also add that the contract term, if it were to be held to really have the meaning claimed for it, would fall foul of the Unfair Contract Terms Regulations.

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 52 Part 2

Having simmered-down again somewhat, I e-mail the insurer:

I suggest that you, and/or the person who has instructed you to reply in that manner, refresh your knowledge of the requirements of the regulations applicable, and provide the information requested without further delay.

Alternatively, you can revise the unwarranted decision to exclude some of my "other travel expenses" (page 12 of policy) on the basis of your eccentric, artificial and self-serving re-working of the English language, and pay the additional €61.50 forthwith.

Since the disputed amount is so small, the decision now may well be to pay it, rather than deal with the time, trouble and expense of further dispute, even if there is - however incredibly - a confidence that the Ombudsman would ultimately vindicate the insurer.

It takes only a few hours for this prediction to be proven largely correct:

Further to your e-mail, I am pleased to confirm after referring your file to a senior person I am in a position to make a payment for the charge of the airport tax that you were refunded by the airline being €20.00 per person as a gesture of goodwill.

In view of the above, a further cheque for the amount of €40.00 will follow the initial payment that has already been sent to yourself on 02/06/09.

I regret to advise, I am unable to reconsider the other expenses such as the handling fee of €10.00 per person due to the fact this is a booking charge as such this is a used cost and the policy only provides cover for unused travel costs.

Please note with regards to the details you require such as the manager of The Quality Standards Department this person is Mrs C B**** and the manager above this person being Ms S J****

As I have early physiotherapy and a meeting to attend, I will give my comments on this later.

By the way, today Friday June 5 is Day 53.

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 52 Part 1

Now that I have simmered-down, today I will take the next step prescribed by the policy document and suggested by the claims-handler:

If, however, you remain dissatisfied with the outcome of your claim ... you should contact: The Quality Standards Manager...

I prefer to write to named individuals, and decide that a quick telephone call is the best way to get that i.e. the name of the individual in question.(Some of you may be wondering whether, as my mother likes to say, I came down in the last shower).

Let's just say that I was wrong about that. I rang twice, to two separate numbers. At the first, I was met with a blank refusal - unless I was willing to disclose the purpose for which I wanted to know, a ridiculous pre-condition - and a refusal to refer me to higher authority. At the second, I was told that the information was simply not available. (Incredulous though I was, this turns out, as we shall see, to have been a perfectly correct answer.)

An e-mail to the claims-handler produces this - again admirably prompt (6 minutes !) - response

Please note there is not an actual name as it will be passed to the department as such address to The Quality Standards Department.

Please be assured that this is a verbatim quotation.

Now, this may come as a shock to many of my readers, but I am a somewhat pernickety individual and thus I shoot right back

Your e-mail of 11.20 on June 1 specified that the addressee should be the "Quality Standards Manager".

If he or she does not exist, who is the most senior member of that department ?

Alternatively, please let me have the name and e-mail address of the person in your company to whom that department reports.

The claims-handler - only just - fails to beat her previous record as she gets her reply in after a mere 6 minutes:

Having noted your comments, I can confirm you only need to address the complaint to the Quality Standards Manager there is no particular name this will be passed to that department where one of the managers will assess you complaint.

I need a break to restore my "simmered-down" condition.

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 49 - "A Day That Will Live In Infamy"

Yes, it's been the Pearl Harbour day of this claim. (Mind you, just like Roosevelt, I had no right to be surprised: my last travel insurance claim had a similar moment, and the memory of that partly inspired me to blog this one. It still came as a shock, though.).

As foreshadowed yesterday, the day started with me writing to the claims-handler summarising my position.

It may have a use later, but it turns out that this was futile for present purposes, because I learned that the letter enclosing the cheque in purported settlement of my claim was written on Friday last and is awaiting production of a cheque to go with it.

The amount of the cheque ? €122.06.

My "bottom-line", remember - see here - was €208.56, though I have had to reduce that today to €183.56, because, upon reflection,I accept that, as two passengers are involved, two "excesses" of €25, rather than only one, fall to be deducted.(The idea that this might be the case, has, like the one about premium, for some days now, been popping up in my brain - but never stayed up long enough to get my proper attention).

So, how has the insurer come up with a figure of €61.50 less than this ? By taking off these amounts, is how

1. Airline "cancellation fee"                                      40.00
2. Airline "handling fee"                                          20.00
3. Credit card fee charged by acommodation provider   1.50

I presume that the airline "handling fee" is the charge for credit card use. The "cancellation fee" is the amount withheld as a "processing fee" from the refund of "travel taxes".

I paid the airline €293 for two return tickets, of which €83.04 was refunded. As far as I am concerned, the balance of €209.96 represents what I have lost by cancellation of my trip. The insurance contract says that I will be paid

WHAT YOU ARE COVERED FOR

We will pay ... for your part of unused personal accommodation, transport charges and other travel expenses...

(The emphasis above has been added by me.)

The insurer is suggesting that when the airline charges me for using my credit-card to pay, that is not an "other travel expense". The reasoning for the other deductions is similar.

I reject that reasoning: just because it is described by the airline as something else does not mean it has ceased to be a cost of travel. If the insurer wanted to impose that artificial definition, then it should have written the policy accordingly e.g. by defining "travel expense" so as to exclude these charges. And even if it had done that, I would strongly suggest that it would have been an "onerous or unusual" term requiring, in order to be enforceable, that specific attention be drawn to it, in accordance with the decision in Interfoto Picture Library Limitedv. Stiletto Visual Programmes Limited [1988] 1 All E.R. 348 (confirmed to be part of the law of Ireland in Carroll v. An Post [1996] 1 IR 443 ).

Had that been done, I might not have entered into that particular agreement. At a minimum, especially as my previous unhappy experience with a travel insurer featured this issue, I would have considered one of the many alternative policies in the market.

(Stiletto is perhaps my favourite decision of all time, and I am accordingly eternally grateful to my friend and former colleague Adam Samuel who first drew it to my attention in 1993 while "showing me the ropes" at the late, lamented Insurance Ombudsman Bureau - subsumed since 1999 into the Financial Ombudsman Service - in London.)

My next step is to write to the insurer protesting the claims-handler's approach, which is undoubtedly in accordance with company policy, to the claim.

My Travel Insurance Claim - Days 46 to 48

Day 46

Other than publishing my (second) post for Day 44 and drafting my posts for Day 45, nothing relevant occurred today.

Day 47

A Saturday. I complete and publish my first post on Day 45.

Day 48

Today, having published the second of two posts on Day 45, I thought that I should tidy up some loose ends, left by me while I was still dominated by chagrin at my blunder in failing to deduct the insurance premiums from my claim.

Alert readers will have noted that the promised further elaboration of the issues with which the claims-handler's last letter bristled was not provided in my last post.

The passage in question from said letter was this

It appears that you are now not claiming the accommodation as you have confirmed you are only claiming for the lost amount on the flights being €227.96 which also includes the insurance premium and other charges which are not refundable.

What I said was that I would accept €227.96, which was not my own figure at all, and of which I cannot make sense arithmetically. I have never abandoned, implicitly or explicitly, my claim for the accommodation.

The amount of my claimable loss is, now as re-stated,

1. Paid to airline                          €293.00        (311 minus 18, being the insurance premium)
2. Lost deposit on accommodation   €23.60
3. Total                                      €316.60

The airline has refunded €83.04, and thus I am now claiming a net €233.56. I remain willing to accept €227.96, but, as that would require the insurer to waive most of the "excess" of €25, I am not really hopeful of getting it ! However, I am determined to get my entitlement of €208.56.

In that connection, I am perturbed by the claims-handler's reference to "other charges which are not refundable", and I am writing to her to ask her to explain.

Rather than put the excess into her head - in case she is minded not to deduct it, since it has been so pleasant to deal with me - :) - I have decided to remind her that she may not make deductions unless there is provision for them in the contract.

As a heretical after-thought, I observe that, notwithstanding what may have been an over-hasty apology on my part, it is not clear from the contract that I am not entitled to include the premiums in the costs of cancellation. Generally, the cost of insurance is not recoverable as part of a claim on that insurance, but cancellation just might be one of the very rare exceptions.

Update on Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 03:30PM by Fergus O'Rourke

In the meantime, I realised that the figure of 227.96 is the total paid to the airline (311) less the amount (83.04) refunded by the airline.

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 45 (Part 2)

This time, the claims-handler outdoes herself yet again by responding in 18 minutes.She starts

It appears that you are now not claiming the accommodation as you have confirmed you are only claiming for the lost amount on the flights being €227.96 which also includes the insurance premium and other charges which are not refundable.

Aaargh ! For some days now, flitting in and out of my conscious thoughts - but never quite having the grace to stay long enough to be examined - has been the question of whether I could possibly have made the error of including the cost of the insurance in the loss claimed back. I have lost the high moral ground to a significant extent.

The rest of this first paragraph also bristles with issues, as you will see below.

She goes on

In view of the above, please confirm whether this is correct due to the fact the amount you paid to [the airline] calculates to €311.00 in total which includes the amount you have been refunded by them. As such the amount paid to [the airline] is less than the total amount you have claimed being as previously advised €334.60 this is what has caused some confusion when handling your claim.

She ends by explaining her curiosity about my banking arrangements

Please note the reason for the request of your bank/credit card company is due to the fact free travel insurance is sometimes offered with these accounts as such we write to them to confirm this and we may be able to obtain a contribution

In my reply a few hours later, I acknowledge and apologise for the mistake in not deducting the insurance premium from my claim but confirm that I am not withdrawing my claim for the accommodation. I also confirm that none of my credit cards carry automatic travel insurance cover.

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 45 (Part 1)

Apologies to all who were misled by the word "concluded" in the title of my last post. It referred to my account of day 44, rather than to the claim.

To avoid a repetition, you will see that I title the account of today, which was again a long one, in a different way.

Please also note that this post is being published on Day 47, also known as Saturday, May 30, 2009. Pressure of other demands on my still somewhat limited time is to blame for this renewed backsliding. Please accept my apologies if you want them.

I start Day 45 by writing to the claims handler. First, I again remind her that she has the accommodation provider's original invoice specifying the non-refundable nature of the deposit. Second, I confirm that the value of my claim is net of the airline's refund of tax.

Third, I ask her to cite the provision of the contract which requires the additional information she seeks from my medical advisers.

Within 25 minutes - which is seriously impressive ! - the claims handler has replied

Upon further review of your file, I can confirm the medical certificate does appear to have a date being 06/04/09 of which was not clear as such I can accept this. Although regrettably I do require you to confirm how the injury occurred and whether you feel any third party is to blame and their contact details

This is progress, even though I have already supplied the requested information.

She goes on

...you have stated on the claim form the amount you are claiming is €334.60 and your covering letter states you have had a refund of €83.04 of which is the tax refund as such the amount outstanding with [the airline] is €227.96.

In view of the above, It is unclear how you have calculated the amount claimed due to the fact you have not supplied sufficient evidence from the hotel confirming the cancellation charge it is not clear if anything has been refunded. As such I require your comment towards the amount you are claiming for the hotel to enable me to verify this.

Well, if you can make sense of this, you are a better man or woman than I am.

Finally, we get this

In addition to this, please also confirm the name of your bank/credit card company if you have more than one I require all of the details

What an extraordinary pronouncement: "I require .. !

I reply after two hours

• There were no witnesses to the occurrence of the injury. I have already given you the answer as to how it occurred, and the position regarding third parties, in my e-mail of May 22 re-sent to you yesterday and receipt of which you confirmed.
• My total expenditure was €334.60. I do not really follow your arithmetic, but I would accept €227.96 in settlement of my claim.
• You ask me to comment on the cost of cancelling my accommodation. Please read my e-mail of earlier today. I have nothing to add.
• I have to say that I am astonished by your enquiry regarding my credit-card and bank account details. What is the justification for this ?

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 44 (continued & concluded)

I have to start with a confession: almost as soon as I claimed it back (in the follow-up at the foot of this post), this journal has lost its "live-blog" status. I have once again fallen behind "real time". Day 44 turned out to be very busy; not only did the insurer write to me more than once but I had of course other fish to fry, including this.

You may recall that earlier on Day 44 , at 9.55 a.m. to be precise, I had to re-send an e-mail originally sent last week. The claims-handler came back an hour later. Her message repeated her contention that the medical certificate was inadequate and her request for a cancellation invoice from the accommodation provider.She also queried the total of the cancellation costs.

I am unable to address that before the end of the day.

My Travel Insurance Claim - Day 44

My e-mail of last week has produced no response yet. This, in one sense, is neither a surprise nor a cause for grievance. After all, the cheque even if already written and posted last week would not necessarily have arrived by now: the mail often takes a week to travel from England to here.

However, I do not want to discover next week that the e-mail never arrived. So, this morning at 6.13 a.m., I again e-mail asking for an acknowledgement of receipt.

And now, at 9.32 a.m. - who dares now to suggest that this is not a live-blog ? :-) - my caution is justified: the claim-handler, with admirable promptitude, e-mails

I regret to advise I do not appear to have received your e-mail, please can you resnd this.(sic)

I re-send the e-mail at 9.55 a.m..

In a separate, but related, development, my credit-card statement has arrived, and it shows that the airline has, as promised, refunded me €83 in taxes.