Travel Insurance PDS Interpretation - Alternative Transport Cover

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

I will be travelling to S-E Asia to recommence a OWCA, so need to book a positioning flight outside the OWCA Itinerary.

Being mindful of the risks associated with transits between separate Itineraries, I will book the positioning flight to arrive about a day before the OWCA flight departs.

Even so, there are still a couple of risks that could derail the plans: 1) a significant adverse reschedule of the OWCA flight; 2) a significant delay or cancellation of the positioning flight; 3) other things I haven't thought of yet...

I am eligible for the Travel Insurance provided by CBA with the Diamond MasterCard.
One of the clauses in the CBA PDS is as follows (my bolding):

Benefit 14: Alternative Transport Expenses
If, due to an unforeseeable circumstance outside your control, your journey would otherwise be cancelled, delayed, shortened or diverted resulting in you being unable to arrive in time to attend a wedding, funeral, 25th or 50th wedding anniversary or a prepaid conference, concert, music festival or sporting event or prepaid travel/tour arrangements, which cannot be delayed due to your late arrival, we will pay for:
1. the reasonable additional travel expenses to arrive at your destination on time, and
2. the cost of the unused connection (if you have to buy a new connection) less any refund or credit you are entitled to from the supplier of that connection.

I'm not a lawyer, but this clause appears to me to respond to risks 1 & 2 above.
Does anyone have any thoughts?

 

[Scarlett]

Hi Jimmy, I’m an anonymous guy on the internet and I reckon you’re covered. Go for it!

Seriously though, nothing anyone posts here makes any difference. Contact Zurich/AIA or whomever the underwriter of the CBA product is and ask them whether separate flight bookings are covered by that ‘prepaid arrangements’ clause.

My thoughts are that they’d deny any claim by saying it’s focussed on the ‘tour’ part of the sentence rather than any generic travel arrangements, ie: you have a Halong Bay overnight tour booked, or something else ‘discrete’. If they do however confirm your situation is covered that would be great to know.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Agree.

Is ‘prepaid travel/tour arrangements’ defined in the PDS.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Agree.

Is ‘prepaid travel/tour arrangements’ defined in the PDS.

No, none of those words are defined (either on their own or in combination).
None of the words are capitalised, also suggesting that they take their common meaning.

 

[dajop]

Just beware there isn't a get-out-of-jail-free clause for the insurer somewhere else in the PDS that excludes coverage for anything that is "the fault of the carrier", such as advance cancellation/rescheduling or maintenance or crewing related delays.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Just beware there isn't a get-out-of-jail-free clause for the insurer somewhere else in the PDS that excludes coverage for anything that is "the fault of the carrier", such as advance cancellation/rescheduling or maintenance or crewing related delays.

Good point, but I can’t find any wording of that kind in the policy.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I’m just wondering… the first words are ‘if, due to an unforeseeable circumstance outside your control…’

Is a flight delay unforseeable?

Airport flooded and closed so you can’t get your flight? Yup.

Your taxi’s engine gives up and you can’t get to the airport? Yup.

Flight delayed due to airlines worldwide being unable to run to close to anything resembling an on-time schedule… ??

I think this really is one to be clarified with the insurance provider! Will be interesting to see what they say.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

My thoughts are that they’d deny any claim by saying it’s focussed on the ‘tour’ part of the sentence rather than any generic travel arrangements, ie: you have a Halong Bay overnight tour booked, or something else ‘discrete’. If they do however confirm your situation is covered that would be great to know.

Yes, I get what you're saying.
But... (in my only very partially educated opinion), whatever they would LIKE it to mean, or what they MEANT it to mean, the coverage is ultimately going to rest on what the words say.
The words they use are "prepaid travel/tour arrangements", and I can't see any way of interpreting the "travel/tour" part other than as interchangeable alternatives, i.e. either travel or tour.
If that bit is correct, then (in the absence of any other explanatory information in the policy), I can't see how the common meaning of 'prepaid travel arrangements' could exclude a flight booking.

PS. I'm loath to contact the insurer to ask for clarification. In my experience, the only people I can communicate with can't give any documented statement to rule something in or out. They generally just fall back to something like "the cover is what it says in the PDS".

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

I’m just wondering… the first words are ‘if, due to an unforeseeable circumstance outside your control…’

Is a flight delay unforseeable?

Airport flooded and closed so you can’t get your flight? Yup.

Your taxi’s engine gives up and you can’t get to the airport? Yup.

Flight delayed due to airlines worldwide being unable to run to close to anything resembling an on-time schedule… ??

I think this really is one to be clarified with the insurance provider! Will be interesting to see what they say.

Yes, I get what you're saying.
But... is there a chance that you're interpreting the word "unforeseeable" as a sort of proxy for something like "highly unlikely".
I agree that the airport being flooded, or the taxi engine failing, are both much less likely events than a flight delay (even, in my case, one of >21 hours).
But... it seems to me that each of these risk events is foreseeable - foreseeable in the sense that if you were to sit back and try to make a list of all the possible ways that your travel plans could come unstuck, then these and many other events would be on that list.

It seems to me that the use of the word unforeseeable in this context is to cover off the times when there's something already brewing, like a volcano starting to rumble, or an epidemic gathering momentum - e.g. once that news is public there's no point taking out insurance because this event is no longer unforeseeable. Otherwise, the entire Benefit 14 cover would be of no use to anyone ever (except maybe in the event of alien invasion - but now that I've thought about that possibility, does that make it foreseeable?).

In my case, the risk I'm focussing on is that my two separate itinerary flights suffer adverse time changes of >21 hours combined. Even in the current environment, I would like to think that the risk of that happening is still quite low - even low enough to not be considered foreseeable.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Yes, I get what you're saying.
But... is there a chance that you're interpreting the word "unforeseeable" as a sort of proxy for something like "highly unlikely".
I agree that the airport being flooded, or the taxi engine failing, are both much less likely events than a flight delay (even, in my case, one of >21 hours).
But... it seems to me that each of these risk events is foreseeable - foreseeable in the sense that if you were to sit back and try to make a list of all the possible ways that your travel plans could come unstuck, then these and many other events would be on that list.

It seems to me that the use of the word unforeseeable in this context is to cover off the times when there's something already brewing, like a volcano starting to rumble, or an epidemic gathering momentum - e.g. once that news is public there's no point taking out insurance because this event is no longer unforeseeable. Otherwise, the entire Benefit 14 cover would be of no use to anyone ever (except maybe in the event of alien invasion - but now that I've thought about that possibility, does that make it foreseeable?).

In my case, the risk I'm focussing on is that my two separate itinerary flights suffer adverse time changes of >21 hours combined. Even in the current environment, I would like to think that the risk of that happening is still quite low - even low enough to not be considered foreseeable.

There’s two ways to look at ‘unforeseen’.

The dictionary meaning is ‘not expected, could not have been predicted, cannot be known about of guessed before it happens’. I think flight delays are not unforsefeen.

However, Australia Post Travel Insurance defines ‘unforeseen’ as: ‘An unforeseen circumstance is one that was out of your control and can include an illness, an accident, cancelled flights, or a natural disaster.’ Travel insurance glossary.

So they favour an event that is ‘out of your control’.

Which probably makes more sense in a travel insurance setting.

Most travel insurances don’t cover missed connections. There are a couple that do. But in general they are excluded. Which only compounds the confusion!

I agree however with the issue in the previous post… pre-paid travel/tour would mean ‘or’. It could only be interpreted as pre-paid travel OR pre-paid tour.

I think a call to the credit card would be useful to get clarification.

 

[Jacques Vert]

PS. I'm loath to contact the insurer to ask for clarification. In my experience, the only people I can communicate with can't give any documented statement to rule something in or out. They generally just fall back to something like "the cover is what it says in the PDS".

While that is often the case, I've had success by emailing the insurance company well in advance and seeking clarification.

Don't phone, get it in writing.