Unfit to travel - when to make a claim?

[Jane1984]

Hi,
I booked tickets to USA for later on this year about 8 months ago. 4 months ago I was diagnosed with a mental illness and currently we can't travel on our booked dates.
We can reschedule our flights at a cost of course. I did take out travel insurance with Allianz/1 cover before I was diagnosed so I was wondering if I could make a claim? I have letters and medical certificates to say that I am unfit to travel at this time, would they pay the whole flights back? Would they just pay what I am out of pocket for if i reschedule? Has anyone made a claim with a similar illness? Currently I have not rescheduled the flights, I would assume I would have to do that first before making a claim? What are your experiences and thoughts? Thanks

 

[Pushka]

Hi,
I booked tickets to USA for later on this year about 8 months ago. 4 months ago I was diagnosed with a mental illness and currently we can't travel on our booked dates.
We can reschedule our flights at a cost of course. I did take out travel insurance with Allianz/1 cover before I was diagnosed so I was wondering if I could make a claim? I have letters and medical certificates to say that I am unfit to travel at this time, would they pay the whole flights back? Would they just pay what I am out of pocket for if i reschedule? Has anyone made a claim with a similar illness? Currently I have not rescheduled the flights, I would assume I would have to do that first before making a claim? What are your experiences and thoughts? Thanks

There are lots of issues to consider. The Insurance company wont want to part with their money easily and you will need to prove you didnt exhibit symptoms of your illness before you took out the cover, even if it hadn't been diagnosed at the time.

 

[Anna]

The main thing is you need to read your policy wording to know what it covers and in what circumstances.


Some general tips are -


Before you can make any claim, you need to decide whether you want to cancel your trip and claim for cancellation costs due to being unfit for travel, or to reschedule and claim for the rescheduling costs. You can't claim in advance for doing either of those things - you will have to have chosen one and done it. These claims are very likely in different paragraphs of your policy and may have different conditions applying to them. If you decide to claim for rescheduling costs, it is highly likely you won't be able to make a second claim later for cancellation costs if you are still unwell and need to cancel, but again - read your policy wording. You will need to check whether you meet the criteria for claiming for cancellation costs, and maybe a temporary illness is enough for a cancellation claim or maybe it isn't. It will depend on what your policy says. Either way though, you won't have any valid claim to make until after you have either cancelled or rescheduled.


Airlines do sometimes give partial or even full refunds for cancellation due to illness. If you have cancelled the flight, your insurer will want to see the paperwork from the airline that says whether or not any refund was given. For a cancellation claim your insurer will only pay the difference between the fare paid and any refund (less the excess).


For a rescheduling claim, you will need to send the insurer the paperwork that shows how much you had to pay to reschedule.


You should send your medical certificate/s in with your claim.


If you meet the criteria in your policy and you decide to claim for rescheduling costs, work out what excess you will have to pay on your claim. Sometimes the excess means it is not worth making a smaller claim.

Good luck.

 

[opusman]

I was in the situation of having to reschedule a trip last year due to a relative's illness.

Basically, they will pay for rescheduling if it's cheaper (or the same cost) as cancelling, otherwise you will have to cancel and rebook later.

Don't put your claim in until you are sure of all your losses. Work out what it will cost to reschedule; this includes:

• any change fees
• any non-refundable pre-paid accommodation or travel costs that can't be changed
• any increase in the new flight costs

Then work out what it would cost to simply cancel everything (basically, any non-refundable expenses you have already incurred).

If the reschedule cost is less than or the same as the cancellation cost, you should be able to reschedule your trip and then submit your claim.

Otherwise, the most that will be refunded is the cancellation cost. In this case it's up to you whether you reschedule or not, but you won't be reimbursed for any expenses above the cancellation expenses.

In my own case, I had three pre-paid hotel bookings that were non-refundable and worth approximately $5000. When I contacted the hotels they all very kindly allowed me to reschedule without charge. This meant that I had ~$5000 "up my sleeve" in terms of cancellation expenses (since if I cancelled they would not refund). I was therefore able to reschedule to more expensive flights (I had originally booked a sale fare but the fares were significantly more expensive for the new dates) and claim the increased costs, since it was overall still cheaper than cancelling would have been.

 

[Foreigner]

The main thing is you need to read your policy wording to know what it covers and in what circumstances.

This sounds right. Policy wordings will either help you or be used by company to deny claim.