To think it's impossible to find reliable travel insurance?

[turquoiseshell]

People on Mumsnet love travel insurance and say that you're mad to travel without it. I followed advice on Mumsnet and went on an online comparison site and entered details. It came up with lots of suggestions, from cheap to expensive. I then went through the list of suggestions on Trustpilot. A lot of the companies came up with around 4.5 stars, so looked great. But when I filtered the reviews for "claims" it was a completely different story. Everyone said that when they had to claim they were then dealing with a separate company. Almost without exception, all the reviews about claiming said that the experience was absolutely terrible, caused huge stress and financial difficulties, etc etc. So - setting up what looks like good value insurance cover is one thing, but claiming under it is something else entirely. And it's the claiming part that actually matters.
Can I ask for recommendations from people who have actually had to claim under their insurance and had a good experience? I'm really struggling to find anything I feel I can place any reliance on.

I've used the AA travel insurance for the last 5-6 years. I've had to claim once for my husband having a broken leg and both of us therefore being unable to travel. Tthere were no hitches or delays in payment, just one follow up email asking for cancellation confirmations.

We have cover with Lloyds as part of our bank account. DH was injured on a trip once and the hospital fees were covered immediately.

Interesting - I'm with Lloyds but don't have cover through them.

Usually people just pick the cheapest then they find out why it was the cheapest

It was a few years ago that we had to claim, so the recommendation may not hold good, but the Post Office were excellent.

I've checked them and they have a very low score on Trustpilot.

Remember people only really leave reviews on trust pilot if they've got an axe to grind.

I don't know if the posters on this thread with positive experiences of claims left a review on trust pilot, but most positive experiences don't.

It's one of my bugbears that travel insurers invite reviews from people who have just bought their product and there are pages of glowing reviews .... about the purchase process. It's extremely difficult to find reviews of claims. Only people with a very bad experience tend to review.
Plus all companies outsource their claims handling to a few specialist medical claim handling firms.
I have a lot of pre-existing medical conditions and my annual policy is expensive for me and DH. I find the specialist insurers like Staysure are often more expensive. I'd be happy to pay a bit more if I was confident of the claims service but I've seen a lot of bad experiences with them on MN alone.

Claimed once, years ago when a DC was ill in Tenerife and it was a nightmare. That policy was with Virgin Money but was handled by some company in Ireland.

More recently I had a policy with Holiday Extras. DH was referred for a chest x-ray after an infection. He was perfectly fit to travel but we dutifully notified the insurance company. They then refused to cover him AT ALL. They did, however, agree to pay up if we cancelled the holiday. We cancelled and got the claim paid less excess.

I now have insurance through nationwide bank who use Aviva. It costs £18 a month plus about £400 extra for pre-existing medical conditions.
I booked a holiday in February and was taken ill a week before travel. My GP advised me not to travel. The claim was pretty seamless and I got the payout this week, less £100 excess. Had to pay the GP£40 to fill in the form.

I have a couple of threads on this bookmarked because of the same issue

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/holidays/5185202-ever-claimed-on-your-travel-insurance-did-you-like-your-insurer?reply=139860596

www.mumsnet.com/talk/holidays/5202191-travel-insurance?reply=139584094

Unfortunately the Trustpilot reviews of the company that deals with insurance claims for Lloyds are bad. This is a very recent one:
"We had travel insurance through our Lloyds Bank account and unfortunately had the need to use the emergency medical assistance.
This has been a complete nightmare from the day we requested the assistance."

If you have health insurance look to see if they offer travel insurance. I’m with VHI and am covered worldwide anyway for anything health related but it’s all the other stuff like cancellations, possessions covered etc. it costs me €130 yearly for family policy and covers all pre existing conditions. I’ve only had cause to claim one and was completely straightforward. All done through their app

Rightly or wrongly, I tend to get better insurance for a trip such as when I was backpacking Central America and Asia, and I’ll go for a cheaper one for something like an AI European sit on the beach type holiday.

I’ve never had to claim when I’ve used the cheap ones. I have claimed twice whilst backpacking and using World Nomads (I think it was called) and they were absolutely brilliant, even paid out for my root canal which isn’t usually covered!

Remember though that whilst you should listen to reviews, people are more inclined to review a bad experience, rather than a good or neutral one.

I've claimed twice on Go Travel Insurance - a fairly cheap policy.
First time when my baby broke his leg in Spain, I paid out about £2000 in hospital bills and they sent a cheque for £1950 about 6 weeks after claiming (no idea what i would have done without a credit card), 2nd time a child had chicken pox before we were due to fly, that was more annoying as we were charged £50 excess EACH including the baby who's flight was cheaper than that as she was a lap baby... so only thing i do now is pay excess waiver cover. Both times payment took about 6 weeks to come via cheque.

I had to do a claim with the Post Office for some medical assistance needed overseas, was to the value of about £300 and they paid no issues.

My experience of reviews is that people who are very happy or very unhappy are most likely to review. Most of the insurance companies I've looked at have loads of reviews from people saying how happy they are with the process of taking the policy out. As I say, many have average reviews of 4.5 or above. But when you switch to focusing on the reviews of the claim process, they are overwhelmingly abysmal. And people often comment on the same things - impossible to reach someone on the phone, or you're always talking to a different person, or the promise is that claims are processed in 3 weeks, but it's been several months with no progress made, or they ask for a ridiculous amount of evidence, seemingly looking for an excuse not to pay, etc etc. These are not one-off failings.

It's platinum accounts. But it's worth it. I have it too.

https://www.which.co.uk/money/insurance/travel-insurance/travel-insurance-reviews/best-and-worst-travel-insurance-ad1xp1C7eKFR

It's a real shame the reviews of the claims experience are so bad. I see that it includes AA cover too, which seems a good deal. Have you ever had to claim on the travel insurance element?

Thanks Arlanymor. Very useful.

I have had travel insurance with Nationwide for years. (They have recently moved to partnering with Aviva). They have been consistently excellent and we have made a few claims - mostly due to my health issues - over the years.

The rules around any travel insurance are very strict.

The first thing they check when you submit a claim is your GP record. If there is anything on there that you have not declared, your whole policy is void. So go on the app and check your records. You will find mistakes and you will need to get them corrected.

If you are waiting for any test or investigations results they will not insure you.

You have to be able to produce invoices and receipts as well as medical reports for any claim.

I have my insurance through Barclays Bank. I have had absolutely no problem with them meeting claims. Even when my travel friend was ill and we had to cancel they paid up, with no hassle. The thing about travel insurance is you have to tell them absolutely everything and if you don’t, they will quibble when you claim because when you do they access your GP records. So if you haven’t told them something they will try to use it to avoid paying out.

I'm in Scotland and we don't have that app, so that's tricky. I assume they don't check your gp record if you have a cancelled flight or whatever, or if you're injured in a car accident?

I've had to put in a claim with the Financial Ombudsman for the Post Office, which is underwritten by Collinsons. Their emergency medical assistance consists of being told to download an app which is basically a booking engine for in-person appointments with clinics local to where you are. I was in a jungle in Belize, an hour's boat ride from anywhere, needed urgent advice - just someone to speak to on the phone, send photos, could have been back in the UK! - which they couldn't provide. Even when we got out of the jungle and were in a normal town, they couldn't find anyone to see me.

Obviously that's a bit extreme, and it may well work fine in eg Europe. But it's categorically not 'emergency medical assistance'.

You have to remember that a significant number of people unhappy with the claims process would be unhappy whatever company they were with.

Many people don't understand what is covered or fail to provide important information or don't understand the claims process or take out insufficient cover.

@turquoiseshell i,'ve never claimed to be fair but i have used the AA multiple times.
As PP said, they will check medical records for any claim...all insurers will.
If you do not declare a medical condition, your policy is void.

No worries, I’ve never had cause to claim so I don’t have a personal recommendation, but I have found Which reviews to be really very good.