To cancel holiday after bereavement?

[Chloris33]

Yesterday 11:33 Chloris33

Wasn't sure which forum to post this on, but here goes:

I'm 30 wks pregnant and have a 2.5 yr old. My Dad passed away a month ago, and we had to travel abroad a lot during his illness/ last days and after he died, as he was living overseas. My 2 year old has been really difficult with sleep since the bereavement, with loads of night waking, and I've had my own insomnia. We've just started sleep training him and it seems to be helping. His behaviour has been difficult too -- not surprising as he's had a lot to cope with, with my stress and grief, the travel, starting nursery last month, then having to miss sessions there because we had to travel for my Dad. We feel we are just beginning to get into a rhythm again as a family, and to get him a bit more settled. I've been absolutely exhausted by it all. Now we have a family holiday looming the week after next in South of France. It's a lovely place but I'm wondering if it'd be more restful and better for everyone if we stayed home and maintained our routine now. My toddler does not travel very easily and I fear more sleep disruption and getting him out of routine re. nursery etc. again. In any case: you know the way in which sometimes a holiday abroad is more tiring with a toddler than staying home? A good solution would be to get a grandparent to go with us for support, but this is not possible, unfortunately. We won't get our money back, though. Thoughts?

I used to work in travel insurance. Any policy is different so this is just advice based on the ones I used to cover.

Check your cancellation policy. Most of the policies we handled covered cancellation due to the loss of a close family member if you didn't know about the condition at the time of buying the policy.

Some policies have a condition that you must cancel as soon as necessary which means, for example, if you cancelled a month ago and the holiday provider would have given you a 25% refund then they won't cover that bit.

You will likely be asked to provide a death certificate and medical certificate signed by your dads GP.

To be honest I wouldn't mention when you make the claim about not wanting to go because you didn't want to disrupt your little one's routine. Keep it about the loss you're dealing with instead because that should be explicitly mentioned in the policy.

You might not get the money back for a number of reasons but to me it would certainly be worth claiming if you won't be travelling anyway.

Sorry for your loss

Alternatively some policies will cover cancellation if you didn't know you were pregnant when you took out the insurance but will be more than 32 weeks pregnant at the beginning or during your trip. This is covered by fewer policies so it's worth checking first. Read any exclusions too even if it says covered because they're always sneaking those in.

Thanks so much HazeyDays. Unfortunately my insurance won't cover it if the relative had a diagnosis of terminal illness or cancer before booking the holiday (which he did, but died very much sooner than anticipated). X

There's no point going if it's going to make you stressed.

Ahh I'm sorry to hear that it's really really shit, part of the reason I left insurance!
I'd be happy to look at your insurance policy for you if you PM me the company name and level of cover to see if there's any work arounds.

Thanks so much hazeydays - I've PM you x