Will travel insurance not refund me?

[NotKeenOnSwede]

I've seen lots of posters on here saying travel insurance won't refund us if we cancel. The insurance I paid for back in January did include cancellation cover of up to £3k (if I cancel for whatever reason unforseen circumstances etc) and I'm assuming most people would have opted for this cover too... so why would they not have to pay out??

This is for a 5 day trip to Majorca all booked and paid for in October. That's assuming everything will still be a shit storm by then because I'll go if it's feasible...

Ring them and ask?

My insurance doesn’t include cancellation if you change your mind. It only covers if you can’t travel for example illness or FCO advise not to travel

Definitely check the wording, I think you might be in for a shock unfortunately

Travel insurance doesn’t usually cover disinclination to travel.

No point ringing they won't have anything to do with anyone who isn't flying in the next 10 days. I'm not expecting a refund to be honest, purely because I never expect insurance to have our backs when they are bound to find a loophole to avoid it. Just wondered what people's views were... I'm still hoping (after the last few days) maybe it'll be possible to get a worthwhile trip out of it. October feels like years away at the moment.

From memory, my insurance would cover me if I'd booked before the pandemic was declared, and if the FCO recommends against travel.

Policies have different Ts and Cs, no one can tell you without seeing all the small print in your contract.

It would be madness if you could just book,a holiday and then cancel it and claim back on insurance.

I had my insurance claim refused despite the FCO advice and initial confirmation the claim was valid. Due to travel at Easter, as the airline is only offering a 12 month credit account for the value of the flights it is classed as a "recoverable cost" regardless if you use the credit or not. I would check your policy very thoroughly before committing.

Turns out travel insurance is useless for this situation, even if the cancellation does not mention Covid-19. I had flights to Costa Rica cancelled- thankfully got the actual money back for those - but can't claim for the Easyjet flights to Gatwick because I can change them and unlikely to get non refundable deposit back ( would have been very little anyway because of the excess per person) as they have offered to let us carry it forward for a year - but who knows if we'll be able to travel next summer.

Dont cancel right now. I'd wait and see what happens. If FCO advice is against travelling then the holiday company should pay you back.

I'm not overly worried about it really. Worse case scenario I'll lose £550 (I'm not expecting it back as I say I never have faith in insurance companies for refunds anyway, I only bothered incase I was injured abroad etc). I'd be furious if it was just me, but thousands of people have been screwed out of holiday money this year and in the grand scheme of things it's not the end of the world compared to 40,000 deaths is it :-( I was just wondering

A fair amount of policy’s don’t cover you for FCO advising you not to travel ( hidden away in the small print ) Mine only covers me if my flight / hotel isn’t available . And even then they want you to exhaust all options with the tour operators / airlines

So if your flight and / or hotel is available but you choose not to go because of FCO advising you not to travel or you don’t want to go it’s quite hard to claim .
Your best bet is to wait till until the airline / tour operator cancels on you . Then you should at some point get a full refund .

BA initially cancelled my flights and offered me a voucher around a month ago . I just ignored that email as I didn’t want a voucher .
Today they have offered me a full refund back on my card without me even asking