Annual Travel Insurance - Renewal, Accident, Cancellation Contract Help

[WithNoPaddle]

Could anyone help me please with an issue I have with my annual travel insurance renewing 2 days after an accident. Cover is with a large, well know, insurer.

Timeline.

1st May: Holiday final payment due.
10th May: Ring up insurance company to renew my annual policy, have a couple of medical updates, all agreed. It is on auto renew.

12th May. Have accident, treated in hospital. Told I can't drive and probably can't fly. Doctor says happy to review the No Fly when I return to the hospital, will depend on how I recover.

14th May : Travel insurance auto renews.

16th May: Ring Travel Insurance to ask what information I need from hospital to either cancel or fly. Holiday is on June 2nd.

Told I'm not covered as accident happened before the renewal, only covered if I pay a significant (hundreds of pounds) increase in premium. Apparently I am lucky that I can pay the increase, some injuries would be uninsurable.

But I booked before the accident, had insurance in place only to find it is worthless. If I had booked a single trip then I would have been covered.

This is the T&C's

For annual multi-trip cover
Cancellation cover begins on the cover start date shown on
your schedule or the date you booked your trip, whichever is
later, and ends when you start your trip.
For all other sections, cover starts at the beginning of your
trip and finishes at the end of your trip.
All cover ends on the cover end date shown on your policy
unless you can’t finish your trip as planned because of death,
injury or illness or there is a delay to the public transport
system that can’t be avoided, in which case we’ll extend cover
free of charge until you can reasonably finish your trip.

Is this right, because it makes annual travel insurance worthless.

TLDR:

Is annual travel insurance worthless if holiday is booked for the following policy year?

Thanks

[Post edited by MNHQ at OP's request to clarify dates]

From my understanding if there is a medical condition diagnosed during the annual cover time period it has to be disclosed to the insurance company as this may invalidate the policy. The policy purchased is based on information given when it was taken out and if that changes it has to be updated.

We had something similar with our house insurance.

30/1/25 Had leak
30/1/25 Put in claim
1/2/25 Insurance auto renews at old renewal quote rate
8/2/25 Insurance company asks for £200+ as insurance policy cost had increased due to claim before renewal - i.e. because we claimed on the old policy, the renewal cost should have been higher due to the claim

Is this a similar situation with you?

My policy only requires updating at renewal time. Which I did, but between updating and renewal I had the accident.

Yes, but additionally they won't pay the claim for in your case, the leak on the 30/01/25 unless I pay the increase on the new policy.

@AnSolas thanks, I will read your post properly when I finish work, only so much I can take in on a tea break.

Update.

The insurance company have accepted my cancellation and paid out for the holiday - I am still waiting to hear if the excess premium will be refunded.

Great news. Thanks for updating. Been interesting (and educational) to hear how this has been handled. ABIT of a lesson for us all but sorry it happened at your expense.

im glad you got it sorted. We always use annual holiday insurance, go for the top level and try to make sure we provide all information but will be more careful.

Having renewed my annual travel insurance over the phone, speaking to an actual person this year, due to various minor outstanding health conditions pending, it was made quite clear that if anything changed between the day of the conversation about the renewal (and agreement to renew) and the date of the renewal, then I was told contact them and let them know. This is one of the hundreds of script read sentences that the agent read out but I would have thought it was fairly standard.

That said, if you'd already paid the holiday deposit then you were no doubt committed to the holiday - although possibly not the full cost.

Having read a number of news stories about insurers refusing to pay out because someone failed to declare a broken finger nail before travel, I now declare everything. Interestingly, I was discussing illnesses/injuries and holidays with a friend the other day and how we had delayed booking a holiday until a post op check up had been completed and was surprised to hear that this person had not thought to declare a number of issues they'd sought medical advice about. As they've just booked an expensive holiday for next year I advised them to ring their insurer and declare everything.

@ohtowinthelottery my issue was they were saying that they wouldn't cover it without the increase in premium - however the accident happened in the old policy.

There should be an option to renew at the point you get in contact with them to discuss your renewal.

I'm still following up the extra premium- as it was high because I am still being treated. I won't go away until after all medical issues are resolved.