CHOICE are recording some videos for Smartraveller that highlight the tips and advice in the CHOICE travel insurance buying guide on Smartraveller. We’re looking for some people with experience claiming on travel insurance who would be interested in talking about it on camera.
We’re particuarly interested in any experience with exclusions, existing medial conditions, or cruise travel insurance.
Whether it’s a good or a not so good experience, the main thing is if we can use your experience to help other people.
If you’re interested, please let me know below, or send an email to [email protected]
Jodi
I would like to share my recent travel insurance claim (medical) experience with Choice. My travel insurance is with Commonwealth bank CC (CoverMore). During my travel I got sick (shingles) in Germany and needed to admit to the hospital (7 days) and the medical bill was quite high. As CoverMore was reluctant to reimburse my payments, I had to lodge a complaint with AFCA. After their intervention, CoverMore agreed to reimburse my payments.
I am still travelling and will be back in Australia at the beginning of December 2023.
I’m traumatised by my travel experience. We went to Fiji in 2022, as travel was restarting and there were good deals available to get the industry moving. The Fiji government had a requirement that travellers be tested for COVID within three days of arrival. My wife tested positive, and that was the end of the holiday for us. Our travel insurer paid the additional costs incurred due to the positive result, but we didn’t get anything back for flight or accommodation. I hate insurance companies.
Hi @WearyDad, welcome to the community and sharing with us a holiday one will never forget for the wrong reasons.
The reason flights and accommodation are unlikely to be refunded in a claim is because they were used. If for example, you were unable to travel on the day of departure from Australia, because of a positive Covid test, this would be a different scenario as flights and accommodation weren’t used.
Being over 80 and having pre-existing but managed conditions, my credit card wont cover me for travel insurance so I’m in the process of outlining a flight+cruise vacation in 2025 for travel insurers to quote on. I used the choice reviews to whittle list of potential companies down to 18 out of 91 and have asked CHOICE if they could supply email addresses to the 18 companies. I’m hoping they might have gathered these addresses during their research. If not I’ll have to apply to each one individually. If I get useful results I’ll share it.
Hello @grizzlyowl. We do have email addresses for contacts at some of the insurers, but not all of them (they can be even more difficult for us to contact then for their policyholders). Maybe if you post the list of insurers you select here, we can add the contact we do have, and other people might be able to chip in if they have contacts for the insurers we don’t have.
By the way, the travel insurance advice videos re the original post here are all up online on the CHOICE youtube now. Thank you very much to everyone who contributed their stories to this.
If you don’t have time to pursue every potential insurer, I just checked the
website and they also provide a list of brokers which also provide personal travel insurance. It is worth noting that these brokers will charge a fee if travel insurance is taken through them (will be disclosed in the PDS), but, they will bundle up travel details and send it to their underwriters to see what they are willing to offer and cover. I can’t comment on what the costs may be for cover including fees, but is is likely to be marginally more than dealing directly with a retail insurer.
It might be worth a consideration if travel insurance being sought isn’t what may be considered standard (e.g. unusual activities, pre-existing medical conditions or older aged Australians). They might be able to give some general advice of what may be reasonably covered and what exclusions may apply.
We’ve just recently found out the hard way that travel insurance across the board will not pay for missed flights as a result of a previous connecting flight delay. My son booked flights to Europe, wanting to get the very cheapest options as he was paying for them, resulting in a series of three flights using different carriers. His flight from Melbourne was delayed by 1 1/4 hours. Because the next flight was not a codeshare, he had to clear immigration in Vietnam and check in, and despite still having 45 minutes to the next flight departing, the counter shut, causing him to miss his connecting flights. Stuck in Vietnam, he called the RAA hotline, who advised "just booking the next direct flight out’’ and deal with putting in a claim when he returned to Australia. Unfortunately the only seats available at the time were Business Class, so we forked out a small fortune to get him on said next flight. Claim later submitted, it was knocked back on two grounds which seem to be common to most (all?) travel insurances: the flight must be delayed for more than six hours, and since the flight was delayed for “operational reasons” (the most common and vague term covering a multitude of issues) this is also not one of the grounds listed in their terms as being covered. Again, this appears to be a common theme for travel insurance. We’ve since read the PDS for a bunch of insurance policies, and they all say the same thing. Our next action will be to approach the airline directly to see about a claim, but I very much doubt it will be a happy outcome.
We are annoyed that we were given the impression that this scenario would be covered at least to some degree, and also that there appear to be no travel insurance companies that cover for this sort of circumstance.
Connections on International flights are often a concern. There can be so many issues including the weather? Looking to your experience and the what must have been a very expensive solution, it’s to ask how more expensive cover would need to be to include such issues.
Choice has a useful guide, also used by the Aussie Govt SmartTraveller site.
It would be reassuring if cover could be provided. Our experiences include the worlds reputedly most reliable travel service - Japan’s Shinkansen (bullet trains) suffering a failure. Compensation limited to the price of the ticket. Nil for us as we were on a rail pass. Our remedy having allowed 4+hours extra to make an international airport and flight. Leaving the train for the nearest domestic airport and purchasing tickets to Tokyo Narita nearly an hour distant on a jet. The PDS was very clear. Not covered.
I have (medically controlled) atrial fibrillation but my cardiologist expresses nothing but envy about me traveling :-). I am 76 years old and use Choice and Finders to check on the best deal for trips overseas of about 2 months. Both before and after my diagnosis I have found Insure and Go best suited as well as reasonably priced for trips to Europe, African and South East Asia, using their Gold or Silver options which are identical for the important categories (Medical and Personal Liability) but differ mostly in cover for things like luggage etc. - and depending on where I go, paying for replacements may differ.
But I have not had problems with my claims. A few years ago, I was thrown by a horse in Portugal. Horse riding recreationally was covered in my policy. The riding establishment’s insurance covered my 3 weeks in hospital and other costs of an extension but Insure and Go covered my flight home although they queried my travelling First Class (with my healing broken bones Business Class was allowed). However, since my ticket was a Special offer, I could show it was actually much cheaper than a similar Business Class one.
Just before COVID, I broke my arm while in Ethiopia and had to fly home after two weeks (my stay there was with a private driver and vehicle so the medical staff did not mind) but I had to give up on further more demanding travel worth $10000 plus. I had to show receipts but got refunded my lost holiday, and part of my lost travel costs,and the cost of my flight back.
Sure, I had some questions from the company, but I had all my receipts - maybe someone can clarify, but I have since been told that credit card statements may not be acceptable?
As a general advice though, compare and check - last year (with my medical condition) some quotes were over $2500 or even $3000. Using Insure and Go Silver for my upcoming trip to Africa, I have all I require for hundreds of dollars less.
A jog off topic but relevant for missed flight issues.
You might find this older topic interesting. It highlights the pitfalls of DIY a complex trip and buying individual tickets for each leg to save money.
How insurance does or does not cover a missed flight varies. My complimentary card insurance will not pay for a replacement flight if I miss one, but will cover incidental costs of meals and accommodations for delays beyond 6 hours, and additional travel costs incurred to get to an event on time if the causation is outside one’s control with exceptions being for terrorism or financial collapse of a supplier.
@JodiBird does the choice international travel insurance comparison list take into account user reviews? Im looking for travel insurance that has great reviews from real people who have made claims.
