Actuaries are a conservative bunch. It’s said that they’re the ones that found accounting and insurance a little too exciting. They spend their days among tables and charts that they use to calculate the risk of you and me falling under a bus before giving us life insurance. They spend their lives calculating whether that risk is worth taking. They’re the ones, like the man in the Treasury that holds the purse strings, that have to say “no”. They must have a lot of joy in their lives.

With all those boxes to tick that they impose before they’ll insure you, it’s not surprising that quite a few people are frustrated and disappointed that they can’t get insurance generally and travel insurance in particular. Yet there are real people and real stories behind all the numbers and many aren’t able to do what they want to do. But it’s not all bad, here’s a happy story that bucks the trend.

The traveller’s predicament

A recent customer at World First travel insurance, let’s call him George because he’s a bit shy, was in a predicament. Over the years he’s travelled a lot and has always used the same company. When he told them he was going to Canada for two months to see his granddaughter graduate, he didn’t think they’d have a problem. “Oh no!” they said, “the cost of hospital treatment is far to high for you in Canada”, and they refused point blank to cover him.

Did I say pre-existing medical condition?

It’s fair to say that George does have a few health issues, at 78 he’s on medication for high blood pressure (hey so am I and I’m MUCH younger than that!), he’s got one new knee and is due to have the other one replaced soon. He spent a lot of time calling travel insurance companies and most of them either wouldn’t touch him or gave him ludicrously high quotes. One wanted more than £1000 that was just for 31 days. Not a lot of good as he wanted to go for two months.

Here come the cavalry

Then a friend suggested he contact World First for a travel insurance quote. He called thinking they’d be the same as the rest and resigning himself to the fact that he wouldn’t be able to go to Canada. To his great surprise, he passed the medical screening process and then to his even greater surprise, the quote they gave him was much lower than expected.

I can go to Canada now

So now, British Airways and volcanic ash notwithstanding, he can go to see his granddaughter’s graduation and he’s recommending World First to all his friends.

So the answer isn’t always no everywhere, there will always be a solution out there. World First is a specialist travel insurance provider not just for pre-existing medical conditions but also cover the over 60s, over 70s and the over 80s. Drop in and see.

Related posts:

1. Travel Insurance for Pre-Existing Medical Conditions
2. Travel Insurance for pre existing medical conditions
3. Travelling with a medical condition? Be prepared for delays.

Insurers, risk and pre-existing medical conditions | World First Travel Insurance Blog

If you’ve travelled recently, are travelling or are planning to travel, you could be forgiven for being a little confused.

The ash has been coming back in the last couple of weeks but only to the edge of Europe. Frustrating if you live in Belfast, Dublin or Gran Canaria, but it didn’t cause the same major problems as it did across the whole of Europe a month or so ago (and hey, if it means me staying a few more days in Gran Canaria, where’s the factor 50!).

There’s also the will they/won’t they strike British Airways situation. BA asked m’learned friends last week to get the whole thing declared illegal again just because they the union didn’t report that there were 11 spoilt papers at the last ballot. They duly did but then the union appealed and got that ruling overturned. Some flights were cancelled on the morning of the first planned strike but there was no real disruption.

At the time of writing, talks are being held at the Advisory, Conciliation and and Arbitration Service (ACAS), but as things stand, further strikes will be held on 24th – 28th May, 30th May – 3rd June and 5th – 9th June

Then, when you do get to the airport….oh the confusion! Some flights leaving, some flights not. And of course no-one is giving any information. As if they were doing it deliberately. In another life I worked in that kind of situation. Let me tell you, if those people behind those desks aren’t telling what’s going on, it’s because they don’t know. And nor does anyone else because the situation is changing every 5 minutes and people are generally very bad at communicating.

So what do you do? Click here for a great article by World First that sets out the situation as it is now and what you can claim and what you can’t. And if you’re worried about the British Airways strike, replace volcanic ash with BA and the same applies.

Oh, and Martin‘s going on holiday next month, I hope he’s got insurance!

Related posts:

1. Travel, ash and strikes
2. My flight’s been cancelled by volcanic ash – will my insurance cover me?
3. Going to Cuba? Get your travel insurance here!

Confused.com? Ash, strikes and travel insurance | World First Travel Insurance Blog

No Iceland, we said cash…

Unless you’ve just come back from a stay on Mars, it won’t have escaped your notice that air traffic in large parts of Western Europe has ground to a halt because of large quantities of ash being spewed out by a volcano called Eyjafjallajokull (yes, that’s it’s name) in Iceland.

Volcanic ash is extremely dangerous once it gets into contact with aircraft engines. In 1982 a British Airways plane had a lucky escape on a flight from London to Auckland when flying over Mount Galunggung in Indonesia. Ash got into its engines and all four failed. On the free fall that followed, the crew was able to get one of the engines going again because the air flow had dislodged some of the ash and some very frightened passengers made it to Jakarta. This is why northern European airspace has come to a halt – its dangerous.

What should I do now then?

The first port of call if your flight is cancelled or delayed is your airline. They have to offer alternative flights or refunds if you can’t fly. Watch the situation very closely however as it is changing almost by the hour.

You probably won’t be entitled to compensation as although European law says you are eligible under “exceptional circumstances” the airlines will quite reasonably argue that these circumstances couldn’t exactly have been prevented or anticipated.

This rare situation comes under what is called an Act of God. Insurance companies have trouble sometimes reacting in a standardised way to these things and this is no exception.

World First Travel insurance will be paying out

When the story was starting to break yesterday, World First’s Managing Partner Martin Rothwell, was at a meeting of the association of Travel Insurance Intermediaries http://www.atii.co.uk/ and that they were in immediate contact with the underwriters, http://www.ptic.gi/ to clarify the situation.

World First have said that if you are delayed for over 12 hours because your flight has been cancelled due to this problem, you can claim Travel Delay. You can then claim Abandonment if you are delayed for more than 24 hours in any alternative travel arrangements offered to you.

You will need to prove that your flight was cancelled for that length of time when claiming as flights will start to resume when the airspace ban is lifted. We would not expect people to go to the airport where flights cancelled or the airport is closed. Cutting through the technical jargon, you’re covered.

And so are some, but not all, of the others

RBS have said the passengers that bought insurance through Direct Line, Churchill, NatWest and RBS will be able to make a claim for accommodation that cannot be cancelled or used as long as they have written evidence to support it.

Saga have also said it will honour claims subject to customers getting a letter from their airline to say that their flight was cancelled to to the weather.

Aviva however have said that they will not be accepting any claims. A rather terse statement says “Cancellation or abandonment of your holiday covers specific events only, such as injury, illness, death of the person insured or their travelling companion/a relative, redundancy or damage to your home by fire, flood or storm. There is therefore no cover for cancellation as a result of this incident.” So that’s that then.

What if I haven’t got insurance?

It goes without saying that it’s too late now. You can’t buy insurance against a problem that you already know exists. To put it quite bluntly, you’ll know better next time. This just shows the point of buying insurance. It doesn’t cost very much, especially if you go away a few times a year and you get an annual policy and it could have you a pretty packet.

Related posts:

1. What do I do if my British Airways flight is delayed or cancelled?
2. Your travel insurance policy will cover you for Icelandic ash
3. Confused.com? Ash, strikes and travel insurance

My flight’s been cancelled by volcanic ash – will my insurance cover me? | World First Travel Insurance Blog