Insure and Go. Wow, service! 😁

[Pushka]

We have for many years purchased annual gold insurance with Insure and Go as it covers some medical issues. Last December I purchased one for this year amd have made two claims.
1. Bali cancelled in late March. Cancelled before Qantas came to the party with refunds as it was early covid days. Insure and Go paid the cancellation costs of around $1000 less their one time fee within five weeks.

2. Europe cancelled and we would have been in Santorini right now. I filed a claim for that trip as soon as the Govt extended the Do Not Travel to include July. Just received full refund for

1. Flight cancellation fee, Australia to Athens on Qatar
2. Non refundable hotel booking (will never do that again with booking.com who were awful to deal with)
3. The loss of deposit from a small cruise we booked (despite cancelling before the deposit was non refundable, and they agreed to refund, they were already on covid leave, by the time they returned they decided to invoke the new EU rule where no refund was required but a voucher instead. Yeah right)

Now this insurance company only allows you to submit one of the costs at a time, so that with the above, theoretically they could deduct their $200 fee from each claim. So as soon as I had lodged all the documentation separately, I then emailed to their disputes section with all the paperwork and claim numbers and stated upfront that as it was all one trip I did not expect to pay their fee for each claim.

I was emailed a couple of weeks later asking for more documentation from the disputes people and not the general email address. Did so and two weeks later received advice that the claim had been put to their accounts for final approval. Then received advice about a week later that it was all approved and would be refunded.

Sure enough, today, a deposit of $3400 to the account and just one fee deducted.

 

[Buzzard]

A happy customer comes back.
I'm guessing you will insure with them again.

 

[Pushka]

A happy customer comes back.
I'm guessing you will insure with them again.

They do need careful "management" and they are scrupulous with having all the paperwork and proof. They even wanted the itinerary of the small cruise I was supposed to be on right now!

 

[Mattg]

Good to know. I've used Insureandgo a few times but never had to actually claim anything (touch wood!).

 

[NoName]

We had used another of their brands “tick insurance” for our now cancelled end of year US trip. Very happy with their service and options regarding cancelling the policy. Through our own fault we only got around to cancelling the policy during the week and they offered a credit towards a new policy which was fine. They used some formula described to me as prorata based presumably on time until the trip or how much of the trip had been already taken. I was expecting to receive a small credit due to us taking so long to request it but ended up getting 95% of the premium. Good result.

 

[ANstar]

I'm with NIB. Booked September last year and had insurance at that point. Submitted a claim for cancelled hotel in Europe and they just rejected it saying not covered as its a government travel restriction and that voids the insurance!

 

[Mattg]

I'm with NIB. Booked September last year and had insurance at that point. Submitted a claim for cancelled hotel in Europe and they just rejected it saying not covered as its a government travel restriction and that voids the insurance!

That's so frustrating. They could just say this about anything at this point.

Surely the fact that the government changed its travel advice from level 1 to level 4 (do not travel) after you took out insurance means you're entitled to a refund.

FWIW, doesn't NIB also underwrite the Qantas Insurance policies?

 

[kcoulson]

Pushka - Did you have any problems with the new EU rules (giving credit rather than refunds) - with your travel insurance? We are in the same situation with a Greek ferry company. We have insurance with RACV, and I have been lodged portions of the travel insurance claim in sections (as the paperwork trail arrives that they require) - so far they have accepted all the parts. I have left the harder parts to last (the Greek ferries and some Aegan flights).

 

[Pushka]

Pushka - Did you have any problems with the new EU rules (giving credit rather than refunds) - with your travel insurance? We are in the same situation with a Greek ferry company. We have insurance with RACV, and I have been lodged portions of the travel insurance claim in sections (as the paperwork trail arrives that they require) - so far they have accepted all the parts. I have left the harder parts to last (the Greek ferries and some Aegan flights).

I asked the Agent in Athens to email me a statement saying there would be no refund. Nothing else. They obliged.

 

[burradoo]

We have for many years purchased annual gold insurance with Insure and Go as it covers some medical issues. Last December I purchased one for this year amd have made two claims.
1. Bali cancelled in late March. Cancelled before Qantas came to the party with refunds as it was early covid days. Insure and Go paid the cancellation costs of around $1000 less their one time fee within five weeks.

2. Europe cancelled and we would have been in Santorini right now. I filed a claim for that trip as soon as the Govt extended the Do Not Travel to include July. Just received full refund for

1. Flight cancellation fee, Australia to Athens on Qatar
2. Non refundable hotel booking (will never do that again with booking.com who were awful to deal with)
3. The loss of deposit from a small cruise we booked (despite cancelling before the deposit was non refundable, and they agreed to refund, they were already on covid leave, by the time they returned they decided to invoke the new EU rule where no refund was required but a voucher instead. Yeah right)

Now this insurance company only allows you to submit one of the costs at a time, so that with the above, theoretically they could deduct their $200 fee from each claim. So as soon as I had lodged all the documentation separately, I then emailed to their disputes section with all the paperwork and claim numbers and stated upfront that as it was all one trip I did not expect to pay their fee for each claim.

I was emailed a couple of weeks later asking for more documentation from the disputes people and not the general email address. Did so and two weeks later received advice that the claim had been put to their accounts for final approval. Then received advice about a week later that it was all approved and would be refunded.

Sure enough, today, a deposit of $3400 to the account and just one fee deducted.

We purchased an annual policy with Insureand go in July last year to cover a trip to Canada in January and then a cruise to Antarctica and then land touring in Chile, Argentina and Peru. Insureand go have just told us that we will receive nothing from our claim that we filed in late April. We commenced our cruise on 28 February to Antarctica and everything was wonderful until the 14th March when we received info from our family at home advising us that South America was becoming too dangerous due to Covid and advising us to come home immediately after we landed back in Punta Arenas on the 16th march. We agreed after advice from the ship that Chile and Argentina were about to close their borders so we knew we couldn't continue our travelling. On the day of departing the ship we were told that no one would be able to disembark due Chile refusing to let us land. We spent a further 2 days near the dock while the ship arranged for fuel and food to be brought out on a barge so we could continue a journey to somewhere that might take us. Eventually we had to spend a further 10 days on board before we were able to disembark at the Falklands. Every day there was new ideas about possible departure airports and it was very stressful. We were eventually allowed to fly to Santiago where we immediately had to fly out to Sydney and other places. Insureandgo will pay us nothing because we were already part way through our trip and they claim we just changed our minds and didn't want to continue our travels. They also claim we went against Australian government advice by being in South America. That is not so as when we left home on the 26th February there was no restriction on us going to south america. Our cruise company, Hurtigruten, did an amazing job getting all the passengers home and there were no cases of Covid on our ship. We are totally disgusted with Insureandgo for refusing to pay us anything and do not recommend them to any fellow travellers!! It seems we would have been treated better by travel insurance if we had caught Covid! As we stayed healthy, they don't want to know anything about us!
WE have lost a large amount of prepaid flights, hotels, tours and transfers that were all paid last november and our travel agent, Chimu Expeditions, only says to us "they don't do refunds in South America", so we are left high and dry.

 

[Pushka]

We purchased an annual policy with Insureand go in July last year to cover a trip to Canada in January and then a cruise to Antarctica and then land touring in Chile, Argentina and Peru. Insureand go have just told us that we will receive nothing from our claim that we filed in late April. We commenced our cruise on 28 February to Antarctica and everything was wonderful until the 14th March when we received info from our family at home advising us that South America was becoming too dangerous due to Covid and advising us to come home immediately after we landed back in Punta Arenas on the 16th march. We agreed after advice from the ship that Chile and Argentina were about to close their borders so we knew we couldn't continue our travelling. On the day of departing the ship we were told that no one would be able to disembark due Chile refusing to let us land. We spent a further 2 days near the dock while the ship arranged for fuel and food to be brought out on a barge so we could continue a journey to somewhere that might take us. Eventually we had to spend a further 10 days on board before we were able to disembark at the Falklands. Every day there was new ideas about possible departure airports and it was very stressful. We were eventually allowed to fly to Santiago where we immediately had to fly out to Sydney and other places. Insureandgo will pay us nothing because we were already part way through our trip and they claim we just changed our minds and didn't want to continue our travels. They also claim we went against Australian government advice by being in South America. That is not so as when we left home on the 26th February there was no restriction on us going to south america. Our cruise company, Hurtigruten, did an amazing job getting all the passengers home and there were no cases of Covid on our ship. We are totally disgusted with Insureandgo for refusing to pay us anything and do not recommend them to any fellow travellers!! It seems we would have been treated better by travel insurance if we had caught Covid! As we stayed healthy, they don't want to know anything about us!
WE have lost a large amount of prepaid flights, hotels, tours and transfers that were all paid last november and our travel agent, Chimu Expeditions, only says to us "they don't do refunds in South America", so we are left high and dry.

Then you need to lodge a dispute to this email address: [email protected]

Provide any proof that the decision to change plans/cancel etc was the operators decision and not simply change of mind. There will also be an official Do Not Travel notice provided by the Australian Government and any advice dates will be shown online. .

Pretty much most insurance companies will refuse complicated claims first up so keep pursuing it. You will need to provide every single detail - the bank statements showing how much you were charged, any confirmation of booking notices, cancellation notices etc etc.

 

[Normap]

I paid for travel insurance in September 2019 for a trip to South Africa via Mauritius in May 2020. So before Covid-19. The travel insurance was TICK whom I believe are a subsidiary of Insure and Go. I claimed the flight costs on Air Mauritius and was knocked back because Air Mauritius has offered us a credit. I have requested that the claim remains open in case Air Mauritius is no longer flying or my husband or I are not able to take up the credit for some reason or the other. Tick have agreed. So I guess you could say half happy.

 

[Alipal]

Having spent hours of valuable time answering and validating question after question re my claim on Insureandgo, they have denied it. I can't see why they couldn't have made that decision earlier in the piece with all the info they already had instead of stringing me along. I do not intend letting it go in view of an ATO ruling on Covid earlier this year.

 

[Pushka]

Having spent hours of valuable time answering and validating question after question re my claim on Insureandgo, they have denied it. I can't see why they couldn't have made that decision earlier in the piece with all the info they already had instead of stringing me along. I do not intend letting it go in view of an ATO ruling on Covid earlier this year.

If it meets the criteria then send an email here: [email protected]. They seem quite hung up on date you booked the trip.

 

[Alipal]

Shall be giving it a go as the trip was booked when Covid was not even on the radar. If all fails, shall take it to a higher court.

 

[maaz]

We are also insured with Insureandgo and I want to make a claim for a Rocky Mountaineer trip that we should have gone on this year (now in fact!). We booked the Rocky Mountaineer in October 2019 and we renewed our Annual Gold travel insurance on 9 January 2020. According to my reading we may be eligible for insurance.

Rocky Mountaineer offers no refunds under any condition according to their website and their notice about Covid-19. We have nearly $17,000 of our money sitting in their coffers. They have offered us a voucher for travel in 2021 or 2022 but I am not happy with this as it all seems too soon to travel but such a long time for them to have our money. This $17,000 is the last of the refunds/vouchers we have processed for the trip we were supposed to be going on.

Rocky Mountaineer have “suspended their departures” for the whole of the 2020 season but according to my travel agent this does not mean that they have cancelled our trip because they have offered a voucher.

I am in a conundrum – I will need to cancel the RM – definitely losing the $17,000 and hope that Insureango will pay out OR hang on and rebook for 2022 and possibly lose the whole lot because we still may not want/be able to travel safely to Canada.

I was wondering if anyone else has a successful insurance claim for such a large sum of money?

Any suggestions for me would be greatfully accepted.

 

[Alipal]

We are also insured with Insureandgo and I want to make a claim for a Rocky Mountaineer trip that we should have gone on this year (now in fact!). We booked the Rocky Mountaineer in October 2019 and we renewed our Annual Gold travel insurance on 9 January 2020. According to my reading we may be eligible for insurance.

Rocky Mountaineer offers no refunds under any condition according to their website and their notice about Covid-19. We have nearly $17,000 of our money sitting in their coffers. They have offered us a voucher for travel in 2021 or 2022 but I am not happy with this as it all seems too soon to travel but such a long time for them to have our money. This $17,000 is the last of the refunds/vouchers we have processed for the trip we were supposed to be going on.

Rocky Mountaineer have “suspended their departures” for the whole of the 2020 season but according to my travel agent this does not mean that they have cancelled our trip because they have offered a voucher.

I am in a conundrum – I will need to cancel the RM – definitely losing the $17,000 and hope that Insureango will pay out OR hang on and rebook for 2022 and possibly lose the whole lot because we still may not want/be able to travel safely to Canada.

I was wondering if anyone else has a successful insurance claim for such a large sum of money?

Any suggestions for me would be greatfully accepted.

Haven't had it with that mob for a much smaller sum, so I wish you luck. If my latest email to them does not bear fruit, I shall be taking my concerns to AFCA as they have suggested.