Two years ago, my daughter was "talked into" the insurance when booking longhaul, over the phone and she reluctantly agreed; she was charged accordingly.


As fate would have it, she contracted Chicken Pox (99% certain) on her outbound flight from LHR, and had to delay her return until she was certified by a doctor, as non-contagious. (As it happens, he is on BA's list of approved doctors). We thus tried to change her return to a week later ( she had non-refundable ticket) but BA reservations said: Nope! (This, in spite of explaining the situtation!)

Initially, we thought, well at least she has the insurance to cover it! But then I thought "hang on"! She felt fine (just a few pox), and was herself OK to fly, and, if space allowed for the change, which it did, why should the Insurance Company have to pay?

So we called BA back, ~ we said that she'd be quite happy to fly on the original booking (no fever, no itching, just a few remaining pox ~ so let's just hope she doesn't infect other pax). I've never had such fast results in booking changes !

Abusing insurance only ups the prices. Airlines need to be a whole lot more flexible in some instances ~ so to not look like absolute idiots.