mario

here - from that policy

Terrorism
An act, including but not limited to the use of force or
violence and/or the threat thereof, of any person or
group(s) of persons, whether acting alone or on
behalf of or in connection with any organisations(s) or
governments, committed for political, religious,
ideological or similar purposes including the intention
to influence any government and/or to put the public,
or any section of the public, in fear.

I don't think this applies to the situation. You can forget about the "but not limited to" part, it would be thrown out in court almost immediately.

binman

I have Amex Platinum Card cover and have to say I think they are outstanding. My claim history has been significant and there has never been so much as a question about my claim. My summer claim for my wife injury included the refund of 25% of all costs incurred for the period she was not with us, even though I used the rooms and cars.

This event is clearly travel disruption and the cause is known. It is not being treated as terrorism.

BA and the other carriers MUST provide hotels, meals, communications and a new flight. The issue is, as Simon Calder stated this evening on the news. "airlines are deliberately misrepresenting their responsibilities". It really is time they were brought to book over this behaviour.

If the carrier cannot provide then pay and claim but I appreciate that can add to the stress and not everyone is able to do so.

Good luck to all involved.

Prospero

I edited my post after checking whether terrorism was written into the travel delay, and curtailment sections. There is no specific terrorism related exclusion written in these sections

mario

That's not how insurance companies work.

Your argument would mean that events like hurricanes wouldn't be covered. They are. And the insurance industry is still here. They pass on their risk and dilute it with their underwriters.

What happened today is textbook what travel insurance is for.

Prospero

I am going to attempt to upload the 45 AMT policy document. If it works, then we can all have a go at interpreting its contents.

binman

I have Amex Platinum Card cover and have to say I think they are outstanding. My claim history has been significant and there has never been so much as a question about my claim. My summer claim for my wife injury included the refund of 25% of all costs incurred for the period she was not with us, even though I used the rooms and cars.

This event is clearly travel disruption and the cause is known. It is not being treated as terrorism.

BA and the other carriers MUST provide hotels, meals, communications and a new flight. The issue is, as Simon Calder stated this evening on the news. "airlines are deliberately misrepresenting their responsibilities". It really is time they were brought to book over this behaviour.

If the carrier cannot provide then pay and claim but I appreciate that can add to the stress and not everyone is able to do so.

Good luck to all involved.

These are the details from travel inconvenience from the Platinum Card Cover Its pretty comprehensive and has few exclusions.

TRAVEL INCONVENIENCE
• £300 for missed departure due to accident or breakdown, travel delay, overbooking, or missed connection
• £300 for baggage delayed by airline
• An additional £300 for extended baggage delay by airline
KEY EXCLUSIONS & LIMITATIONS
• Claims where travel tickets were not purchased on the Card account
• Purchases which are not made on the Card account
• Costs where a transport provider has offered an alternative
• Baggage delay on the final leg of a trip
• Purchases made after baggage has been returned

The full section reads

For the benefits under this section to apply travel tickets must have been Purchased in full using:

1. a) the Card;
   
2. b) American Express Membership Rewards® points; or
   
3. c) Any travel rewards programmes provided the taxes
   
   and/or surcharges have been Purchasedusing the Card.
   

YOUR BENEFITS

The travel, refreshment and accommodation costs, and thePurchase or hire of essential items covered under this Travel Inconvenience Section 1.6 must be charged to Your Card to be
eligible. If You are not a Cardmember and not travelling with aCardmember, another payment method may be used. Itemised receipts must be kept as proof of purchase.
1) You will be reimbursed up to £150 per person for refreshment
costs, or up to £300 per person (including £150 for refreshments) for additional travel and accommodation costs incurred prior to actual departure on Your Trip if:
a) Missed departure. You miss Your flight, train or ship due to an accident or breakdown of Your vehicle, or an accident, breakdown or cancellation of transportation on a Public Vehicle and no alternative is made available within 4 hours of the published departure time;
b) Delay, cancellation or overbooking. Your flight, train or ship is delayed, cancelled, or overbooked and no alternative is made available within 4 hours of the published departure time;
c) Missed connection. You miss Your connecting flight, train or ship and no alternative is made available within 4 hours of the published departure time.
2) You will be reimbursed for the purchase or hire of essential items on Your Trip up to:
a) Baggage delay. £300 per person if Your checked in baggage has not arrived at Your destination airport within 4 hours of Your arrival;

1. b) Extended baggage delay. An additional £300 per person if Your checked in baggage has still not arrived at Yourdestination airport within 48 hours of Your arrival.

EXCLUSIONS
General Exclusions to Card Travel Insurance listed in Section 1.9 apply to all travel insurance benefits. The following exclusions apply only to this Travel Inconvenience Section 1.6.
You will not be covered in respect of the following:

1. 1) Under missed departure and missed connection, claims where insufficient time has been allowed to arrive at the
   departure point or to arrive to connect with Your ongoing
   journey by flight, train or ship.
2. 2) Additional costs where the airline, train or ship operator has
   offered alternative travel arrangements or accommodation
   and these have been refused.
3. 3) Baggage delay or extended baggage delay on the final leg of
   Your return flight.
4. 4) Under baggage delay and extended baggage delay, items that
   are not immediately necessary for Your Trip.
5. 5) Items purchased after Your baggage has been returned to you[img]blob:https://www.flyertalk.com/e938f63e-b...6-8fa0958b68a5[img]blob:https://www.flyertalk.com/342416aa-7...7-9d1014ec04ae[img]blob:https://www.flyertalk.com/0836d553-3...f-1f186da3a37c

Terms and Conditions 15[img]blob:https://www.flyertalk.com/b71085ce-4...1-14e111dcccf7

1. 6) Failure to obtain a Property Irregularity Report from the relevant airline authorities confirming Your missing baggage at Your destination.
2. 7) Where You voluntarily accept compensation from the airline in exchange for not travelling on an overbooked flight.
3. 8) Costs which are recoverable from any other source.

• Costs which are recoverable from any other source
• Delays of less than 4 hours

RollAnotherFatOne

It's not 'my argument' - you've misrepresented what I wrote. Hurricane regions exist and Hurricanes occur at particular points throughout the year. Insurance companies can develop risk profiles and insurance policies based on this knowledge.
If people believe they can claim on any given unforeseen circumstance (type) then I think they're living in a different world because that's not how insurance companies develop risk profiles and policies. Most often there is some precedent for it to be included or not in future. Insurance just doesn't cover anything.. I don't know why people think this. Otherwise, why would there be a policy??
If you are confident that your insurance policy covers it then cite relevant paragraph.

simons1

I saw on the BBC that the government are "speaking to" the insurers and expect claims to be given favourable consideration.

Which is code for pay up or other actions may be taken.

Louisebook

callum9999

So your new claim is if a hurricane causes damage outside a hurricane region, insurance companies won't cover it because it's not in their "risk profile"?

You should listen to your own point - "otherwise, why would there be a policy". If your policy doesn't exclude this event then you're covered - regardless of whether the insurance company has considered the event as part of their risk assessment or not.

Oh, and not a single person here has claimed insurance covers everything. If you're going to complain that your argument is apparently being misrepresented, you probably shouldn't deliberately misrepresent others!

RollAnotherFatOne

I didn't reference a single person in this thread when I said some people believe insurance (or travel insurance) covers everything .. so I don't know why you made this crazy outburst. Because I don't want this discussion to go further, I'll just make the point that I'm actually not the one making a 'claim' here.
Frankly, you should really look up the volcanic ash cloud in 2010 if you want to see how travel insurance claims are handled.

For the record, the majority did not pay out, and those that did, did so as good will gestures. So in answer to you believing that there must be an opt out clause, else it's included, can you can tell me whether 'volcanic ash' was referenced in the policy back then and that if it wasn't mentioned, were people covered? No it wasn't in the policy and no they weren't covered.

DYKWIA

I watched the news last night and was amazed at the number of people "sleeping rough" in the terminal. One person they interviewed had been there for 3 nights. It's almost as if the airlines are not informing the passengers of their rights under EC261...

NWIFlyer

Now I haven’t read the small print of every travel insurance policy, but generally speaking most policies - not just restricted to travel - will have an exclusion cause for Acts of God. IIRC the ash cloud was classified as exactly that. A human sending a drone up is quite clearly not going to fall under that.

corporate-wage-slave

The way this seems to have gone in recent years is that in order to keep the headline insurance price competitive, online insurers are splitting up insurance into ever more obscure levels or packages, and events such as LGW are useful benchmarks to seeing whether people are getting what they thought they were getting. Ditto with disruption caused by the Icelandic ash cloud and the Indonesia tsunami, where people discovered that insurance didn't necessarily cover their trips. So insurance quotes often come with multiple levels of cover, with the cheapest option having the most limited cover. Many people would take the view that insurance is exactly there for these incidents and may not notice that the cheapest is cheap for a reson.

So we now have
1) Travel insurance - which rightly homes in on medical protection and cancellation due to personal mishap
2) Disruption or "delayed departure" component: this is not necessarily included in the basic packages (so that the product does well in online comparisons) and may need an extra payment
3) Flight cancellation cover: again potentially an extra component, which allows for allows for alternative / replacement travel but different to the above.
4) Scheduled Airline Failure (insolvency) - generally not covered but you may have cover via your credit card. Insurers tend to subcontract this to specialist underwriters.
5) Catastrophe cover: this usually isn't an add on, but may or may not be included in the core package. This is for ash cloud like events

The "delayed departure" aspect is often just a relatively small cash payment per 12 hours - £30 per day isn't unusual and probably doesn't help much. However they often allow a holiday to be abandoned after X hours and you get a refund on lost flights/hotels etc. Hence the specific and usually optional extra of Flight Cancellation cover for replacement travel. Moreover insurance generally has a set of General Exclusions and you need to apply the ash cloud/tsunami/drone test to see if this is watertight.

The ABI is making the point at the moment that though many people have bought or arranged insurance, the disruption and cancellation aspect is the key to whether they have cover, along with pointing out the EC261 provisions. Internally I suspect they will take a dim view of companies that use the wording of General Exclusions to deny LGW claims if they have disruption cover.

Going forward it's probably good to check points 1 to 5 above - plus the Missed Departure insurance component wording if doing complex connections - to see if it's all correct for you. Missed Departure often only covers an international departure from the UK outbound or the last leg back to the UK, rather than all the mainland Europe combinations often seen here.

Tiger_lily