Clarification from Holiday Extras on their insurance policy

[Megabear2]

I have just had my email reply from Justin Edinburgh following my enquiry to him as to whether P&O have entered conversations with his company on their new policy of passengers relying solely on their insurer.  It makes interesting reading! There are a couple of good news points but overall Mr Edinburgh, who I've found to be very truthful and helpful previously, seems to indicate not much change at his end.

 

Quote

 

Thank you for getting back in touch with me and updating me on your experience. I am sorry to hear you had to cancel and move your cruise after all! Although it is of course helpful that P&O issued you future cruise credit.

I’ll try to address your questions and concerns below.

On your first point regarding this paragraph from P&O:

“We’re unable to accept guests who, within 10 days prior to the cruise, have been unwell with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 or have been in close contact with someone with confirmed or suspected COVID-19. If you’re impacted by this, you would need to call our Customer Contact Centre on 0344 338 8003 (local call charges apply) and not travel to the terminal/airport”

This is a rule put in place and enforced by P&O, and is not in line with any current government guidance or advice, and therefore any denial of boarding or cancellation would not be classed as an insurable event and is therefore not covered under our policies.

In terms of what would be accepted as a reason for cancellation, a medically verified test can be a lateral flow test verified by your doctor. We would need this same verification for a cancellation claim for any other medical condition or issue.

Regarding non-positive travellers and close contacts of a positive result, this is again a rule put in place by P&O and is not in line with current government guidelines, which do not require you to isolate yourself if you come into contact with somebody who has tested positive. Our policies will cover you for cancellation if one of the following people tests positive for COVID: you, your relative, a member of your household, travelling companion, or person that were due to stay with.

And finally, I can confirm that our underwriter’s stance on passengers being forced to disembark against the advice of the insurer’s medical assistance teams has not changed since our discussions earlier this year.

I hope this has been helpful in clarifying your questions.


Please don’t hesitate to contact me again if you have any more questions or want further clarification.

Kind regards

 

[Gettingwarmer]

7 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

In terms of what would be accepted as a reason for cancellation, a medically verified test can be a lateral flow test verified by your doctor. We would need this same verification for a cancellation claim for any other medical condition or issue.

It would seem from the second half of this paragraph that a medical certificate from your GP would suffice for Covid the same as it would for any other medical condition. 

[Megabear2]

13 minutes ago, Gettingwarmer said:

It would seem from the second half of this paragraph that a medical certificate from your GP would suffice for Covid the same as it would for any other medical condition. 

I've asked him for further clarification on that very point.  He appears to say a couple are covered if one tests positive which is promising.  I have asked if an observed LFT such as I'm required to take would suffice and whether to need to get my GP to add it to my records.  

 

Assumedly he expects your doctor to have some sort of proof you've tested positive and I wondered if he wants maybe your doctor to do a zoom observed test or something given doctors won't see patients with covid symptoms.

 

Certainly this information is far better than other insurers such as Staysure and Avanti indicate in their policies, ie PCR test.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Megabear2

[Gettingwarmer]

13 minutes ago, Gettingwarmer said:

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Deleted wrong quote"

Edited September 30, 2022 by Gettingwarmer

[Gettingwarmer]

5 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

I've asked him for further clarification on that very point.  However do note if there are a couple or a group and only one tests positive the others have no cover to cancel.

 "Our policies will cover you for cancellation if one of the following people tests positive for COVID: you, your relative, a member of your household, travelling companion, or person that were due to stay with."

 

I take this to mean that the contact will be covered if the person with Covid is one of the people mentioned. However I would think you would need to be covered under the same policy.

[Megabear2]

5 minutes ago, Gettingwarmer said:

 "Our policies will cover you for cancellation if one of the following people tests positive for COVID: you, your relative, a member of your household, travelling companion, or person that were due to stay with."

 

I take this to mean that the contact will be covered if the person with Covid is one of the people mentioned. However I would think you would need to be covered under the same policy.

See my amended post above.  I took it to read the same as you but not everyone in a travelling party may necessarily be on one policy.  Certainly my husband and I aren't although we do have a third policy where we are jointly named but it doesn't cover covid before boarding at this time.

[Gettingwarmer]

2 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

See my amended post above.  I took it to read the same as you but not everyone in a travelling party may necessarily be on one policy.  Certainly my husband and I aren't although we do have a third policy where we are jointly named but it doesn't cover covid before boarding at this time.

Yes I agree it seems to be prefferable that you are all on the same policy (or Insurer?) for a contact to be covered. 

 

14 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

Certainly this information is far better than other insurers such as Staysure and Avanti indicate in their policies, ie PCR test.

Yes I agree, it appears that Allianz do not mention the PCR test as a requirement of proof just medical certificate, but quite how the doctor assesses this I'm unsure.

[Megabear2]

1 hour ago, Gettingwarmer said:

Yes I agree it seems to be prefferable that you are all on the same policy (or Insurer?) for a contact to be covered. 

 

Yes I agree, it appears that Allianz do not mention the PCR test as a requirement of proof just medical certificate, but quite how the doctor assesses this I'm unsure.

I have an Allianz policy through Halifax.  I carried out an online chat a week or so ago and was told I'd need a PCR.  I have queried this and await a reply.

 

I've been a very busy bee for my family who unfortunately all use different insurers. This news from HE is the most positive but the first paragraph is worrying in cases such a the lady who told the truth about her cough.

[Gettingwarmer]

31 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

 

I've been a very busy bee for my family who unfortunately all use different insurers. This news from HE is the most positive but the first paragraph is worrying in cases such a the lady who told the truth about her cough.

You indeed work hard in finding out things for all of us for which I thank you. In the case of the lady with the cough I would be inclined to get a medical certificate for the infection and claim for cancellation under illness. 

[wowzz]

So, in a nutshell,  P&O have said that in virtually every case involving Covid,  your first port of call (sic) should be your insurance company. 

And yet P&O 's insurance partner (Holiday Extras) have said, in writing, that they will not cover claims arising from P&O policies with regard to non embarkation, cruuse quarantine etc.!

It really is an enormous cop out on both sides. 

You feel as if you want to put both of them  into a closed room and not let them out until the matter is resolved.

What annoys me the most is that P&O continues to promote an insurance broker that categorically says it will not cover anyone for P&O covid protocols.

 

[Gettingwarmer]

27 minutes ago, wowzz said:

 

And yet P&O 's insurance partner (Holiday Extras) have said, in writing, that they will not cover claims arising from P&O policies with regard to non embarkation, cruuse quarantine etc.!

Yes they will if you prove you have covid. Previously P&O just took your word and gave you FCC.
People on this board encouraged others to say they had Covid in order to enable them not to embark and get FCC. 
Now it is much more difficult. 

[wowzz]

18 minutes ago, Gettingwarmer said:

Yes they will if you prove you have covid. Previously P&O just took your word and gave you FCC.

As we have discussed already,  proving you have Covid is, ironically,  very difficult. 

But there are other aspects to consider.

Say you saw your sister/brother/friend a week before your cruise. They then test positive for Covid. 

Theoretically you should declare this to P&O,  and you and your travelling companions will not be allowed to cruise.

P&O say that you should claim from your insurance company - for simplicity lets say Holiday Extras,  because,  after all, they are recommended by P&O. 

Unfortunately,  HE say that as  the UK government do not regard close contact to a Covid sufferer as a reason to deny travel, they will not pay out. So, you lose everything.

No one in their right mind is going to admit to knowing anyone with covid, or, indeed having covid themselves,  because to do so is to basically lose the entire cist of their holiday.

Edited September 30, 2022 by wowzz

[Megabear2]

1 hour ago, wowzz said:

So, in a nutshell,  P&O have said that in virtually every case involving Covid,  your first port of call (sic) should be your insurance company. 

And yet P&O 's insurance partner (Holiday Extras) have said, in writing, that they will not cover claims arising from P&O policies with regard to non embarkation, cruuse quarantine etc.!

It really is an enormous cop out on both sides. 

You feel as if you want to put both of them  into a closed room and not let them out until the matter is resolved.

What annoys me the most is that P&O continues to promote an insurance broker that categorically says it will not cover anyone for P&O covid protocols.

 

In fairness I don’t think they are alone.  Previous rearch shows it is incredibly difficult to get an insurer to accept responsibility no matter when or if a person contracts covid.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Megabear2

[davecttr]

It looks increasingly like I will not be paying the final balance on my Iona January cruise and concentrating on getting the £400+ refund promised me months ago on my paid up April Arvia cruise Add that to my Iona saving and i will have about £3500 to spend on short breaks in the UK, without any insurance problems. Thinking about York, Glasgow, Portsmouth, Isle of Man, Orkney, Shetland etc etc.

[seapals2]

Seems like yet another huge insurance loophole and probably why positive cases are high onboard many ships.  
No one will declare they are positive unless too ill to travel.  Then you would need a GP certificate as would have been the case for any other illness preventing you going on holiday.  
Covid has got to be put into the same bracket now as flu and treated the same.  None of us have been asked previously if we have had our flu jab and never been isolated onboard if we had coughs and colds.  If we have felt ill and rested in the cabin we wouldn’t expect a FCC.  If we were so ill to  needed medical attention in hospital we knew the insurance would cover it.  
Denied boarding unless you are ill is ridiculous now.  P&O like all other cruise lines will have to become like any other hotel or holiday destination and follow gov. guide lines or if they decide to stick with their own set of rules then offer compensation accordingly rather than expect insurance companies to pick up the cost.  
Their rules … their problem.  

[BouncingWheel]

Can I just say thank you again @Megabear2 for all the updates you give us regarding your fantastic proactive emails and calls to insurers and cruise companies. 

[terrierjohn]

45 minutes ago, seapals2 said:

Seems like yet another huge insurance loophole and probably why positive cases are high onboard many ships.  
No one will declare they are positive unless too ill to travel.  Then you would need a GP certificate as would have been the case for any other illness preventing you going on holiday.  
Covid has got to be put into the same bracket now as flu and treated the same.  None of us have been asked previously if we have had our flu jab and never been isolated onboard if we had coughs and colds.  If we have felt ill and rested in the cabin we wouldn’t expect a FCC.  If we were so ill to  needed medical attention in hospital we knew the insurance would cover it.  
Denied boarding unless you are ill is ridiculous now.  P&O like all other cruise lines will have to become like any other hotel or holiday destination and follow gov. guide lines or if they decide to stick with their own set of rules then offer compensation accordingly rather than expect insurance companies to pick up the cost.  
Their rules … their problem.  

That all sounds very sensible, but when was the time P&O acted sensibly?

[Megabear2]

I'm waiting for Adam Edinburgh to expand his explanation (he's usually very prompt). Basically I've asked him for ex UK departures if an LFT is taken would it suffice for a photograph and date as proof followed by the person uploading their result into their GP records - I'm not sure if you can do this but am looking into it. For fly cruises to Caribbean and longer ex UK itineraries an observed LFT is required by P&O and consequently I have asked if this certificate would suffice for his company's needs if it is passed to.the GP. I'm unsure of P&O's testing requirements for the Azura fly cruises not knowing anyone on them, so if someone can let me know we can then see if they are covered under these two scenarios or if I need another question answered.

 

Having now thought about all this, I truthfully think that the policy is a charter for dishonesty and as we move into the winter months with the inevitable rise in infections numbers of passengers affected will increase accordingly.

 

Not everyone will encounter a problem, some insurers may well be more flexible, but those caught will face a long, difficult and expensive battle.  My aunt's GP surgery charges £75pp to complete an insurance form as we found out in our Princess fiasco.  I'm assured that's pretty common so even assuming you do get the claim accepted the costs with excess etc will be quite high.

 

I am doing more research on this with other companies next week and at the moment rather than tackle P&O intend to collate "proof" their policy is not workable.  As it happens on 3 October I have an ABTA call on my other matter and I may well speak to them to see if I can open a complaint on this insurance situation.  I do of course have my last correspondence from P&O from April which says their legal team will be in touch so I'm going to treat that as them failing to deal with my query.

 

 

Edited October 1, 2022 by Megabear2
Typo of wrong date

[Megabear2]

Update: no news yet from Adam Edinburgh but I have today spoken with quite a few major insurers including Halifax Allianz, Avanti/Staysure, Post Office, Paying Too Much and Good to Go.  All have confirmed cover for refused boarding due to covid related issues requires a positive test.  Several did however say family members on the same policy would be covered if a positive test was available for one of them.  All required doctor certification to accept a claim.

 

I then spoke to P&O who told me they had no authority to discuss this or any insurance issues and had been instructed to provide an email address of po.guestsupport@carnivalgroup.com 

 

This is an email I've not come across before so I've written to it along with all the other email addresses I have used previously. I can confirm an acknowledgement receipt stating 10 day response time has arrived from this newly provided address.

 

I also spoke with ABTA on my other issue and asked for their view on the insurer responses.  They advised me to write to P&O putting them on notice that if no reply was received in 7 working days I would open a complaint via ABTA, they are prepared to allow this based on my being yet to travel and also a failure of communication from them since February.

 

Finally it was mentioned I might like to take advice from a consumer group but I have held off on this although I have indicated to P&O failing a line of communication reopening on the issue I may take this action.

 

So that's me done for now on this, off to play silly fools with my non responding friends at Princess !  I remember when cruising was fun ... hey ho!

[FatBoy20]

Best of luck getting a face to face appointment with a GP within two weeks to issue a sick certificate. The Cruise will have departed & probably returned & the Insurance Company won't pay out then as the certificate will be dated for the day of issue & that will be to late!.

[Gettingwarmer]

15 minutes ago, FatBoy20 said:

Best of luck getting a face to face appointment with a GP within two weeks to issue a sick certificate. The Cruise will have departed & probably returned & the Insurance Company won't pay out then as the certificate will be dated for the day of issue & that will be to late!.

I think maybe they will as they will be charging for it as it is needed for insurance. 

[cruising.mark.uk]

1 hour ago, FatBoy20 said:

Best of luck getting a face to face appointment with a GP within two weeks to issue a sick certificate. The Cruise will have departed & probably returned & the Insurance Company won't pay out then as the certificate will be dated for the day of issue & that will be to late!.

I don't think there's any need to do this.  I think Megabear provided the answer herself at post 45 of the now closed 'If you have Covid a day before you cruise' thread, where she said she might well pay for fit-to-fly tests before her upcoming cruise.  I'm pretty certain that those all have to be signed off by a doctor / medical professional and the tests conducted by government certified labs and would thus meet the needs of the insurers as expressed above.  Certainly, the 3 fit-to-fly tests I've had, one in the UK, one in Paris and one in Brussels were all signed off by doctors, as was the PCR result I had when I tested positive on a cruise.  I sense that the insurers are a drawing distinction between medically verified test results and DIY LFTs.  

 

If this is right, then there should be no need to involve a GP at all.  The easy and most certain approach for anyone who doesn't want to run the risk of being denied boarding and then find themselves uninsured is to go and get a fit-to-fly test in the run up to a cruise. Those are still widely available.  If positive, the info Megabear posted above suggests that will suffice for insurers, for the traveller and for members of their party.   Having run foul of insurance small print on our May / June cruise, my wife and I will certainly be getting these tests in the run-up to our next cruises in Nov and Jan, whatever the cruise lines policies ref testing might be at the time.  As far as I'm concerned, an outlay of £50 or even £100 a head is a small price to pay for peace of mind when a thousands of pounds are at stake. 

[Megabear2]

16 minutes ago, cruising.mark.uk said:

I don't think there's any need to do this.  I think Megabear provided the answer herself at post 45 of the now closed 'If you have Covid a day before you cruise' thread, where she said she might well pay for fit-to-fly tests before her upcoming cruise.  I'm pretty certain that those all have to be signed off by a doctor / medical professional and the tests conducted by government certified labs and would thus meet the needs of the insurers as expressed above.  Certainly, the 3 fit-to-fly tests I've had, one in the UK, one in Paris and one in Brussels were all signed off by doctors, as was the PCR result I had when I tested positive on a cruise.  I sense that the insurers are a drawing distinction between medically verified test results and DIY LFTs.  

 

If this is right, then there should be no need to involve a GP at all.  The easy and most certain approach for anyone who doesn't want to run the risk of being denied boarding and then find themselves uninsured is to go and get a fit-to-fly test in the run up to a cruise. Those are still widely available.  If positive, the info Megabear posted above suggests that will suffice for insurers, for the traveller and for members of their party.   Having run foul of insurance small print on our May / June cruise, my wife and I will certainly be getting these tests in the run-up to our next cruises in Nov and Jan, whatever the cruise lines policies ref testing might be at the time.  As far as I'm concerned, an outlay of £50 or even £100 a head is a small price to pay for peace of mind when a thousands of pounds are at stake. 

I'm sure our thinking is correct as all companies seemed happy with that idea, just stating it had to be medically certificated.  However Holiday Extras, Staysure and Avanti want the result added to GP records and a medical report completed as well.  This means emailing a copy of the positive test to your surgery and then sending the required insurance form for completion.  I checked costing with Dam Health Southampton as my nearest and cost is £49 for a 24 hour PCR fit to fly, £69 for a midnight one and £22.49 for an observed LFT. Doctor form completion is of course at a cost decided by them.  I'm happy to pay for peace of mindvtoo.

[Mollag]

On 10/1/2022 at 9:34 AM, Megabear2 said:

I'm waiting for Adam Edinburgh to expand his explanation (he's usually very prompt). Basically I've asked him for ex UK departures if an LFT is taken would it suffice for a photograph and date as proof followed by the person uploading their result into their GP records - I'm not sure if you can do this but am looking into it. For fly cruises to Caribbean and longer ex UK itineraries an observed LFT is required by P&O and consequently I have asked if this certificate would suffice for his company's needs if it is passed to.the GP. I'm unsure of P&O's testing requirements for the Azura fly cruises not knowing anyone on them, so if someone can let me know we can then see if they are covered under these two scenarios or if I need another question answered.

 

Having now thought about all this, I truthfully think that the policy is a charter for dishonesty and as we move into the winter months with the inevitable rise in infections numbers of passengers affected will increase accordingly.

 

Not everyone will encounter a problem, some insurers may well be more flexible, but those caught will face a long, difficult and expensive battle.  My aunt's GP surgery charges £75pp to complete an insurance form as we found out in our Princess fiasco.  I'm assured that's pretty common so even assuming you do get the claim accepted the costs with excess etc will be quite high.

 

I am doing more research on this with other companies next week and at the moment rather than tackle P&O intend to collate "proof" their policy is not workable.  As it happens on 3 October I have an ABTA call on my other matter and I may well speak to them to see if I can open a complaint on this insurance situation.  I do of course have my last correspondence from P&O from April which says their legal team will be in touch so I'm going to treat that as them failing to deal with my query.

 

 

We’re on Azura at the end of the month and as far as I’m aware it’s just the same as the shorter cruises from Southampton recommended test but not mandatory 

[Cathygh]

1 minute ago, Mollag said:

We’re on Azura at the end of the month and as far as I’m aware it’s just the same as the shorter cruises from Southampton recommended test but not mandatory 

We are flying to Azura this week, no test required