Answer: Your inquiry brought back memories of the chaos and confusion at the beginning of the pandemic’s flood, and how millions of people’s lives and plans changed dramatically as countries around the world took the unprecedented step of issuing travel bans and closing borders.
I remember around March 2020, the travel insurance market changed drastically. Some insurance companies have stopped selling cover entirely, unwilling and unable to cover the risks that a global disease would bring. Others quickly changed the terms of their policies, ruling out the generous cancellation clauses that had been in place before the pandemic. Policyholders, desperate to recoup the costs of canceled flights, struggled to gain access to their insurance companies, and themselves had to adjust to call centers forced to work entirely from home.
Two months into the pandemic, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the regulator for financial services firms (such as travel insurers) has issued some new rules for companies to ease the burden of insurance costs on people financially affected by the shutdown.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has asked insurers to provide additional assistance to deal with customers fairly during the crisis, which included lower monthly premiums, partial refunds for annual premiums, pay leave, waiving cancellation fees or policy modification, extending cool-down periods, and writing off non-payments Paid and relax. Fees and interest on missed payments.
It also asked companies to review the suitability of their products and ensure they were still suitable for customers who kept them, in the correspondence they sent to customers and at the point of renewal.
I’m assuming you’ve paid for the annual policies, which means you’ve had to renew it at least once in the past two years. Unfortunately, I think it is very unlikely that you will be able to get back the premiums you paid when many of the travel restrictions were lifted. The timeline for this is difficult to say, with countries included in red, amber and green, but the generally accepted time was at the beginning of July 2020, when 90 countries were placed on the ‘green’ list, allowing no travel to restart. The bank may argue why you should renew your policy if you had no intention of traveling during the period when restrictions were largely lifted.
However, there may be a case for your premium to be partially refunded from the time the international travel bans and restrictions were lifted, covering the five-month period between March and July in 2020. Some insurers have done so proactively with customers, but many They acted only when policyholders submitted an application.
Contact the bank to see if you can get a refund for that period. If you file a formal complaint with the bank, you will have eight weeks to investigate the matter and get back to you. If you are not satisfied with the result, you can escalate your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, the independent body that mediates disputes between consumers and regulated financial firms.
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