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“Defeats the Whole Purpose of Travel Insurance”

written by Chrisrob999 on 17/12/2015

Following a flight cancellation for the final leg of a trip from Orlando to London we were delayed by over 24 hours. It was 28 hours in total. We naturally expected Virgin to deal with our claim in sensitive and efficient matter. Hah!

As I've seen on earlier comments on Mumsnet they do not even consider a claim until you've jumped through many hoops and provided endless amounts of information for a £40 a person claim. There has been so little empathy with me as customer I've been amazed.

Why a Travel Insurance firm in the 21st century can't just log onto historic flight information to confirm cancellations and delays beggars belief. Two weeks after receiving formal documentation from United Airlines and submitting the claim they returned my form because it did not include the names of the claimants and their birth dates. Seriously? As I have a travel insurance policy with you it seemed reasonable it you might have this information?

I also needed to sign the form again on behalf on my two children (9 & 12). Why on earth is that necessary? But what really riled me was the incomprehensible email that it was attached to presumably sent in the hope I would not understand it and fail to claim properly.

And now 1 month after they received the original claim they have paid out .......for a 12 hour delay not a 28 hour delay. Why? Because I've included a letter from the airline (at Virgins request) which states the scheduled time of the departure. The fact that it was delayed by 3-4 hours and I returned 28 hours later and was stated on the claim form was ignored.

After a heated conversation with a professional call centre 'sponge' I just received the same response over and over again. You can appeal or submit another claim. Yes, because that's customer service. That's what I should be doing.

Or how about Virgin just takes a step back and realises its not being as helpful as it could be, trust the customer who endured a stressful end to family holiday and pay the due compensation.

Stay well clear of this company.