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Last update

17/10/2007

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During a recent Nile Cruise, whilst visiting the Valley of the Kings, my wife regretfully lost her prescription varifocal glasses.

We duly reported the loss to the tour operator’s representative and obtained a written report and we also reported it to the ship’s reception desk, just in case there were left on the excursion bus.

They were never found and upon our return my wife went to the opticians and got herself some replacement glasses. The cost of the lost pair, which was fairly new, was approx. £ 250.00 and the new pair came to £270.00, roughly the same value.

Some of our fellow passengers had experienced  similar losses previously and they all assured us that our travel insurance would cover us for such an event.

You guessed it, they were wrong.

After filing a claim for compensation and sending them a copy of the tour operator’s report and a copy of the invoice for the replacement glasses we had our first response telling us that we would not be covered as we had not reported the loss to the police and that they could only accept claims for any item over £ 50.00 if we can provide an original invoice or a pre-loss valuation report.

Considering that we had paid this insurance religiously over a number of years without ever making a claim we were furious and we wrote back pointing out that it would have been impossible to report such a trivial incident to the police in Egypt without being arrest for wasting police time and that any reputable optician in the UK could confirm that it is virtually impossible to obtain varifocal glasses with a halfway

decent frame for under £ 250.00.

They came back again, accepting that the request for a police report was unreasonable but they now pointed out that their terms of insurance actually excluded spectacles and hearing aids but they still elaborated on the price of Varifocals claiming that they could not accept a quote ‘as they are unique to each person and as such, no pair of varifocal glasses is the same in looks or price and it is necessary for a pre-loss valuation or receipt to be provided”.

They totally wasted my time; why did they not tell me in the first letter that spectacles are excluded from any claim and why did they still elaborate on the pre-loss valuation of an item they were not going to pay for anyway?

Clearly I reached the end of the road and I have no claim and I will now file a claim with my house insurance instead, but the point I am trying to make is that all these insurances which we are forced to have are a total waste of money if it comes to making a claim.

We all get caught in this trap as we never read the small print until it is too late.

The moral and the reason for all that is quite simple.

1)     Try to read the small print and look critically at the exclusions before you part with your money. Don’t be fooled by the points they tell you are covered, it’s far more important to find out the loopholes they will use not to pay up.

2)     Don’t take anything with you unless you have an invoice or a valuation in case you loose it unless you are not bothered if it disappears

3)     In the case of stolen cash be aware that insurances like Select Travel Insurance will not cover you even if it was stolen from the safe in your room, keep it in the Hotel safe instead.

4)     Try to keep receipts for all the items you purchase, you never know when you might need them.

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Fortunately my annual travel insurance renewal is due soon and this time I will make sure that I choose an insurance which covers my needs and not the need of the Insurance Company and I suggest you do likewise.                                                                                           

 Complaint Status:   closed