Holiday Cancellation

I have travelled for 50 years, always with insurance, never claimed until this year. Had 2 consecutive cruises booked with RCI, but about 3 weeks before departure seemed to get a virus. Anyway saw doctor one week before and he felt that I was fit to travel. Unfortunately 48 hours before I woke with mind numbing pain in the rib area, think it was soft tissue rather than cracked rib. I could barely move so phoned doctor and reported it, but could not consider going to GP because of pain.
Without some sort of XRay or scan GP could not actually ascertain the problem, which they were not going to facilitate, particularly in short term. So this pain took 5 weeks to dissipate altogether, and I did travel for the second cruise one week later. Had to make arrangements for my wife to travel alone for first.
There was no advantage to me in missing cruise, and indeed I was concerned about travelling and things getting worse. A GP would have had to accept my word for how painful the injury was, which I suspect was caused by coughing.

So in essence I had one thing missing, a definitive claim form stating that I was unfit to travel. They completed the form, but of course had not actually seen me. The Insurers have declined this claim, had it now for nearly 3 months. They allowed me to appeal, to be dealt with within 5 working days, ONE MONTH ago.

I understand that they normally require a definitive form from a GP stating that I was unfit to travel, but as stated this was impractical for a couple of reasons. Me attending the surgery would not have put them in any better position to do so. I really do not see why the insurers think there was any advantage to me in making this a ‘fraudulent’ claim.

Anyway I wanted to warn others to discover which company deals with claims before taking out travel insurance. Travel Claims Services Ltd. are the company and apart from disputing the claim they have failed to respond regularly for weeks at a time. Totally inefficient and uncaring.

I recommend that people avoid insurers using this claims company.