Vacation cancelation (medical)

[ASIIndustries]

Hi my parents booked a vacation to Cyprus back in January for 3 persons to go in September, however my father was diagnosed cancer in mid May, thus the vacation was canceled.

My parents paid £2170 (in full) by the begining of May, they got a refund of £1975, which ment the deposit was £195.

Today i noticed on their invoice that they had paid £120 Air Passenger Duty + £15 Fuel duty.

Can i reclaim the £135 of taxes from the travel agent (Thomas Cook) shop?

Also should my parents have received a copy of (Thomas Cook) Terms & Conditions as they did not get any?

On the insurance side, the medical report was filled by my father's cancer consultant, later the insurance company wrote back requesting the medical report must be filled in by your GP, however the GP's report has a price tag of £15.

Can i claim the £15 for the GP's report from the insurance company?

Also can claim the special delivery costs (£8.60) from the insurance company?

[ScarletPimpernel]

There's no reason why you shouldn't claim the taxes back.

As far as GP's report is concerned, and the SD costs, most policies have a clause which states that the cost of providing any proofs or documentation that the insurer requires must be met by the insured. Have a look at the small print.

[Bookworm]

When you say "cancel", who paid the money back? Did your parents cancel and lost their deposit? Or was it a claim on the insurance?

I ask this because if the claim was on the insurance, I don't see why they shouldn't have been refunded in full, the only part to be lost being the excess on the policy.

Medical reports are usually at the expense of the insured, yes.

The refund of taxes will in all likelihood be included in the total refund they have received, how are you going to claim that?

Your post confuses me. Can you answer the above, and we'll see if we can make sense of it all.

[ASIIndustries]

Hi Bookie, my parents paid £2170 (in full) by the begining of May, they got a refund of £1975 from Thomas Cook, which ment the deposit was £195 which was lost!

On the Insurance side, (they got £65 on each of the three policies (£195) with an excess of £20 each, which leaves a shortfall of £83.60 including the excess, should my parents claim for the extra costs of £23.60?

I have looked at the policy T&C's, but dont see anything it's Insure & Go if it makes any difference!

[Bookworm]

I see.

It's a bit naughty to levy an excess for each client, unless of course they were 3 different policies, 3 claims. If the policy was one with 3 named clients on it, I would argue quite strongly that only one excess should be levied.
As I said, the medical report usually remains the insured's responsability, so you'd have to read the insurance T&Cs to double check that, and as for the P&P, I am afraid that that is non-reclaimable as it was -presumably- your choice to send it that way and not by normal post.

So to sum up:
- Check T&Cs for medical report costs (from experience, highly unlikely to be covered by insurance)
- P&P, no chance.
- If policy is one policy covering 3 people, worth arguing that only one excess should apply. Check T&Cs. If 3 separate policies, then 3 lots of excess apply.

Sorry.

[ASIIndustries]

Thanks `Bookworm', & `ScarletPimpernel' for your help and advice, yes it was three seperate policies, so they will just have to take £83.60 as a loss, incidently i did recommend that both my parents were on the same policy, but that was costing 1 penny more than 2 single policies and my sister added no excess for a cost of £4.47 more, which could have reduced their losses by £40, but thier penny pinching cost them in the end!

[rincewindrunnin]

are the insurers obtaining the gp medical report or are you? I would always get the insurers to obtain the medical report and, regardless of what the t&c's state insist that they pay for this as they want it to try and see if they can negate your claim. Insurers will pay for it themselves if they think that there is a chance of cancelling a claim. And since you have a consultants report which is much more relevant than gp'ds you can argue that you have a specialists report which is relevant to the claim. the gp report is just for them to be nosey about any other conditions which may help them to cancel claim for non-disclosure. Also, if you are obtaining the gp report, request to view it before it is sent to insurers and get gp to omit anything that is not relevant to the claim. check the documentation insurers send with the request as you also have a right to decline to obtain it and a right to view it prior to insurers receiving it.

ALSO if you are obtaining gp report, book an appointment and see gp and while your there ask him to fill out the answers to their questions and thus avoid paying a fee. gp's can and do charge for this service, but they find it harder to do so when you are there in front of them, especially if you have qa good relationship with them.

gp checks take 5 mins to complete and the insurers just need to fax the request off. it's that simple. so get THEM to do it.


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emergency medical assistance company expert.