Lay My Hat

Do you recommend any travel (holiday) insurance companies to your guests, if so who?

Thanks all

Dodgy ground I think.
Insurance products could be seen a s a conflict of interests and you'll be in a small way acting as an adviser to a regulated product.

Good point teapot.

Just recently been asked....by someone who's driving down. Am not planning to have any website links or commission based ads.

If they asked, then they are looking for someone you have personally used yourself and are happy with. If you don't use anyone yourself, then I'd suggest they do a google search.

teapot wrote:Dodgy ground I think.

I'm not sure about that.
Have a look in the top right hand corner of this screen

That's a little different e-richard as Schofields is a broker not an insurer so you would probably have to be noted down as an introducer and hopefully a fee is payable for people who click through the link

Possibly not relevant to this thread, maybe only UK owners; a lot of policies available in the UK don't provide cover for travel that's entirely within the UK, so fairly useless for most of our guests. We did track down a broker - JL Morris - who does arrange suitable cover, so we will give their details as a possibility. We don't arrange an introduction and if any transaction takes place it's directly between guest and broker.

I routinely insure my own UK holidays with no problems and find the best deal through sites such as Go Compare. It's usually no more than approx £10.

JaneV wrote:I routinely insure my own UK holidays with no problems and find the best deal through sites such as Go Compare. It's usually no more than approx £10.

That's worth knowing about. Does the cover include not being able to reach the destination in the UK due to eg flooding, as well as cancellation by the guest? It was travel within the UK that always seemed to be the problem, although it doesn't make any sense to me!
If it's easy for guests to get appropriate insurance cover cheaply then it's even less reason to sweat over "should I refund under these circumstances?".

Just had a quick look and both Go Compare and Compare the Market have UK holiday insurance options listed.

I haven't looked any further, nor gone as far as a quote as to be honest, I don't want any more emails advertising anything (still recovering from the deluge of Black Friday / Black Friday week email offers). I would presume other comparison sites would offer the same UK holiday insurance?

Is it ok then, thinking of what Greenbarn is saying, to put on our websites that guests may wish to source travel insurance from one of the price comparison sites???? (Without naming the actual price comparison site)

Thanks to JaneV and zebedee for bringing me up to date on this. I did a random search and went to the website of a scheme called CancellationPlan . If this is typical of what's available, it appears to offer the cover required eg can't reach destination due to flooding etc. It also seems to provide cover if the guest causes accidental damage, although as with any policy document I did lose the will to live after reading the first three lines so my interpretation could be wrong.
The point here is that this type of cover is now readily available for holidays/journeys that are exclusively within the UK, which wasn't the case a while ago, and easily found.

Their website starts with the message:

When you book your UK† holiday, you're not just making time for a well deserved break, you're entering into a legally binding contract with your travel/accommodation provider.

I'd really like to be able to get guests to see this; I'm wondering about a paragraph that included a statement that we had no affiliation and were making no recommendation etc etc but have a look at abc and xyz sites for an example of what's available.

In answer to zebedee's question (and IANAL) I'd guess that it would be fine to say that guests should ensure their travel cover includes holidays and journeys entirely within the UK, and a number of providers can be found with an internet search. Maybe even suggest a search term such as holiday insurance for uk cottage holidays.

I'm not sure about cover for flooding; have to admit that I also switch off with the small print. I tend to take it out to cover for any unforeseen incidences such as an accident/illness that would prevent any of us from being able to actually go on the holiday, rather than weather conditions. I'm just about to take out cover for our Cornwall holiday next year so will check.

This is what I put on my email templates with HL, etc.

I strongly recommend that you take out adequate UK travel insurance to cover for any unforseen circumstances that may arise. This can be purchased very reasonably and is well worth the expenditure as the terms and conditions are non-negotiable.

Have just taken out cover for a Cornwall holiday for £20, which is for 3 adults and 2 children and gives up to £2000 in cancellation cover as we have paid more for our holiday on this occasion than we normally do. I looked at the small print and couldn't see anything about any weather conditions. The only exclusion that I could see was in relation to cancellation by the guest due to redundancy and the fact that such a redundancy couldn't be caused by misconduct, voluntary redundancy, etc.

I think that £20 is such a small price to pay for peace of mind against the most common reasons for cancellation, such as accidents/illness/redundancy and would certainly encourage all guests to do the same.

I just had another look through the policy I referenced earlier, (note to self - get a life ) and it seems the cover doesn't extend to:

you not wanting to travel or not enjoying your journey;

Restrictive or what?

I thought the following inclusions to the cover might be worth knowing about:

Catastrophe cover
Up to £1,000 in total per insured person in respect of additional travel and accommodation costs in the event that the area within 25 miles of the pre-booked holiday accommodation suffers a catastrophe.
Nuisance cover
Up to £1,000 in total per insured person in respect of additional travel and accommodation costs in the event that after the booked commencement date the holiday is disturbed by a significant nuisance, for a continuous period in excess of 48 hours and is outside of the control of the accommodation provider / letting agency.

Nuisance is defined as:

Nuisance - means substantial loss of visual amenity, excessive noise or other significant
nuisance which renders the accommodation unsuitable for holiday purposes.

All in all the accommodation owner seems to be safeguarded against most of the sob story cancellation claims and events beyond control.
Time for a rethink about how to really highlight this in the booking process.

How about:

If you don't have any cancellation insurance you can't come

Should focus the mind.