Travel Insurance cruise cover.

[shopaholic6]

So, IF the issue of airlift from sea was sorted (and various posts above suggest we might be getting there), do we still have the issue of most insurance policies not covering any medical expenses incurred onboard if you are in UK waters? 🤔

 

[davecttr]

47 minutes ago, shopaholic6 said:

So, IF the issue of airlift from sea was sorted (and various posts above suggest we might be getting there), do we still have the issue of most insurance policies not covering any medical expenses incurred onboard if you are in UK waters? 🤔

 

Yes we still have the issue but as mentioned earlier lots of passengers must have used the onboard medical facilities while in UK territorial waters and have been charged so much that they have claimed on their insurance. Have we ever heard of anyone being refused payment by their insurance company?

 

Or is it that these 'non foreign' cruises are different because you don't call at a foreign port. It looks as if the companies just don't want your premium or your business, weird.

[MX-Drew]

One idea I had is if you should be unfortunate and require medical assistance get someone to ask the captain to sail into international waters.🤣🤣🤣🤣

OK back to research.

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, shopaholic6 said:

So, IF the issue of airlift from sea was sorted (and various posts above suggest we might be getting there), do we still have the issue of most insurance policies not covering any medical expenses incurred onboard if you are in UK waters? 🤔

 

And you need medical cover of up to £2m, which it seems many UK only holiday insurers do not cover.

[Harry Peterson]

2 hours ago, MX-Drew said:

I'm working on this problem of cost of air lift and have found this statement on an American website.

"By international convention, rescue on the seas is not charged for"

 

Still more work required to find a quotable source but found this of interest.

Here’s a little bit more to add - sorry about the source, but it does include a relatively statement from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency 

 

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/3888332/rescue-helicopter-north-sea-oil-rigs-taxpayers/ 

 

 

 

[davecttr]

Contact Simon Calder about issue? No longer possible because of pandemic. He does have some sort of Facecloth Q&A once a week but I am not a Facecloth fan.

 

British territorial waters, apparently this is the 12 mile limit?. Expect the ship to get outside as soon as possible otherwise they can't open the shops!  (but can helicopter you off). You can get as far north as Scotland and be outside the 12 mile limit. Then an evening dash westwards to start selling the tat!

 

Try finding a good 12 mile limit map, yet another failure for the search engines.

 

If you are a Which member maybe join their online chat community?

[BarnhamDave]

Just to put a spanner in the works...... My brother-in-law had a heart attack on a cross channel ferry. The medical centre on board liaised with the nearest cardiac specialist centre which was in France. He was airlifted off the ferry and taken to the french hospital where he received excellent treatment. When he returned home he was billed for over 10,000 euros for the cost of the airlift......luckily, this was covered by travel insurance he had through his bank. This was about 7 years ago so things can change but I have a feeling airlifts still don’t come free.

[davecttr]

13 hours ago, BarnhamDave said:

Just to put a spanner in the works...... My brother-in-law had a heart attack on a cross channel ferry. The medical centre on board liaised with the nearest cardiac specialist centre which was in France. He was airlifted off the ferry and taken to the french hospital where he received excellent treatment. When he returned home he was billed for over 10,000 euros for the cost of the airlift......luckily, this was covered by travel insurance he had through his bank. This was about 7 years ago so things can change but I have a feeling airlifts still don’t come free.

But do the MCA in the UK charge for helicopter airlifts to hospitals in the UK? That is the question that needs answering. If the MCA don't charge insurance companies refusing to pay for such an airlift does not matter, it is free anyway!

 

If you end up in France or Eire you may be charged, but you have europe wide travel insurance so you can claim.

 

It appears to me that P&O insist on basically Europe insurance, fair enough but then the insurance companies say they won't cover you because the holiday is not a foreign one. OK, have a UK only policy that does cover you AND a Europe one that satisfies the P&O requirements. I believe it is OK to buy more than one policy from different providers but you can only make one claim.

 

The problem is there does not seem to be any UK only policies that include cruises. Land based holidays, just fine. Take a self catering holiday on a remote Scottish island and need a helicopter evacuation, no problem. Need that evacuation from a cruise ship 6 miles offshore? they won't pay!

[MX-Drew]

1 hour ago, davecttr said:

The problem is there does not seem to be any UK only policies that include cruises.

I believe there is an AllClear policy for UK holidays that has cruise cover.

 

Region covered,  Covers trips to, from, and within the United
Kingdom.

[rumbalizw]

I had this email just now from Cover for you .

 

Kindly note that your policy covers - subject to the policy terms and conditions - up to £15,000,000.00 per person for emergency medical claims inclusive Covid-19, including ambulance and, medical repatriation if required and approved by our Emergency Medical Team.  For cruises within the UK the medical cost would be covered- subject to the policy terms and conditions - if you cannot claim from the NHS, as you are permanent residents of the UK.

[shopaholic6]

Morning everyone!

 

I’ve received the below from AllClear today:

 

’Please see the below questions and answers regarding UK cruises that have been provided by our Underwriters:

"To clarify, if a customer is going on a UK cruise, do we need to capture whether they are travelling through waters outside of the UK and include these destinations within the region of cover?
Yes, we should, otherwise the customer is at risk of not having the full claim / assistance covered. For your reference this is something we also try to capture when someone is travelling on their own boats. 

Separately, if the customer is on a UK cruise and in UK waters only, would they have medical expense cover including airlift/repatriation?
Yes, should the evacuation not be covered by NHS/EHIC, we would take over and cover them."

Please ensure you declare all destinations, even if you are only travelling through the waters and not stopping at any ports. Failure to do so could impact any potential claim.’

 

Hopefully this should help a bit, although I still don’t think we have the answer regarding medical treatment actually on board but whilst in UK waters! 🙂

 

[terrierjohn]

1 minute ago, shopaholic6 said:

Morning everyone!

 

I’ve received the below from AllClear today:

 

’Please see the below questions and answers regarding UK cruises that have been provided by our Underwriters:

"To clarify, if a customer is going on a UK cruise, do we need to capture whether they are travelling through waters outside of the UK and include these destinations within the region of cover?
Yes, we should, otherwise the customer is at risk of not having the full claim / assistance covered. For your reference this is something we also try to capture when someone is travelling on their own boats. 

Separately, if the customer is on a UK cruise and in UK waters only, would they have medical expense cover including airlift/repatriation?
Yes, should the evacuation not be covered by NHS/EHIC, we would take over and cover them."

Please ensure you declare all destinations, even if you are only travelling through the waters and not stopping at any ports. Failure to do so could impact any potential claim.’

 

Hopefully this should help a bit, although I still don’t think we have the answer regarding medical treatment actually on board but whilst in UK waters! 🙂

 

If P&O are following the sun then even they wont know where they ate likely to be going, and many of the cruises state channel island or French coat cruising  so they will be well outside UK waters!!!!

[downsmead]

43 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

If P&O are following the sun then even they wont know where they ate likely to be going, and many of the cruises state channel island or French coat cruising  so they will be well outside UK waters!!!!

I wondered this, but also thought that the ship would most likely have to document it’s sailing manifest in advance. I wonder how much leeway they have in deciding where to cruise. Diverting due to bad weather makes sense and does happen, so deviations can be done but whether allowed ‘to follow the sun’ is another matter 🤷‍♀️.

Following the sun departing from the U.K. would almost invariably mean travelling south to get the really warm weather. Or does it mean just moving around the U.K. coastline to where it is sunniest?

[davecttr]

Please ensure you declare all destinations, even if you are only travelling through the waters and not stopping at any ports. Failure to do so could impact any potential claim.’

 

Am I right that the waters (12 mile limit) would be the UK and maybe France for the 'southern' cruises and additionally Ireland (Eire) for the Scottish Island ones.

 

P&O might include Belgium? although their coastline is totally flat

Edited April 2, 2021 by davecttr

[teabear]

2 hours ago, davecttr said:

Please ensure you declare all destinations, even if you are only travelling through the waters and not stopping at any ports. Failure to do so could impact any potential claim.’

 

Am I right that the waters (12 mile limit) would be the UK and maybe France for the 'southern' cruises and additionally Ireland (Eire) for the Scottish Island ones.

 

P&O might include Belgium? although their coastline is totally flat

Do they have Smart Sealanes? off the Cornwall coast -  sounds like they may need them with all the ships now sailing and all of them sunchasing??   I am thinking the safe bet is to declare Regions 1 and 2 when buying the cover - that way if the pointy end of the ship creeps out of the 12 mile limit, we are still covered 

[MX-Drew]

Well I emailed my policy to P&O well over a week ago and have heard nothing.

Today I left a message on the P&O Facecloth page stating I had emailed P&O my policy and had no response and I got this reply.

 

"Hi Andrew, unfortunately, we are unable to check guests travel insurance policies and would advise you to check with your insurers to make sure they are providing the required cover."

 

Well if they can't check policies now, it goes without saying they will not be able to check policies before we board.

What angers me is that P&O feel they can stipulate what insurance cover is required but can offer no help or advise in making sure a "guest" has that cover. At best I call it passing the buck or at worst, extremely bad customer service. 

[Harry Peterson]

3 hours ago, MX-Drew said:

Well I emailed my policy to P&O well over a week ago and have heard nothing.

Today I left a message on the P&O Facecloth page stating I had emailed P&O my policy and had no response and I got this reply.

 

"Hi Andrew, unfortunately, we are unable to check guests travel insurance policies and would advise you to check with your insurers to make sure they are providing the required cover."

 

Well if they can't check policies now, it goes without saying they will not be able to check policies before we board.

What angers me is that P&O feel they can stipulate what insurance cover is required but can offer no help or advise in making sure a "guest" has that cover. At best I call it passing the buck or at worst, extremely bad customer service. 

They’re simply covering their backs on the advice of their solicitors.  This is all about scaring people, perhaps justifiably, into getting adequate insurance, and being able to say that they did all they could reasonably be expected to do.

 

I’ve said throughout that checks on boarding will be cursory, and I’m still convinced that will be the case.  They know that very few people will chance it, so why bother to check?  A bit like the self-scanning in Waitrose - extraordinarily rare to be checked because the most Waitrose customers don’t thieve!

[terrierjohn]

9 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

They’re simply covering their backs on the advice of their solicitors.  This is all about scaring people, perhaps justifiably, into getting adequate insurance, and being able to say that they did all they could reasonably be expected to do.

 

I’ve said throughout that checks on boarding will be cursory, and I’m still convinced that will be the case.  They know that very few people will chance it, so why bother to check?  A bit like the self-scanning in Waitrose - extraordinarily rare to be checked because the most Waitrose customers don’t thieve!

But why are they going out of their way to scare people, unless they have experienced a high number of inadequately insured passengers that have resulted in extra costs to P&O? I very much doubt this or it would surely have made it into the Daily Mail. 

It just seems a very poorly thought out policy, which I still maintain that if it is necessary, then P&O/Carnival should be taking a much more pro-active approach in its application.

[Harry Peterson]

1 minute ago, terrierjohn said:

But why are they going out of their way to scare people, unless they have experienced a high number of inadequately insured passengers that have resulted in extra costs to P&O? I very much doubt this or it would surely have made it into the Daily Mail. 

It just seems a very poorly thought out policy, which I still maintain that if it is necessary, then P&O/Carnival should be taking a much more pro-active approach in its application.

Because I imagine, John, they’ve had legal advice that this is the best and safest approach to avoid any risk of negligence claims by passengers without insurance who get picked up by ambulance chasing lawyers.

[MX-Drew]

4 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

But why are they going out of their way to scare people, unless they have experienced a high number of inadequately insured passengers that have resulted in extra costs to P&O? I very much doubt this or it would surely have made it into the Daily Mail. 

It just seems a very poorly thought out policy, which I still maintain that if it is necessary, then P&O/Carnival should be taking a much more pro-active approach in its application.

And instead has left at two "guests" feeling P&O have given very bad customer service. After all if they don't want to "advise" on the insurance policy I sent them they could (and would suggest, should) have replied say that was not the case and not just ignore a "guests" email.

 

I have to say the whole debacle over these summer cruises is putting me off P&O and cruising in general.

[MX-Drew]

1 minute ago, Harry Peterson said:

Because I imagine, John, they’ve had legal advice that this is the best and safest approach to avoid any risk of negligence claims by passengers without insurance who get picked up by ambulance chasing lawyers.

A company only gets legal advice when they ask for it. So why did they ask?

[terrierjohn]

1 minute ago, Harry Peterson said:

Because I imagine, John, they’ve had legal advice that this is the best and safest approach to avoid any risk of negligence claims by passengers without insurance who get picked up by ambulance chasing lawyers.

Any good lawyer would have a field day with the way P&O have handled this so far, absolutely no satisfactory guidance from them.  Probably worth  millions with the sort of straight bat responses that have been posted on here.

[Harry Peterson]

Just now, terrierjohn said:

Any good lawyer would have a field day with the way P&O have handled this so far, absolutely no satisfactory guidance from them.  Probably worth  millions with the sort of straight bat responses that have been posted on here.

P&O haven’t put a foot wrong, legally. PR might be a different matter, but that’s par for the course with P&O!

[Harry Peterson]

5 minutes ago, MX-Drew said:

A company only gets legal advice when they ask for it. So why did they ask?

Carnival will have its own corporate lawyers, with an overall responsibility for strategic risk avoidance.  I imagine this was seen as a risk.

[MX-Drew]

4 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

Carnival will have its own corporate lawyers, with an overall responsibility for strategic risk avoidance.  I imagine this was seen as a risk.

What precisely was seen as a risk on these cruises as opposed to any other cruise?