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Flights of fancy

A couple of months ago, my husband and I travelled from Delhi to Melbourne via Sydney. Unfortunately, our flight reached Sydney 45 minutes late and there was a further delay of 90 minutes on account of delay in baggage arrival and immigration as a result of which we missed our connecting flight and had to buy fresh tickets to travel from Sydney to Melbourne.

Flights of fancy

SELLER’S ONUS: When an insurance company is selling a policy online, it has a responsibility to ensure that it gives the prospective buyer all information regarding the policy, including the exceptions, before the purchase



Pushpa Girimaji

A couple of months ago, my husband and I travelled from Delhi to Melbourne via Sydney. Unfortunately, our flight reached Sydney 45 minutes late and there was a further delay of 90 minutes on account of delay in baggage arrival and immigration as a result of which we missed our connecting flight and had to buy fresh tickets to travel from Sydney to Melbourne. On return, I sent a claim to the insurance company to reimburse our fare, as the travel insurance that we had bought covered losses caused on account of delayed flights. However, the insurance company has repudiated our claim saying that they only pay for delays caused beyond six hours, which we were unaware of. We bought the policy online and the terms and conditions came only with the policy document, which no one really goes through. Can you please tell me on what basis they are rejecting our claim? 

I went through the terms and conditions issued by the insurer along with your policy document. On the policy, I see a table, which refers to flight delays and says under the head ‘sum insured’, ‘US $10 per hour, maximum 120” And under the column ‘deductibles’, it says “6 hours”! Who can understand this? 

Then under the terms and conditions, it says that ‘If the flight in which an insured person is due to travel is delayed in excess of the deductibles, then the company agrees to reimburse up to the amount stated in the schedule per hour up to the sum assured, for essential purchases such as meals, refreshments or other related expenses directly resulting from the

n Delay or cancellation of the insured person’s booked and confirmed flight.

n Late arrival of the insured person’s connecting flight, causing the insured person to miss his or her onward connection.

nOr late arrival of (of more than 1 hour) of public transport causing the insured person to miss the flight. 

So from what I can understand, ‘the delay beyond six hours’ applies only to delayed departures and not to late arrival of the connecting flight, resulting in a missed connecting flight. And since your expenses involving purchase of the tickets stem as a direct result of the delayed arrival, the insurer has to honour your claim. 

What can we do now? How do we get our reimbursement from the insurance company?

First and foremost, I do not see how the exception of ‘delay beyond six hours’ in the policy applies to late arrival of your connecting flight. So you must question the insurer on this.

Having said that, I must also point out that the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority’s Regulation on the Protection of Policy Holders’ Interests, clearly mandates that insurers (or the agent selling the policy) give the prospective policy buyers, full information on the policy, clearly explaining, without any ambiguity, the warranties, exceptions and conditions of the insurance cover, so as to help the prospect make an informed decision. 

When an insurance company is selling the policy online, without the agent, it has a responsibility to ensure that it gives the prospective buyer, all important and material information regarding the policy, including the exceptions, before the purchase. In this case, obviously, the company did not do so and sent the document containing the terms and conditions only after you purchased the policy. This is against the mandate of the insurance regulator. 

Besides, the wordings of the terms and conditions are such that it is not possible for an ordinary consumer to understand its meaning. So write to the company questioning its decision. If they do not pay, complain first to the IRDA complaint cell and if necessary, to the Insurance Ombudsman (Please see the website of the IRDA, meant for policyholders for details) 

I must mention here that I checked up quite a few insurance companies selling travel insurance and I found that almost all of them promise ‘insurance against travel delays’. However, none of them give the exceptions or the terms and conditions when you try to buy a policy. And they all have different terms and conditions with regard to the insurance cover vis-à-vis delayed flights. So in order to make an informed choice, you need to really see those terms and the companies should therefore put them out upfront. Not doing so is not only a violation of the IRDA Regulation, but also an unfair trade practice. It is also essential that the insurer provide the terms and conditions in a simple language that is easy to comprehend. It’s time the insurance regulator, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority took note of this and applied correctives.

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