Trip Cancellation, Missed Departure & Trip Abandonment

A. A cancellation invoice confirms that you did not travel and tells us how much money we need to pay if your claim is covered. Without it, we cannot finalise your claim. The Tour Operator, Travel Agent or transport / accommodation provider produces these invoices and will send them to you. You will probably have to contact them to request it.

A. Insurance policies can only cover certain, specific circumstances and they all contain terms and conditions, as well as exclusions. To enable us to decide whether the situation giving rise to your claim is covered, we need to understand the history of the medical problem which caused you to claim.

A. If a medical certificate is necessary your claims handler should have explained this to you and provided you with a medical certificate to be completed. If you have been asked to get a medical certificate completed but were not given the form, you may download this form:

Click here for Cancellation claims

Click here for Curtailment claims

Click here for Medical claims

A. Most policies will not cover the costs you incur in supporting your claim. This includes the costs of getting a medical certificate completed.

A. Different claims will demand different documents and once you have notified us of your claim we will confirm exactly which documents to provide.

As an indicator it is likely that we will require the following documents:

• Proof of insurance
• Booking invoice/proof of travel dates including original date of booking and amounts paid
• Cancellation invoices
• Evidence of the cause of cancellation

If you are claiming based on medical grounds you will be required to have a Medical Certificate completed by your usual GP. This will be provided by your claims handler, but this can also be obtained by clicking here. If you do not have any of the above documents, please discuss this with your claims handler as they will be able to advise you of any alternative documents that are acceptable.

A. Air Passenger Duty (APD) is a tax levied by the government based on certain flights. Airlines will normally charge you this amount as part of the booking. However, if you do not travel no tax is applicable and so travel insurers generally expect these costs to be refunded by the airline. Therefore, in the event of cancellation, please contact the airline directly with a view to reclaiming this part of your claim.

Some policies exclude these costs whether the airline have refunded them or not.

A. Most (but not all) bookings are subject to a scale of cancellation charges that tend to charge more for cancelling, the closer this is left to the travel date. This is because they have less time to try and resell the booking. Therefore, as soon as cancellation can be anticipated, the insurers would expect the trip to be cancelled in order to stop the charges from escalating. If there is a delay in cancelling, and this increases the costs of the cancellation charges, insurers will only look to cover the costs up to the date cancellation could have been anticipated.

In some instances, there might be a delay but it does not affect the charges, for example, you may still be in the loss of deposit phase of charges. For cases such as these, we would ask you to provide a copy of the booking terms and conditions or a link to the provider's site that details the scale of charges.

A. This depends on a number of factors, including the cause of the death, the amount of information contained within the death certificate and whether the claim relates to an insured person or third party.

We would suggest that if a death certificate is readily available, a copy of this be sent in. If it does not provide the necessary level of information the claims handler will request the medical certificate from you.

Alternatively, if you do not want the claim to be delayed by the need for subsequent contact you may want to get a medical certificate completed instead.

A. No. The insurers took a premium to cover the claims costs they associated purely to the people insured under the policy and no-one else. They will need to claim back their costs under their own travel policy and (if appropriate) reimburse you.

A. If your flight / transport is delayed, your transport provider records how long you were delayed for and what caused this delay. If they have not already given you this information, you will need to contact them and ask for a document to confirm these details. This will enable us to decide if you are covered and, if so, how much money we can pay you.

A. This section of the policy normally covers the additional costs of getting to your destination in the event of you missing your initial departure as a result of specified reasons. Please check your policy wording to identify the covered reasons or contact us to discuss your case with a claims handler.

However, this is a generalisation and to give you specific advice based on your own policy cover please contact us to discuss the case with a claims handler.

A. The information we need to review your claim varies for different claims. When you contact us, we can help you to understand what documentation we need. As a general rule, we will need proof of your insurance, receipts or invoices to tell us how much money you are owed and a report to explain how this incident occurred. We may also need your booking invoice, to show how long you were abroad and where you travelled to.

A. Rightpath are an independent company that specialise in claims management. We are not the insurer but are appointed by insurers to handle claims on their behalf.

A. The claims process differs dependent on the nature and complexity of your case. For some instances claims can be submitted online, whereas for others we will look to assess your claim over the phone. In some circumstances we will send you a claims form.

To get started, start your claim under the relevant claim type on this website today. If you are unsure please feel free to contact us using the details provided at the foot of this page.

A. Once you click on the link within the Claim section you will be directed to an online form. This will provide us with the information required to set up your claim and to assess your claim.

Once you submit the form you will be sent an email confirming your claim reference.

Upon receipt of the papers your claim should be assessed within 5 working days and we will send you an email confirming the claims decision.

A. When you call, one of our customer service agents will collect details about your claim and set you up a claim. This will also allow them to make a provisional decision on your claim and on the basis of there being cover in place you will be told what documents you need to submit to us.

We would suggest you have all relevant documentation to hand when calling us. We may need to collect information contained in these documents when you notify us of your claim.

We would ask you to appreciate that in all instances our decisions are provisional until your claim has been fully finalised.

A. We want to be able to put you back in the same financial position you were in before you suffered your loss and so our preference is to go by the rate of exchange you obtained when you travelled. Therefore, please forward any confirmation of exchange rates you might have to allow us to try and base calculations on that rate.

In the absence of such documentation, we will look to establish the published rate of exchange for that date and use that instead.

A fundamental requirement for a travel insurance claim is that the loss occurred on a trip (or in relation to a trip). Confirmation of your travel arrangements is therefore a standard requirement for claims assessments.

For cancellation claims, a booking invoice is also required to confirm how much was paid for the trip and the date the trip was booked.

Also, if you have an annual multi-trip policy there are most likely to be restrictions based on what is considered a ‘trip’ and this will include the trip length. Confirmation is therefore required to confirm the date you travelled from and to your home.

The policy excess is the first amount of every claim for which you are responsible and helps to keep insurance premiums affordable. You act as a self-insurer for this part of your claim and the benefit is that it releases the insurers from the burden of having to price the premium to cover the large number of small value claims.

The amount varies between policies and you will need to check your wording or call our claims handlers to get confirmation.

However, you should be confident that any decision we make is correct and so if you feel we have not explained this decision properly please contact us to let us know and we can provide some further explanation.

In the meantime, here are some of the reasons why multiple excesses may have been applied:

Per Person
The cover listed in most policies (e.g. sums insured, policy limits and excesses) are applicable per person. Therefore, just as we would not look to limit two people’s claim to the value of one limit or sum insured, we cannot apply only one excess.

Per Section
Your policy is a composite of various types of cover all rolled up and packaged as one product: your travel insurance policy. However, these sections tend to all cover distinctly different risks and so often insurers set excesses to apply individually to any claim under each section.

Per Claim
Each claim represents a separate insured event and all limits and excesses apply separately.

A. Different companies confirm that you have bought insurance in different ways. You may have received an e-mail which shows your policy number, how much you paid and who is insured. If not, this information may be included in your holiday booking invoice, or you may have received a separate document which shows who you are insured with. Without this information, we will not know which insurance policy you bought and will not be able to deal with your claim. If you are unsure, please contact the company you bought insurance from. If you don’t know who you bought your insurance from, please feel free to e-mail or call us for advice.

A. Rightpath are an independent claims handling company that specialise in claims management. As a third party we may not have details of your insurance and so to expedite the claim assessment process we may ask you to provide us with a copy of your policy schedule.

A. Yes. You must notify us as soon as possible about your claim and your policy should stipulate the time period (usually 30 days). If it takes longer than this to notify us of your claim, you will need to explain why this has happened. If the delay does not prejudice the handling of your claim, we may still be able to assist you. Once you have notified us of your claim you can submit the papers as and when you are able (but within 6 years).

Papers should be sent to:

Rightpath Claims,
PO Box 6430,
BASILDON,
SS14 0QT,
UK

Please make sure that you clearly mark your claim reference number on the first page of your papers.

You should also ensure that you pay adequate postage costs on the envelope, particularly if you are sending a large envelope.

You should always take copies for safekeeping and ideally send them recorded/registered delivery.

A. Your claim should be looked at within 5 working days of receipt.

For emails, we count the day of receipt as anything received up to 9 a.m. that day.

A. As we aim to look at your correspondence within 5 working days, we do not acknowledge post/emails separately.

A. We will make a bank transfer to your account. Once we confirm settlement, this should appear in your bank account within 5-7 working days.

A. This will depend on the instructions provided to us by the insurers, and if the policy was taken out in the UK, for a UK resident, this is unlikely to be agreed as there are considerably higher costs in making overseas payments.

A. Currently, no policy we deal with adjusts future premiums based on claims history.

A. Your documents will be kept for a period of 6 months and will then be destroyed. If you requested your documents to be returned to you these should be received within 14 days. If you have not received your documents back after this period we ask you to get back in contact with us.

A. All calls are recorded for training and quality control.

A. Your account number and sort code are stored within two fields that are encrypted with 128-bit master keys and use the AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) algorithm. Once saved these two fields are masked and can only be viewed by select members of the Accounts Team responsible for making claim payments.

A. We are not positioned to be able to establish legal entitlement and so we will only be able to raise a cheque made payable to the ‘Executors of Estate for [DECEASED’S NAME].

A. Yes. However, there are a couple of important notes:

Size
We do not advise sending any emails greater than 2MB in size as these may not be received.
If the size of your attachments is larger than this, try breaking them down into smaller sized attachments sent across by several emails.
The size of the attachments is often determined by the resolution settings of the scanner. Black and white at 200dpi should be sufficient.

Format
For security reasons, we are only able to accept the following file extensions:

• .pdf
• .jpg

Also, we cannot accept compressed/zipped files.

A. All claims should be submitted as soon as possible. Most policies state that you must notify us that you need to claim within 30 days of the incident. If you are trying to obtain all the information/ proof you need to submit your claim. Still let us know that you need to claim so we can set a claim up for you and give you any advice and help you might need. If you wait too long to tell us you need to claim, we may not be able to get all the information we need to make a decision. If this is the case, we won’t be able to help you with your claim.

As well as calculate how much the insurers need to pay you in settlement of your claim, we also have to identify if there is anyone else that may cover the loss. The Recovery Form is designed to collect all the information needed to make this part of the assessment. Therefore, it is essential we have this information before we can proceed toward settlement.

This information may be either collected from you over the phone, via an online form or by sending you a form to complete.

If we have requested a Recoveries Form the claims handler should have provided you with a form to complete, however, these can also be downloaded:

Click here if your claim is for cancellation
Click here if your claim is for personal possessions
Click here if your claim is for medical expenses
Click here if your claim is not any of the above

It is a well established principle of insurance that when two insurers cover the same loss the insurer who settles the claim is entitled to approach the other for a contribution toward their outlay. In most cases this will not affect your no-claims discount or premiums.

It is a well established principle of insurance that when two insurers cover the same loss the insurer who settles the claim is entitled to approach the other for a contribution toward their outlay. Some credit cards now provide a number of benefits which can include travel insurance. For this reason, as part of our assessment, we need to know who you have credit cards through and the level of cards held.

A. It is a well established principle of insurance that when two insurers cover the same loss the insurer who settles the claim is entitled to approach the other for a contribution toward their outlay. An increasing number of bank accounts provide a number of benefits which can include travel insurance. For this reason, as part of our assessment, we need to know what bank your main current account is with and the level of account held.

A. We have to make an independent assessment of your claim and we will need to know the exact level of account held in order to identify if travel insurance is also held under this account. If you do not know this information, and are unable to find it on your bank statements or online, please contact your bank and ask for their clarification.