My daughter Rachael and her boyfriend, both of whom are 21-year-old university students, departed last weekend on a trip to Italy for 15 days. Because of the recent media coverage about the risk of a volcano eruption in Iceland, I advised Rachael to take out travel insurance for both of them that included cover for ash disruption.
Rachael did a search on MoneySuperMarket.com and found that while many insurance companies excluded such cover from their policies, Columbus Direct did not. So she took out the policy online, paying about £25. She also emailed Columbus to confirm that she and her boyfriend were covered. As Columbus did not reply, Rachael phoned and was told that although the policy does not mention volcanic ash in its exclusions, she and her boyfriend were not covered. All it could offer was an upgrade to its “gold” policy, costing £81.32, which would cover volcanic ash, plus a 15 per cent discount, taking the cost to £71. I feel that Columbus has not been transparent about what is excluded from its policies.
Fiona Mcerlane, Northern Ireland
Insurers like to scare us into buying cover for every conceivable disaster. When it comes to one that might actually happen, the cover evaporates. Columbus Direct says that on the day Rachael logged on and bought her policy from MoneySuperMarket, “the threat level of the volcano was raised from orange to red [the highest level] and, as a consequence, the Columbus underwriters had withdrawn the add-on volcanic ash cover as it was deemed a ‘known event’ and too high a risk to insure. Therefore, on that day we would not have been able to offer the volcanic ash cover add-on to any of our customers”.
When the threat died down Rachael was able to buy cover, but only with a policy that cost three times as much. Unsurprisingly, she must have missed the “exclusion noted within the [original] policy terms and conditions”, which covered claims for disruptions to services “on the orders or recommendation of an appropriate transport authority in any country”. This would apply to any mass disruption to airspace, as seen during the previous Icelandic eruption in 2010. You only get cover if you buy an “add-on”.
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However, “given that most comparison sites discourage the offering of add-ons” you can only get this by directly approaching Columbus Direct. As a gesture of goodwill for the confusion caused, Columbus was happy to refund Rachael the equivalent of the additional premium paid. Of 20 of the big travel insurers, only five — Age UK, Biba Protect, John Lewis, Saga and Sainsbury’s — offer ash cover as standard. If the Icelandic volcano disrupts your holiday, your flight is covered anyway, under EU law, as long as you are travelling from an EU airport or on an EU airline.
Soldiering on
I wonder if anyone has contacted you about the company Forces War Records? I was trying to find a record for my father, who served in the First World War. The free War Office/Ministry of Defence channels produced no result, and I was encouraged to take out one month’s subscription in July via forces-war-records.co.uk. That was no help. I decided to give it up as a bad job — I am told many records were destroyed during the Second World War.
The website has debited my account with a further £8.95 this month. I tried to contact the company but its website makes it hard to do so. If you log on you will see several complaints about the difficulty of unsubscribing. Ominously, the website seems to be run by a company called Clever Digit Media.
Kenneth Watson, via e-mail
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This subscription website, like many, operates on the basis that you “automatically” opt in to renew your membership. As I have written before, this payment model is ostensibly for convenience, but it’s a lucrative tactic as many people forget to opt out or, like Kenneth, don’t realise they have to. It works particularly well for companies offering services that many people use just once: Amazon Prime to get free delivery, credit reference agencies to check a file before taking out a mortgage, or in this case war records that many search only once.
Dominic Hayhoe, chief executive of Clever Digit Media, says that it is beneficial to have a “rolling subscription” because its 40-strong team is regularly updating records. Kenneth may not find any information about his father this month, but something could appear a month or two down the line. Mr Hayhoe adds that the website’s sign-up page makes it clear that £8.95 will be automatically charged each month unless the subscriber “turns it off”. He has, however, agreed to refund Kenneth.
Card chaos
I write following Eleanor Wildman’s letter about an HSBC cash machine dispensing too little money (Troubleshooter, August 9, 2014). I was also short-changed by a similar machine. It was only by £5 during a £100 withdrawal but after reporting it to HSBC I had to wait until the cashing up was done to find out if there was a discrepancy. When I returned a week later, I was told there was no discrepancy and to report the matter to my own bank, Santander.
Santander has reimbursed me while it looks into the matter but says it will take the money back if there is no problem with the machine. I asked what my position would be if it had been a larger sum but no one seems able to answer that. I have not used a cash machine since this incident more than six weeks ago and have not heard from my bank either.
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Janet Coleman, via e-mail
It’s not a big sum but this is an interesting problem. If you are short-changed by an ATM, what should you do? Santander says: “ATM disputes are rare; however, if an error occurs the customer needs to immediately contact their own bank, who can investigate and confirm the transaction with the ATM balance. Our normal procedure is to refund the money [whatever the sum] and then investigate, with most cases resolved overnight.” HSBC should have advised Janet to speak to Santander straight away.
If no fault can be found then the customer will not get their money back.
“In some circumstances we may ask the customer for the money back if we are not happy with the dispute; however, in Janet’s case we were satisfied an error had occurred,” says a Santander spokesman.