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Case 9 of 19 · Level 1
Travel insurance · a flight cancelled by a conflict
The long way home
The file · about 5 minutes
The complaint
The couple were on holiday in Australia. Shortly before they were due to fly home, their flight was cancelled: a conflict in the Middle East had closed the airspace their route crossed, and so many flights were cancelled that the seats left were scarce and expensive. They found flights home that avoided the closed airspace and paid for them from their savings. Back in the UK they claimed the cost on their travel insurance, and the insurer turned the claim down. They say they were stranded through no fault of their own, and that a cancelled flight home is exactly what they thought they were insured against.
The firm's answer
The insurer says the claim is not covered. The flight was cancelled because of a conflict, and the policy carries a general exclusion for claims arising from war or terrorism. The cover the couple bought names the kinds of travel disruption it pays for, and a flight cancelled for this reason is not among them. The travel disruption extension the insurer offers was not taken.
Evidence in the file
Exhibit A · The claim
The cost of new flights home, paid from the couple's savings after their booked flight was cancelled because of airspace restrictions caused by a conflict in the Middle East.
Exhibit B · The insurer's letter
The claim is declined under the policy's general exclusion for war.
Exhibit C · The couple's account
So many flights were cancelled that few options remained and the fares rose. The route they found avoided the restricted airspace and was very expensive. They paid because it was the only way home.
The policy wording
The policy covers cancelling or cutting short the trip, flight interruptions caused by a strike or industrial action, and arriving at the airport too late because of a public transport delay or a motorway accident. Under its general exclusions it does not cover claims arising from war or terrorism.
The policy schedule
A standard policy. The insurer sells a travel disruption extension as an optional extra; it is not on the schedule, so the couple did not have it.
The airline's answer
Not in the file. Whatever the airline refunded or offered for the cancelled flight is not part of this case.
Uphold the complaint, or side with the firm?
The ruling
Given by the ombudsman
Not upheld
Why
The ombudsman compared what had happened to the couple with the cover their policy described. The policy covered cancelling or cutting short a trip, flights interrupted by a strike or industrial action, and arriving at the airport too late because of a public transport delay or a motorway accident. None of those was the couple's situation: their flight was cancelled because a conflict had closed the airspace, and the policy's general exclusions took out claims arising from war or terrorism. They had not bought the travel disruption extension the insurer offered. The ombudsman did not think the policy covered the circumstances they faced, and did not think the insurer had acted unfairly in declining the claim.
What the firm had to do
Nothing. The insurer's decision stood, and the ombudsman explained to the couple why the policy did not reach their loss.
What an adjudicator takes from this. Cover is a list, and an exclusion is read beside it. The policy named the kinds of disruption it paid for, a closed airspace was not one of them, and the war exclusion settled the rest. The question in a claim like this is not whether the traveller was at fault, and the couple plainly were not, but whether the policy's words reach the loss. An extra sold for travel disruption is worth reading before the trip, not after it.
Rewritten in our own words from a case the ombudsman published.
Read the guide: The FOS rejected your complaint. Here's what comes next.
What is fair and reasonable is a judgement. The ombudsman gives one; people who read the same file often give another, and this game is about how people weigh the same facts, not about being right. Built from cases the Financial Ombudsman Service and other bodies have published, and from Docketory's own files, rewritten in our own words with every name removed. Docketory is not connected with any of them, and this game is not advice on your own case.
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