21, October 2014: The Elite Travel Group Conference of 2014, held in Seville, has reported how the Financial Conduct Agency (FCA) could play a role in making banks either work on improving or outright cancel misleading family holiday insurance policies.
“These free policies are not really free, and there’s a lot of small print,” said speaker Andrea Clayton. In her speech, the speaker highlighted how banks had, in the past, managed to get away with providing appealing travel insurance by hiding numerous conditions in the fine print. These banks would then mask the fine print further by using legal terms the average consumer would have difficulty understanding.
There is good news, though, in that banks may not be able to do this anymore, since the FCA have begun to formally review such insurance policies. Clayton notes that the FCA now insists banks implement processes to provide clear, truthful and transparent information about their coverage online.
Clayton adds that dedicated insurance agencies are still the best places to obtain family holiday insurance. “They are the experts and they know what the customers need,” she says. Experts in the industry agree, saying that brokers are not only more familiar with the ins and outs of travel insurance, but their occupations are directly tied to the reliability of the services they provide. They stress that while banks may offer free travel insurance in order to entice consumers to give them their business, making a claim on these policies can be very difficult if all conditions are not met.
The FCA’s formal reviews, however, may change all that in the near future. Banks will be forced to expose the fine print they rely on to avoid paying out on claims. This will work in one of two ways: they will either improve their travel insurance payouts, or they will stop offering the service altogether.
In any case, the seeds of doubt have been sown – and those seeking family holiday insurance will benefit the most from this government crackdown.
About Insuremore:
Insuremore provide a range of low-cost travel insurance policies for the B2C market, including single-trip, multi-trip and family insurance. Contact them at http://insuremore.co.uk/
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