Columbus Direct Reviews 10,915

Reply from Columbus Direct

Updated Oct 27, 2022

Hi Iris. Thank you for supplying information about the case. We have asked our claims team to locate the file and review this urgently.

Update: We understand that the claims team have now been in touch and have concluded the assessment of the claim with settlement agreed within the limits of the policy.

We are very sorry that it has taken this long to resolve the case. We have asked for the claims team to conduct a review of the file to see what the issues were, what caused them and what could have been done to prevent them.

Reply from Columbus Direct

Oct 24, 2022

We're very sorry for the experience you had. The question should have been answered easily as a "yes, you can". It is likely that the call was suggested as we would have needed to take payment from you over the phone had you wanted to add the cover.

Whilst there are certain data protection questions you would have had to go through and a simple check-out script. The team have listened to the call and agree that it sounds like the agent went through some of the usual sales call guidance rather than just focusing on your request which would have made the time spent talking to us much shorter.

Thank you for raising your concerns, whilst it is of no help to you, we will be able to use this to help coach our agents.

Reply from Columbus Direct

Updated Oct 24, 2022

Thanks for sharing your experience. Unfortunately, as per our response in that review, travel insurance does tend to increase when people reach the age of 65. This is not intended to penalise people, instead is based on statistical information on when insurance companies start to see increased costs from customers.

As for prices on QuidCo, it is possible that with the cashback available from the site, you may have seen a cheaper price. However, the products available would have also been different with less cover available than the policy you were invited to renew. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly what you saw so it's not possible to comment on that.

We do all we can to encourage loyalty with our customers and that is by offer all renewing customers a 25% discount. Had you renewed with us when we first wrote to you, the price would have been the same as when we wrote to you to advise the policy had now lapsed, we're sorry if this was not clear from the correspondence. Also, we would have been happy to apply this renewal discount to other cover levels if you felt that you didn't need the same cover as previous years.

Update: There is a mistake in the above response. When offering renewal, we do so on the product the customer originally purchased. The product you have had is no longer available on our website and therefore it is incorrect of us to say that it is discounted by a set percentage. The reason we maintain these products are because they are generally cheaper than our current product range because we have built the renewal discount into the price. As you had not renewed with us, we then invited you to visit the website. As you would have been offered our current range of products, the 25% renewal discount was offered. This is the same discount that customers renewing on our current range would be offered. If you were to compare the policy you previously had against our current range, you would find that the Gold cover level was the closest equivalent, which even with the 25% discount would be at a higher premium than you were offered for renewal. We apologise for the error in our first response.

Reply from Columbus Direct

Oct 20, 2022

Hi Yavuz. Firstly, we apologise that your claim has taken longer to resolve than it should have done. We understand you have raised concerns about the handling of your case and a complaint has been logged so we can review these issues.

As for the claims submitted, Travel Delay cover is a very small part of a travel insurance policy and our terms are not out of step with the market with many policies not paying a benefit until after a 12 hour delay. Some policies do not provide any cover at all in the event of delays. Equally, there are also policies that provide a benefit sooner. That said, we do not know of any products that would have covered delays of the period you experienced.

We look to make the cover as clear as possible in the sales journey and customers also have the 14 day cooling off period to review the terms and seek a refund if they do not think the cover is appropriate for their needs.

Reply from Columbus Direct

Oct 17, 2022

Hi Stephen. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. It has raised a number of issues with your file and the handling of this matter. We have asked the relevant departments to contact you to get this resolved.

Reply from Columbus Direct

Oct 14, 2022

Hi Basia. We're sorry to hear that you couldn't make use of this free benefit of your travel insurance policy. We'll share your experience with the product team to see if more can be done to communicate the requirement to customers.

The limit is there to ensure fair use of the free service. If a customer could register a flight on the day of travel, there would be nothing to stop someone from registering a flight that was already delayed to get free access into a lounge.

Reply from Columbus Direct

Oct 14, 2022

Hi Mike. Thanks for your feedback. We do operate a 24/7 medical emergency services line to assist customers if they require medical treatment whilst overseas.

For non-medical emergencies, the cost of operating a 24 hour service would be expensive and this would be reflected in the cost of policies. As this is not generally something other insurance providers do, we have to balance the cost of services that would be used sparingly versus making our premiums reasonable for customers.

Reply from Columbus Direct

Oct 14, 2022

Thank you for sharing your experience. It is unfortunate that the cost of the cost of travel insurance does tend to increase significantly when a customer turns 66. As for whether we should be contacting customers, of course we do send out the renewal notice and every effort is made to stop this from going to people's spam folders so everyone should receive appropriate notification. That said, we'll share your comments with the product team to see if there is a view on whether more can be done to reach out to customers where there is a significant change in the policy premium.

Reply from Columbus Direct

Oct 14, 2022

Hi Simon. Thank you for sharing your comments. The challenge with an annual travel insurance policy versus something like home insurance is that there is an expectation built into the pricing that people will not be using the cover the whole time. Therefore, whilst we accept that due to the various lockdowns after March 2020, there would have been times when customers could not use their policy, generally there was sufficient time during 12 month periods when people could.

We also took the decision to increase the discount that we gave to renewing customers to reflect the reduced time on risk. We appreciate that this may not have been your preferred way of reflecting the reduced time on risk, but we have at least tried to be reasonable with customers in such a way that could be managed within our systems and still reflecting our appreciation of customers like you that have continued to purchase cover with us.

Reply from Columbus Direct

Oct 14, 2022

Hi Paul. We're sorry you are experiencing any difficulties speaking to us. It's not clear exactly what those challenges have been. Our claims team are available to take calls 5 days week during normal office hours. We'll ask them to try to make contact with you to discuss the matter further.

Reply from Columbus Direct

Oct 14, 2022

Hi Robert. Thanks for your feedback, it's much appreciated. We have looked at having online policy management and is something we will roll out in the future. You're comments about rental car costs are a bit confusing though as we are a travel insurance provider, so these kind of costs wouldn't be something we would cover.