Last year, we took a ferry from Mallorca to Barcelona. When we reached our hotel, my wife went in to see where we should park. While I was waiting in the car, a motorbike drove into it. I got out, but immediately realised this was dodgy and got back in. We then realised that her backpack, containing our passports, had been stolen. Our return home was delayed while we waited for emergency travel documents and we incurred more than £900 in hotel and flight expenses. I submitted a claim to my travel insurer, Axa, and have lodged a complaint, but nine months on, we have heard nothing.
BH, Malvern, Worcestershire
Holidaymakers should take note. Thieves commonly stage distractions in order to pick the pockets of tourists. Crashing into a car is an extreme version of the same ploy and, if you hadn’t so quickly twigged that it was a scam, you might have lost more of your belongings. Axa’s response has been appalling. Insurers take care to hold customers to a deadline when making a claim, but tend to allow themselves indefinite time to process it. Axa requires claims to be submitted within 31 days of a theft, but its terms and conditions omit to bind it to any timescales.
There is, however, a timescale for complaints handling that all financial firms must abide by. If a case is not resolved within eight weeks, customers can ask the Financial Ombudsman Service to investigate, which can take a further few months. Eight weeks after you lodged your complaint, you wrote to me. Axa picked up the phone within hours of my contact and promised to settle your claim in full.
It says it had been referred to its specialist team which, along with a high volume of claims, caused the delay. That doesn’t justify nine months of silence, and it admitted it had fallen short and would review its processes.
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