Nationwide FlexPlus Travel Insurance Changes

[dbjhughes]

We have been using Nationwide’s FlexPlus travel insurance policy for a few years. This was previously underwritten by UK Insurance Ltd, but Aviva have just taken over the underwriting. We were on a ~100-day world voyage earlier this year, and UK Insurance Ltd charged us £156 for trip extension cover for the year. We are on a 78-day South America circumnavigation early next year, for which Aviva are charging us ~£900 for trip extension cover! Has anyone else had a similar experience? Do we just have to suck up this new cost, or has anyone found a cheaper alternative? Many thanks.

[Selbourne]

23 minutes ago, dbjhughes said:

We have been using Nationwide’s FlexPlus travel insurance policy for a few years. This was previously underwritten by UK Insurance Ltd, but Aviva have just taken over the underwriting. We were on a ~100-day world voyage earlier this year, and UK Insurance Ltd charged us £156 for trip extension cover for the year. We are on a 78-day South America circumnavigation early next year, for which Aviva are charging us ~£900 for trip extension cover! Has anyone else had a similar experience? Do we just have to suck up this new cost, or has anyone found a cheaper alternative? Many thanks.

It will vary enormously by customer due to differing factors (age, health issues etc) so I certainly wouldn’t just accept a quote like that without shopping around. Keeping in mind that the basic cover is £156 (£13 pcm) plus add ons (age, cruise cover, missed ports, health issues etc) you are looking at a total premium of well into four figures if they want £900. It would be madness not to see how that compares to other providers IMO. 

[babs135]

If you are with Nationwide please be very careful. We have banked with them for years and still do but in the summer of 2018 DH woke up with the symptoms of a mild stroke. The hospital did various tests and later the SAME day discharged him home with NO follow-up and NO medication. They were not convinced that it was a stroke but advised us that we should inform our insurance company and tell them what had happened.  Nationwide's response was to say that they wouldn't cover him for any complications that may arise from the 'stroke'. To rub salt into the wound they suddenly decided that they would no longer cover him for his diabetes (longstanding). This effectively left him without any cover.  

If we hadn't rung them (only because the hospital told us to) we wouldn't have known! Fortunately we found cover which was just as well as DH became unwell (totally unrelated to previous problems) and we had to cancel our cruise less than 6 weeks before sailing.