What to do if your trip is affected by the civil unrest in Hong Kong

Last updated on March 18th, 2021 at 08:01 am

What to do if your trip is affected by the civil unrest in Hong Kong and the knock-on effect from the flight cancellations: Information for AllClear Gold and Gold Plus policyholders.

Whether you’re due to travel soon or you’re abroad already, here’s how your travel insurance can help.

If your trip was booked before 12th August 2019 and your policy was purchased before 12th August 2019:

• If you’ve been injured and need medical assistance because of the unrest, call our 24-hour emergency medical team as soon as possible on +44 (0)207 748 0521 – we’ll tell you what to do.
• If your personal belongings are damaged or go missing because of the unrest, you can claim for these when you return home. Make sure you report any losses to the police (and hotel management if your baggage goes missing from your hotel). We call this cover ‘Personal property’ in our policy wording.

Only if you have added the ‘Travel Disruption’ cover option to your policy:

• If your journey is delayed by 12 hours or more because of the unrest, we’ll pay a fixed amount for each full 12-hour period of delay. Bear in mind that we only cover a delay to your departure, not your arrival at your destination. We call this cover ‘Delayed departure cover’ in our policy wording.
• If your journey from the UK is delayed for more than 12 hours because of the unrest and you decide not to go, we’ll pay you for your unused accommodation and travel costs and other pre-paid charges which you can’t get back from elsewhere. If you booked your holiday as a package, then you should ask your tour operator or travel agent first to try to move the dates or get a refund. We call this cover ‘Delayed departure cover’ in our policy wording.
• If you can’t reach or can’t stay in your accommodation because of the unrest, we’ll pay for unused accommodation costs and pre-paid charges you cannot get back from elsewhere or we’ll reimburse you for new accommodation to continue your trip and reasonable travel costs to help you get there. We can’t cover the cost of an upgrade – you should use the same level as your original booking (for example, if you were originally staying in a three-star hotel, we won’t pay the cost of a four-star hotel – if you did claim for this, we’d work out the cost of a three-star hotel and pay this instead). We call this ‘Accommodation cover’ in our policy wording.
• If you can’t get to your departure point in time because the unrest causes public transport to fail, we’ll pay you the extra reasonable costs of travel and accommodation you need to continue your trip. This applies to reach your overseas destination and/or in returning to the United Kingdom. We call this cover ‘Missed departure cover’ in our policy wording.

Bear in mind:

• You’ll need to check your policy terms and conditions to see exactly what cover your policy provides and how much you can claim for, as different policies vary.
• We can only cover you for the scenarios above if you bought your policy or booked your trip before the unrest became public knowledge – 12^th August 2019. If you bought your policy or booked your trip afterwards (when the unrest became publicly known in the news), we won’t be able to cover you.
• We define civil unrest as including organised protests, riots, arson, looting, occupation of institutional buildings, border infringements and armed insurrection. It doesn’t include a declared civil war.

What to do:

• Check the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s website for advice on what to do.
• If you’re stuck overseas and you’re unable to return to the UK, your existing policy will automatically extend in line with the terms and conditions for up to 30 days to cover you until you’re reasonably able to return home. This will only happen if you added Travel Disruption cover to your policy.
• If you’re still in the UK and you haven’t travelled yet, the following rules apply:
  • Where you can, you should try to get a full refund from your tour operator or travel agent. We’ll only consider non-refundable expenses on your travel insurance policy.
  • If you want to rearrange your trip dates, and provided you’re not making a claim, we can transfer your policy to cover the new trip as long as it’s within three months of your original departure date, is for the same or no longer duration, and is to the same geographical area.

If you need to make a claim, please contact the claims handlers, Reactive Claim Ltd.

Phone:01420 383014
Email : [email protected]
Website: www.reactiveclaims.com