Our travel insurer won’t pay out

My husband suffered a massive cardiac arrest. Were it not for a passer-by who was a trained St John Ambulance member, he would not have survived.

For five weeks he was in intensive care, where he suffered a clot on his lungs and pneumonia before being moved to a cardiac ward for another four weeks. He subsequently returned to hospital to have a defibrillator inserted and is making slow improvements.

We were due to fly to Italy on holiday two and a half months after the heart attack but clearly he was not fit to travel. The airline’s terms and conditions stated that, in the case of death or serious illness, it would refund costs. SS, EAST YORKS

Your attempts to get a refund got you nowhere with the airline or later with Barclays, which had provided you with travel insurance, underwritten by Aviva.

As it happens, Barclays is your husband’s previous employer. Aviva said it could not process any claim without confirmation from the airline that you had not flown.

Further to my involvement it discussed this with you and established the facts through an email from the airline saying it would not issue a refund and you should contact the insurer. Aviva has now accepted this as evidence that you were not on the plane and did not receive a refund.

It has now paid £303, which is the sum at issue, after the deduction of £50 excesses for both of you.

You said the speedy outcome was appreciated but I feel that insurers need to get things more in perspective with such travel claims.

Many readers complain that the financial institutions that are keen to take their money are less willing to answer legitimate questions.

I gave it my late wife’s maiden name and National Insurance number and was told it would request her file from the department she had worked for. MB, LONDON

After I contacted MyCSP, which administers Civil Service pensions, it discovered that your wife had transferred her pension contributions to a new scheme when she changed jobs.

You have confirmed with the scheme that this is indeed the case and that you are already receiving the benefits you were asking about.

Much of the delay in getting an answer came about because, when looking into this for you, MyCSP initially contacted the wrong pension scheme.

MyCSP said it did not provide a tracing service and was going beyond its remit by helping with this.

It eventually came back to me (with rather a lot of fanfare) stating: “For people who work for multiple employers throughout their career, it is becoming more common to transfer pension scheme benefits, where possible, to the new employer’s scheme.

“It is therefore very important that people keep track of their scheme and associated benefits and that this information is known to their beneficiaries. Without knowledge of an individual’s pension history, tracing pensions can be difficult.”

No mention of the unnecessary delay of its making. You said MyCSP’s incompetence had caused you considerable distress.