Today British Airways announced the dates of the British Airways strikes in March 2010.

How does this affect your travel plans and if you already have travel insurance,  are you covered?

If you have travel insurance with JS Insurance and you have cancellation or curtailment cover, then you are covered if you have to cancel your trip because of the strike. This is only for persons who have already purchased a policy and were not aware of the strike dates.

Unfortunately if you purchase travel insurance today or in the future you will not be covered as the strike dates have been officially announced to the press and public.

The union representing British Airways cabin crew has said its members will go on strike for three days from 20 March and for four days from 27 March.

The union confirmed it would not strike over Easter, but warned there could be further action after 14 April if a resolution had not been agreed.

The union said it would also ballot its members on a new offer from BA, but added it could not recommend it.

But BA boss Willie Walsh told the BBC that the offer was no longer available.

He said the offer was conditional on strike action being averted, and so had been withdrawn.

Unite’s assistant general secretary Len McCluskey said this latest move by British Airways “beggared belief” and denied that the offer was ever conditional.

JS Insurance, which is part of Jade Stanley Ltd, is celebrating 10 years in business this year and have now three main websites aimed at the Winter Sports Travel Insurance market, which are www.jsinsurance.co.uk, www.ski-insurance.co.uk and www.boardsure.com.

JS Insurance has launched a new policy for Winter Sports Travel Insurance, which provides excellent Medical and Personal Liability cover as well as other essential cover for the Winter Sports Season.

The cover includes £10,000,000 Medical cover (which includes emergency repatriation) and £2,000,000 Personal Liability cover as well as cover for Cancellation or Curtailment and Personal Belongings.

As well as these essential cover items, the policy as standard, covers Piste Closure, Avalanche Delay and Ski Hire.

This policy is available to UK and Irish Residents and covers individuals, couple and families as well.

The age limit is 49 years of age and is available to persons travelling to Europe or Worldwide (Annual only) for the Winter Sports Season.

The policy is offered as a Single Trip Travel Insurance starting from a week in Europe at £10.28 and as an Annual Multi Trip Travel Insurance with Winter Sports Cover at £25.95.

These policies cover off piste skiing or snow boarding (in areas designated safe by the resort management).

The emergency assistance is provided by AXA Assistance.

JS Insurance with AXA Insurance UK plc launches new Independent Travellers insurance for growing market of ‘go-it-alone’ holidaymakers

Despite the increasing economic gloom, the holiday season is approaching and millions of Brits will be preparing to travel abroad over the winter months. But AXA warns that increasing numbers of people arranging their own holidays may be leaving themselves exposed despite taking out travel insurance.

Over the last few years the number of Independent Travellers has overtaken the number of Package Holiday Travellers. Internet access and low-cost airlines have helped escalate this trend – in 2006 over 16 million Independent Travellers headed overseas for holidays between November and March.

However, insurance provision has not kept pace with the changing profile of the British holidaymaker and Independent Travellers can find that there are gaps in their insurance cover which AXA are addressing with their Independent Travellers Cover extension.

The new product is available with the AXA Superplus and AXA Annual Policies (with or without Winter Sports Cover).

It covers travellers for a number of areas such as problems with flight cancellations or delays, missed connections or the customer being denied boarding.

With a package holiday the tour operator or travel agent is required to make suitable alternative arrangements, such as the provision of alternative flights due to the regulations that they operate under. No such protection is given to Independent Travellers, hence the need for this new cover launched by AXA.

The additional cover offered by this product includes:

- Cancellation or curtailment costs or expenses if the FCO issue a directive prohibiting travel to or recommending evacuation from your destination forcing you to cancel or curtail your trip. In such situations those on a package holiday would have had their holiday rearranged by their tour operator/agent, whereas independent travellers would have been reimbursed by the airline for their flight but any other expenses such as accommodation, transfers and excursions would not be covered by standard travel insurance.

- Delayed departure compensation payable for delays exceeding 5 hours occurring at the departure point of any connecting flights on both the outbound and return journeys.

- Cancellation costs if you cancel your trip, or additional expenses to reach your destination because your flight from the UK was cancelled, delayed for more than 5 hours or you were denied boarding due to the flight being overbooked

- Additional expenses to reach your destination if you are delayed and miss any onward connecting flights or other public transport

- Unused accommodation costs or additional expenses if your trip is affected by insolvency of the accommodation providers, natural disasters such as fire, flood, earthquake or an outbreak of food poisoning or an infectious disease affecting your accommodation or resort.

If you have concerns regarding travel to Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga and Sumatra following the tsunami and earthquakes, please read the following information about Travel Insurance.

If you have travel insurance which includes Cancellation or Curtailment cover, there is no cover for customers wishing to cancel your holiday due to a wish not to travel due to the tsunami, earthquakes and other possible severe weather conditions.

However if you have the AXA Independent Traveller cover, you will be covered according to the terms and conditions applicable to the relevant policy.

If you have been injured or have fallen ill as a result of the tsunami or earthquakes, there is cover for emergency medical, additional accommodation and travelling costs under the normal terms and conditions of the policy. In the event of serious illness or injuries which may lead to in-patient hospital treatment or before any arrangements are made for repatriation or in the event of needing to return home early, please contact the Emergency Assistance Service as soon as possible, these contact details can be found on your travel insurance certifcate which was emailed to you or the policy details sent to you by post. This service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days days a year.

If you have lost personal belongings, money or documents in the chaos of the catastrophe, these cases will be considered in their individual circumstances when you claim.

Missed departure

If you have travel insurance which includes Missed Departure cover and you are not able to meet your return flight home to the United Kingdom due to the transport booked to travel from your initial international departure point being affected there is cover available for additional accommodation and travel expenses incurred as a result of re-arranging your transport.

Delayed departure

If you have travel insurance which includes Delayed Departure cover and if the departure of your outbound or return public transport is delayed at the final departure point from or to the United Kingdom due to bad weather then cover is available under the terms and conditions of the policy.

An article in The Guardian Financial Suppliment last weekend, highlighted www.jsinsurance.co.uk as the company that provided the best policy online for Student Content Insurance.

Here is the article:

Student insurance policies are generally poor value, so persuade your parents to include your valuables on their home contents policy for cover outside the home. It shouldn’t cost anything extra. If your parents won’t play ball, and you need cover, don’t sign up to an expensive Endsleigh policy. Shop around: www.jsinsurance.co.uk is about the best we could find – it was cheaper than most others. Take out a Cover 250 or 500 policy for cover away from home. Bicycles on streets are not covered.

JS Insurance which is part of Jade Stanley Ltd has been trading for 10 years today.

Jade Stanley Ltd was established in 1999 by Daniel Hollingsworth, and was one of the first companies to offer travel insurance online.

The first website to be launched was www.ski-insurance.co.uk, which offers instant winter sports insurance cover for single trip and annual trips. This was then followed by two other websites that offered single trip travel insurance and annual travel insurance.

The company then introduced www.boardsure.com, which is a unique website specifically tailored to snowboarders and offers  a dedicated website to the public to purchase medical and other cover for snowboarders.

In the last ten years, the company has added Computer Insurance, Mobile Phone Insurance, Student Contents Insurance, Car Breakdown Insurance and Student Contents Insurance and then branded the websites as JS Insurance, which incorporated all of the insurance policies.

JS Insurance has worked to create an easy and hassle free way of buying travel insurance online and they are recognised as a market leader in their field.

There are now other websites, such as www.holiday-weather.com and www.snowsafe.co.uk which are related to the travel industry and have become successful websites in their own right.

JS Insurance looks forward to a further ten years of offering competitive insurance policies to both the UK and to European customers.

If you have concerns regarding Swine Flu and travel, then please read the following information about Swine Flu and Travel Insurance.

Before you travel, you should firstly make sure that you are aware of the most up-to-date Swine Flu travel advice from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the World Health Organisation. Both of these organisations give the very latest, official and most reliable information available.

It is also important to remember that Travel Insurance policies do not cover any individual for travel to countries which the FCO and/or WHO advises against all but essential travel. For your own safety, you should always check the status of the country to which you are travelling by visiting that country information page on the FCO website.

Some of our policies will provide cover for cancellation of your trip if you have been diagnosed by a medical practitioner with having contracted Swine Flu, or if you have been quarantined by a medical practitioner and develop Swine Flu.

If you have travel insurance, which includes Cancellation or Curtailment cover, and have booked your trip, but then contract Swine Flu and are consequently unable to travel, you will be covered for the cancellation of your holiday, subject to you providing proof that you were ill and unfit to travel at the time of your scheduled departure date. A certificate should be obtained from your medical practitioner to confirm this. Where a diagnosis has been made by the National Pandemic Flu service we will need the unique number from the service together with the original copy of the label from the prescribed anti-flu drugs.

However, please be aware that there is no cover for cancellation of your holiday if you have not been diagnosed with Swine Flu and simply do not wish to travel to your holiday destination for fear of contracting Swine Flu.

Our policy will provide cover under the medical section, this will extend to cover if you are quarantined and develop Swine Flu, e.g. you can’t fly home for fear of passing on to others and are confined to your accommodation. The costs of this will be met, as will the cost of the return flight but this will only be upon prior approval from the assistance company.

If you contract Swine Flu while you are away and need medical assistance your policy will cover you within its limits. In addition, the costs of any quarantine or alternative return flight as recommended by your doctor and the assistance company will be covered.

Emergency Assistance:

AXA Insurance +44 (0) 845 223 5568

Towergate AUL +44 (0) 845 218 1642

Elect +44 (0) 844 811 0929

This item is meant to provide some clarification as to the travel insurance cover available for persons concerned with the swine flu outbreak.

Claims relating to cancellation of holidays to destinations that the Foreign Office has advised against travelling to are not generally covered under a large proportion of travel insurance policies. This is partly because where a holiday is booked through a Tour Operator, they will usually agree to cancellation or re arranging of the holiday at no cost to the customer. The situation in Mexico and around the world is clearly very unusual and, with this in mind, if cover and travel have been booked prior to the announcement that it was unsafe to travel to Mexico, JS Insurance has decided that it will be pragmatic in its decision making and look favourably at the policies it underwrites, providing the traveller could not recover costs from other sources such as the airline, hotel or tour operator and provided the customer has purchased an AXA Superplus or AXA Annual policy.

Travellers who are now planning their trips need to be aware of potential limitations in cover and make sure they are arranging the cover they need, resisting the temptation perhaps to focus solely on price.   The problems are particularly acute where holidays have been booked independently, and for this reason JS Insurance made available an ‘Independent Traveller’ extension on its direct policies which provides additional cover in exactly these circumstances, as mentioned above this is available with the AXA Superplus Single Trip policy and the AXA Annual policy only.

Independent Traveller Cover is only valid for those who have not purchased their holidays as a package.

So for example, if they have purchased transport and accommodation from two seperate sources this would not be defined as a package and so would be covered under the Independent Traveller Cover offer by JS Insurance.

One of the most frequent questions asked is how does the medical assistance work, when you travel abroad and have purchased travel insurance.

When purchasing a policy, you are given an emergency assistance telephone number, which should be called in the event of a serious illness or accident which may lead to in-patient hospital treatment. This number should also be called if you need to arrange repatriation or curtailment (cutting short your trip) which may necessitate your early return home.

This service is available 24/7 and every day of the year.

In the case of an AXA travel insurance policy, you are connected to the nearest AXA Assistance office, rather than an expensive call back to the UK.

One service that JS Insurance offers is an text message to your mobile, with your travel insurance policy number and the Emergency Assistance Service number, so you have a quick reference if you need to call them.

The service is there to offer assistance, advice, making arrangements for hospital admission, repatriation and authorisation of medical expenses.

If for some reason you are unable to contact the emergency assistance company due to the fact that the condition requires immediate emergency treatment, you should contact them as soon as possible after the treatment has taken place or get someone to call them for you.

Private medical treatment is not covered unless authorised specifically by the Emeregency Assistance Service beforehand.

Any treatment which would be considered out patient, for example over the counter medication and doctor appointments outside of a hospital or clinic, these expenses should be claimed after you have returned to the UK. One note of warning, be careful not to sign for excessive treatment or charges, if in doubt, always contact the Emergency Assistance Service before signing any forms or agreements.

Any reciepts and health claim forms should be submitted to the Claims Department at this time, to have the money reimbursed to you.

The Emergency Assistance Service has the medical expertise, contacts and facilities to help you if you are injured or taken ill.

If you are admitted to a hospital or clinic whist abroad, the Emergency Assistance Service will arrange payment for you for medical treatment.

Travel Insurance does not automatically cover persons who have pre existing medical conditions and there is some confusion as to what constitutes a pre existing medical condition.

This post will hopefully explain the definitions and cover available for anyone who is purchasing travel insurance and wants some clarification regarding their medical history.

A standard travel insurance policy will exclude certain pre existing medical conditions known to you regarding your health, your relative, your travelling companions or anyone whose ill health may cause you to cancel or cut short your trip.

There travel insurance policies that cover pre existing medical conditions, and you should contact the medical screening phone numebr to discuss your health situation. As this constitutes an extra cover on top of the travel insurance policy provided, there is often an extra payment to be made to the medical screening company.

The best guidlines that can be given, is if a medical condition is on going and within the last 2 years, this should be declared and noted on the travel insurance certificate. If you or someone you know had a medical condition 5 years ago and is no longer receiving treatment for this condition, you do not need to declare this.

There are certain situations where cover would simply be excluded from any travel insurance policy. These include:

• Receiving, or is on a waiting list for in-patient hospital or clinical treatment.
• Travelling against the advice of a medical practitioner or for the purpose of obtaining medical treatment abroad.
• Received a terminal prognosis.

If you purchase a travel insurance policy and then are diagnosed with a medical condition, this should be noted on the certificate but would not affect the medical cover as you were not aware of this when purchasing the policy.

If at all unsure, it is always a good idea to contact the medical screening company to discuss your circumstances, as you don’t want to have a large medical bill to pay if it could have been avoided before you travelled.