I am very upset and disappointed in Cedar Tree Insurance. We had to contact them due to a cancelled ferry on the return leg of our summer holidays and promptly filed an accurate and timely claim in the beginning of July. We were asked for paperwork which we dutifully sent and after waiting a couple of weeks we were told a payment would be sent to us on receipt of the email if everything was deemed ok. I was unsure of the breakdown of the payment and sent an email to ask for clarification, but before it was even out of my inbox the payment was already in our bank account. We had chosen to pay a premium for "travel disruption" which promised to cover any additional expenses in the event of cancelled travel which applied to us in this circumstance, however this hadn't been mentioned and the amount sent to us didn't seem to have included these. I received no reply from Cedar Tree and so I sent a follow up which wasn't replied to until 24th August. This response said that my claim had been reviewed and these expenses were not covered (despite this being detailed in the premium we paid for). I therefore disputed it again. A week later, I was met with the same response which I queried yet again. The reply this time came swiftly and told us, without apology, that another review had been made and we had been overpaid in the initial payout and that nearly £400 was to be paid back to them asap, and detailing the bank account details to use. We were very shaken by this. I went back to them to question this and they then said there had been an error and it wasn't £400 but actually £300 due back! It is also worth noting here that despite being slow to answer my emails, the Cedar Tree phoned my around twice a day during this period in an attempt to get this money out of us. At this point my trust in the company has completely gone - I don't know who to believe, their calculations are incorrect every time I speak to them and it feels like they are plucking figures out of the air and hoping that we go away. At the date of writing we have had no response from them since 6th September. This has left us feeling vulnerable, shaken and with a dark cloud over what should have been a lovely family holiday. Not only that, but we've been made to feel as if we are the ones in the wrong.
Please get travel insurance elsewhere and save yourselves the heartache of having to go through what we have.
Reviewed on: 19th September 2023
