RACV Travel Insurance

We had flights cancelled on us while overseas, with no option provided by the airline on the same day to get us to our destination. We had pre-booked family reunion (accommodation, meals, activities) and thus were not able to delay our arrival. So we booked alternate flights and sought to have the cost covered by RACV travel insurance.

Were told by RACV that the event wasn't 'special' enough to warrant a claim under section 4C of our policy. The trip was planned and booked to reunite our family with my sister who had been living overseas for the first time since our grandfather passed. The activities planned were carefully selected as a way to commemorate the relationship my sister had with our grandfather as she was left in a difficult mental state being away from home during this difficult time.

I have never had a more unsympathetic and disgusting interaction with a service provider in my life. This culminated with RACV accusing me of fabricating an itinerary for the trip once we were home. Had the reviewer bothered to look at the contents rather than just the meta-data of the document they would have seen that the itinerary was imported in as a photo.

Do yourself a favour and look elsewhere, if travelling without travel insurance is gambling then getting a policy through this company is no different - it will just cost you a few hundred bucks extra.

The RACV Consultant was very helpful and as a result we ended up with a policy tailored to our needs. We have all our insurances with RACV and won't shop anywhere else.

Unexpectedly had to cancel our holiday plans and travel insurance policy, due to an unexpected medical issue. RACV generously refunded the cost of our policy. This generosity of spirit greatly appreciated troubling times.

were lucky enough to win! a legitimate accommodation package to overseas thru a travel magazine subscription ,so all we had to do was buy our own flights & naturally we took out travel insurance ,just in case.The worst thing that could happen did happen ,my farther suddenly became ill & past away, cancelling trip was only option.now the dust has settled , painfully supplying death cert, doctors cert,jumping thru all the hoops ,intending to re-set trip,claim was refused due to being a prize!! what tha!!!!we owned the prize ,booking confirmed & payed for in our name. BE WARNED apparently if you ever win a prize (t.v) (car) (camera)(house) apparently u cant insure it??? are they for real?? trauma & loss is bad enough! please do the right thing , that's all I ask

Recently been to Europe got our backpack stolen in Milan station
Went to make a claim asked us all these stupid questions including why we were not watching the backpack and why we didn’t chase after it when stolen
What a joke
waiting for claim to be processed
claims officer is a joke don’t know how she works for RACV
Would never purchase from RACV and we have 4 cars insured considering taking them elsewhere
What a disappointment RACV
Please don’t buy travel insurance from RACV

Please bear with the long review but it is our recent experience.
Before you buy this insurance read all the reviews. Ignore the 5 star reviews if the person has not made a claim. It is like giving 5 stars to a new car you have never driven but the salesman taking your order was nice. ( which is most of them).

Reality Check No.1.
You are dealing with an Insurance Company which is focussed on one thing...making a profit. The Product Disclosure Statement is what you are agreeing to. They are not a charity.
Our claim was successful...and painful. It was a steep learning curve.

I ended up in hospital in Singapore with severe gastroenteritis. We contacted the Insurance Company immediately. They wanted official confirmation of the diagnosis. Singapore Hospitals have strict procedures which they follow such that they do not divulge information to anyone without the proper forms being lodged and to follow a process which takes 6-8 weeks.
If I was to have an insurance claim at home, an assessor would be made available. Not in this case. The Company have Reps in Singapore but would not send anyone to confirm the diagnosis.

Reality Check No. 2.
The so called medical team (they had American accents) were interested in the diagnosis for one reason only. Pre-existing condition. Here is the actual words from the P.D.S.

e) any condition medically documented that involves/involved Your heart, brain, circulatory system/blood vessels, Your lung or respiratory conditions, any type of cancer, or any Mental Illness, reasonably known to you,
for which treatment, medication, surgery or advice has ever been received or prescribed by a medical practitioner or health professional prior to Your purchase of this policy and prior to Your Trip departure as shown as the Period of Insurance on Your Certificate of Insurance
16
This definition applies to You, Your Travelling Companion, a Relative or any other person.

Note the words".. ever been received..." ( This is the "get out of jail free' card for the company)

If you are aged and have never been to the doctor and you suffer chest pains or breathlessness for example whilst overseas, I have no doubts that you will have to provide substantial proof that this is not a pre-existing condition which would prove near impossible to do whilst overseas. As a consequence, you will have to fund any medical treatment yourself until you can lodge a claim upon your return. ( Please read other reviews which detail this very matter )

My condition was not pre-existing but the P.D.S. does not detail the fact that obtaining the diagnosis is very difficult in some countries.

It was 3 days between treatment at clinics, a trip to casualty and eventual admittance into the hospital. The Insurance Company was absolutely no help. They would know from experience that I was going to struggle with an official diagnosis but did not direct me to a private hospital for example that could provide alternative care. This is the part of the P.D.S. which the failed to honour. In fact at no time during the whole experience did they help. Not with the hospital stay, not with organising accommodation when I was still unfit to fly, not with organising return flights which were necessary due to the fact that I was admitted into hospital on the same day we were due to fly out.

The company would not provide a guarantee of payment to the Hospital and they would not send a Rep. After many stressful calls and sending whatever information we could provide, my wife and I were still at an impasse with them. It was only when I was discharged that we could send the discharge forms which stated the diagnosis. The hospital was pushing for payment so we sent the information and waited at the hospital for 4 hours until it was confirmed that the guarantee was posted. Conversation with the administration staff confirmed that virtually all insurance claims in the hospital are settled with cash first.

I was supposed to be recovering in hospital but the experience of trying to claim insurance at the very moment it was required proved extremely stressful to myself and my wife.

After release from hospital, we rang the insurance company again to clarify what was required with regards to accommodation and return flights. In summary they simply said..you have a $25,000 limit but don't go overboard, just keep all your receipts..at no point did they offer to help, it was all left up to us.

Upon return home, we lodged our claim for reimbursement with very detailed information. The Insurance company knows that a lot of booking is done over the internet and as such the receipts are emailed. If you stay in a hotel via Hotels.com for example, you do not get a receipt from the hotel, only from the web based intermediary. If you use a transport provider like Uber or Grab, you only get an online receipt.

Once the claim was lodged, then the questions started. They wanted receipts from the hotel, they wanted a letter from Emirates stating that we did not get a refund for the unused ticket.

They asked for information they knew could not get. They could clearly see on the tickets that they were budget level tickets which had no refund benefits and they of all companies know that Emirates do not write letters as others have already reported.

My last email to them effectively highlighted my absolute disgust with the whole process and the fact that they had failed to help me at all and that I could not provide anymore information.

My claim was paid, minus $19.50 of food receipts with no explanation that I had paid and included in my claim and they took advantage of an exchange rate difference. I had taken $900 Singapore from a teller machine and provided the bank statement as proof. Rather than pay me back what it had actually cost me (an exchange rate of approx. 1.09 ) they used the rate mechanism described in the P.D.S. ( 1.05 ) that saved them another $45.

I will not pursue this amount as I have had enough of dealing with them.

Reality Check No.3.

The people employed to assess the claim are paid to ensure that the Company only pay what is their legal obligation using the P.D.S..They are not paid to look after you. If they are in any doubt, they will not pay. It is up to you to take it further. Many end up giving up out of disgust.

In our opinion, the travel insurance policies provided by RACV fall a long way short of what would be expected of members. RACV are fortunate to have a very loyal base of customers that are rewarded for length of service. As such, a lot of the members that take out a policy are not young. The travel insurance product they are buying, however, is the very last thing that any person in the older age bracket should be buying because of the Pre-existing condition clause that is the sting in the tail.

Reality Check No. 4.

If you take out travel insurance from RACV, make sure that you have the capacity to access large amounts of cash at very short notice and expect your claim to take a long time to be approved and processed.

In summary, do your homework. There are better products around. Reading all the negative reviews will leave you in no doubt that RACV travel insurance is a poor product. It is better to pay twice as much for a product that you can rely upon when it is needed.

The policy met my needs, was good value and easy to set up as it was clear in language and easily understandable. More than happy to use again in future.

Good value recommended by another senior racv member first time I have used this travel insurance. I'm a regular traveler last 7 years travelling overseas 11 times had no claims was explain to me in manner I understood. Will again insure again next time go overseas.

Professional and friendly service from branch at Melbourne CBD.
Very happy with the quote of travel insurance. Used to purchase it from travel agents, but from now on will choose RACV instead. My husband and I are retirees, love overseas travels. All our insurance coverages are with RACV.

I am annoyed with the fact that when I initially obtained an on-line quote it was $164 THEN when I rang to discuss some details I was quoted $172 THEN when I returned to the on-line site the on-line premium had risen to $172!!

I feel it is good value and easily set up. I have never made a claim yet. I have been happy to use this insurance several times. I will be calling again.

I was disappointed with the cost of the policy,it seemed much higher than recent years,guess it is because we are so old.After all we are not even leaving Australia.It was easy to set it up after we had answered the multitude of health questions.Our customer service person was polite,helpful and efficient.
We have used the club for travel insurance several time over recent years and always been happy with the service.

My son dislocated his elbow, and was able to get treatment where near where his was, when they called RACV they told him the hospital he was expected to travel in the middle of the night through the most dreadful roads to Nairobi where they have hospitals in their network! Very poor RACV!

If you think that you are dealing with RACV travel, you are not. Tokio Marine &Nichido Fire Insurance will be your insurer.
If, as they display on the letter head "RACV we're there for you" They are not, they will be obstructive.
If you think that you will be treated with respect, You won't .You will get rudeness.
I have an ongoing dispute with this insurer and contacted the Ombusman.
After a contract was in place with RACV in March and premiums paid with cover for pre-existing medical conditions all was well until I had another medical condition diagnosed a few weeks ago.I told the RACV as required in the PDS but did not seek cover for this. The contract I had was cancelled and another sent to me excluding all prexisting medical conditions . Staff apear to be trained to communicate in circles and get nowhere. Tokio Marine have told me to find anothe insurer, so much for honesty and loyalty.I am a gold service member and a member of the RACV Club for 17 years.I agree with the other reviewers posted this month. What is happening at RACV ? a once highly respected company .BUYER BEWARE!

Unfortunately, due to heart failure, I was unable to travel to Japan as planned. RACV very kindly refunded out travel insurance because of this, which was greatly appreciated, as we are pensioners..

Rang RACV for travel insurance quote within Australia as we felt quote provided by travel agent was excessive. Delighted to find RACV quote was less than half agent’s quote with better cover. Well done RACV

Found the online application tedious. When i came to the end of the process and put in a promo code for 10% discount the process dropped out . After several attempts opted out of getting the discount

We purchased an annual, multi-trip travel insurance policy through RACV and have been members with RACV for almost 25 years.
We recently experienced a flight delay on an overseas trip due to mechanical issues with our aircraft which resulted in us missing a connecting flight to Melbourne. As a result, we had to purchase new tickets for our return flight. We ultimately arrived back in Melbourne 18 hours after our originally scheduled arrival. These things happen….
After stage 2 assessment by Tokio Marine, RACV’s travel insurance underwriter, our claim was politely, but ultimately rejected. The basis for the rejection was that RACV travel insurance does not cover travel delays relating to mechanical problems. It was also stated to us that the delay of our flight was less than 6 hours, and this also fell outside the policy.
Perhaps we have been naive, but we would have thought this was exactly the type of incident travel insurance should cover against. My brother traveled with us and he had an inexpensive $80, single trip policy with another provider which settled and paid his claim within 2 weeks.
It’s clear that the policy re-sold by RACV is ultimately a low-cost, low inclusions policy with many caveats, one of which does not cover policy holders for flight delays relating to aircraft mechanical issues. We naively assumed that RACV would be offering a quality product, but we don’t believe this is the case. This incident has reduced our confidence in RACV’s travel insurance products, and we will cancel our annual policy as we have another trip planned later this year.
We are understandably disappointed with our outcome and just wanted to warn others considering purchasing RACV travel insurance. Yes, we were warned to read the PDS, but there are just so many exclusions, conditions and caveats, you don’t necessarily consider every eventuality. We would have never thought that delays resulting from aircraft mechanical issues would have been excluded from the policy. We incorrectly thought that by purchasing an insurance policy from RACV, we would be protected through their experience in selecting the best and most comprehensive travel insurance offerings. Sadly, this is not the case.

I am a silver member and engaged in RACV travel Insurance including cruise for our family trip of a lifetime. I found out just before my trip I had a tumour on my brain which required urgent major surgery. Of course everything these days are non refundable so this is where your travel insurance steps in but sadly no. I have had nothing but trouble trying to get our money back and treated like I’m a criminal!! Their underwrite company they use do not care even after me giving them all my medical records to prove this what not pre existing. Even after nearly 3 months it’s still ongoing. Absolutely disgusting service, a stress we just don’t need.

If I used the words Snake oil insurers I think I'm being too generous, I made a claim for just over $1000 , excess $200, policy cost almost $2000. The claim in the first instance was denied because a certain document was "Not a travel document" , yet the PDS actually required that particular document produced internationally , appealed their rejection , RACV came back saying , Yeah we were wrong and you were right , but we have a Whole new excuse to deny your claim and the irony their excuse to deny the claim would have put the insured in a more dangerous position which is an over arching position imposed on all travellers that they take all reasonable precautions to remain safe, Objected to their new excuse on common law grounds , they came back Third reason a clause in their policy that relives them from paying any claims for pretty much any reason , a get out of Jail clause if you will for any claim , which I'm sure they know the courts rarely uphold. So after 5 months and clearly dealing with a claims clerk whose salary and bonus system is based on the value of claims rejected , the entire claim has been referred to Australian Financial Complaints Authority.