Columbus Direct Reviews

I put a claim in after 7 years of paying premium for a canceled flight and associated costs. After 2 weeks claims got back to me saying read small print! No. So in my mind no point in having this travel policy at all. Don't purchase.

Everything fine until you have to make a claim. Then they avoid you like the plague. Dont return calls or emails. Refuse to reimburse your expenses or losses

I have sent 2 emails to customer service asking to amend my travel insurance, one on the 17th of April and one last week, I have had no response at all, not even an acknowledgment of receipt of emails. I understand the present situation but I was told up to 10 days for a response via messenger when I tried another way to get answers. I just want to know what is going on.

We used Columbus for a four month trip to Europe last year. During the trip we experienced several problems, including a motor vehicle accident, theft of a wallet and a flight cancellation.

On our return we lodged a claim and found the company very difficult to deal with. Despite us providing a police report, it knocked back our claim for the loss of the wallet on the basis that we couldn't prove whether or not the wallet had money in it. This was because we weren't able to supply ATM withdrawal receipts. When we provided evidence that we had transferred money to a relative in Europe and received Euros from them and knew exactly what went missing (300 Euros and ten GBPs), this was also unacceptable.

The truth is however, that no one can prove how much money they have at any given time and yet despite this and the fact that theft of cash is covered by the policy, we got zip. Ditto with our cancelled flight. If you don't obtain receipts (a difficult thing to do in a foreign country and under considerable pressure), forget it.

I used Columbus Direct for my holiday. I had an accident and broken a limb. At first they were being a pain by coming up with can you prove you were there on holiday. Well they bought my flight tickets home. How much proof do you need. They eventually emailed me to confirm that I will be getting my insurance payment but that was a week ago. I haven't got any payment in my bank account. It takes 3 working days for BACS to go through to your account. So I should've got this last Wednesday. Didn't get it. So phoned them up. Got a consultant on the line saying it takes a few days. Well those few days have gone, so I should get this Friday. No in a couple of days. Well it's gone over a week and guess what, no money in my bank account. It looks like they don't really want to pay out insurance claims. Tried to phone them and you can't get through as they are so so busy. If I don't get this money by tomorrow, I will be speaking to the management to try and get my money. I would never ever use them again.

I had the misfortune of having to cancel my flight and rebook due to Qantas not being able to get me back to Sydney. Columbus denied my claim because the reason for the flight cancellation then delay was fuel shortage. The said they didn't cover for that! How ridiculous completely out of my control and I am only looking to be refunded the gap between my Qantas refund and the extra I had to pay for a one way ticket home. But before denying my claim they made me get not 1 BUT 3 letters from Qantas explaining the cause of the delay. What a waste of time.

I have used Columbus for all the overseas trips I have made for years and the price has always been one of the best value policies around. I have had only one small claim a few years ago and it was dealt with promptly.

Purchase twice this insurance. Of course when your trip goes right everything is perfect as you don´t use it!. Second time my daughter got sick and I claimed flight and hotel. They never paid a penny or anything. No proper answer. Still waiting....

Not obvious when purchasing Worldwide insurance that it didn't include USA and Canada. However when contacting customer support the service was fast.

Sent email to ask a basic question as to whether I need to inform them each time I go away for a multi trip policy. Never received a response. Not a good start! Guess I will have to ring them.

I called the company the day after we were travelling Canada and we had all of our ski and snowboard gear and our savings for the end of the season stolen and we were told they would send me information through email on how to claim for this and I had to ring up a second time to receive the actual form to fill out and find out what we needed to send through to them. We were told we needed to send proof of purchase for the items and the form but were not specific that this all had to be in hard-copy so we originally scanned all of this and sent it online but after a week found out that we had to send it by mail. After doing this we called up to find out how long the claim would take to process once they received this form and all of the receipts for the gear and we were told it would be completely processed within 5 working days of being received. What a load of bull that was since it is now 5 months later and the claim is still being processed. This has completely ruined our season since I had to end my employment as a ski instructor early due to not having any equipment and could not enjoy the last month of free skiing because we could not afford to buy all new gear. My boyfriend also had to end his employment early since he was working on the mountain aswell and we were both living off those wages and could not afford to buy all new equipment. Since the end of April when we sent the claim through they have asked for more information from us 3 times, the first time was a month after we originally sent through the claim. We had to cut our holiday short since we could not afford to stay there as long as we had planned without the money we had saved and since we had to stop working early. We have also now returned to Australia and were unable to enjoy the ski season here even since we haven't received any compensation yet and again could not afford to buy all new gear especially here in Australia where everything snow related is much more expensive. So many times we have contacted them and not received any reply and I actually called them once and was told that they were supposed to call me for more information but it no one was on top of it. It has been the worst organisation of processing this claim and I am faster at replying to their emails when this is their job and I have my own job working full time.

For the last 8 years or so we have been using Columbus Direct. We found it through a friend and haven't looked back. Every time we travel there we go to their website. In less than 5 minutes the insurance is done at a very reasonable price. About 4 years ago we had the unpleasant experience of being robbed while on holidays, but the experience was somehow mitigated by the speedy way that the claim was resolved. We have been recommending the company to all our friends.