Travel Insurance Reviews

About 10 years ago, someone reversed into our car in a car park. Honest and told us and gave us their contact details. We didn't need to claim on our Budget Direct policy, but Budget Direct sorted out everything, i.e. liaised with the other side to get the repairs organised. Fantastic service 10 years ago.

Last night: Car was parked and damaged by person parking next to us. Severe dent in the side panel and scratches etc. Person was honest; we have their ph no and email. Phoned Budget Direct this morning – but this time Budget Direct won’t help at all to get it sorted (unless we want to lodge a claim on our policy).- We are waiting to hear from the person who caused the damage ...

In February myself and friends travelled to South Korea, we got caught in a town right as the Covid-19 cases in Korea spiked, after being bombarded by emergency warnings telling us to stay indoors and avoid unnecessary travel, we made the decision to contact our insurer (budget direct) who let us know if we decided to cut our trip short that we would be able to make a claim.
We rebooked flights and cut our trip short. Immediately after returning home I put in a claim – I gave as much information as was available to me. After requesting more information I called up to inform I was unable to provide a lot of it, as it wasn’t provided to me – after a gruelling 2 months of fighting with booking companies and other parties involved I sent through the additional information. I then proceeded to wait the 10 days for them to make a decision as per their email. After not receiving any confirmation I called up to be informed that as it had taken me so long to get back that “it had been missed and most likely left in an inbox as the claims person dealing with my claim had left the company”. Obviously a part of their tactic to delay the claim as long as possible to deter customers. A week later they emailed me asking for even more additional information. I provided it and again waited the ten days only to call up and be informed that again, the additional information was sat in an inbox…. Another week passed and they then sent a new email, disregarding the existing chain, asking for the same information again.. when I called I was informed that airlines had retrospectively refunded customers, despite this having nothing to do with what I was claiming. Finally fed up, I decided to have a look at other customer reviews and found I wasn’t the only one experiencing this, so I raised a claim with their IDR department. Miraculously my claim was moved into the review stage, and within 4 days was told it was rejected due to our claim being made “too early” as travel warnings changed just days after we were in Korea. Very odd given many people who have made complaints were given almost the exact opposite response…
Typical though – this company is doing everything within it’s power to delay claims and detest customers until they give up, or finding every reason to deny claims. Very disappointing that despite being well within the VAGUE PDS, I was ultimately declinded a refund. Once international travel starts to open up again will definitely not be returning as a customer to budget direct, have left me immensely out of pocket and wasted months of my time. Surley there will be a class action against them in the near future. Will definitely be lodging a dispute and raising with AFCA.

A pandemic hits the world and this company decides to take advantage of their customers rather than support them. They are hiding behind travel credits that can't be used by the consumer. Due to go to europe for a particular event which is obviously cancelled. Tour was completely none refundable however with determination we were able to get a small amount from the tour provider. They then said we could have a credit against the 2021 tour but we can't go anywhere next year because of family reasons therefore making the credit null and void. However Budget Direct claim we haven't done enough to minimise the loss. Excuse me! We got a partial refund on a 100% non refundable tour and can't make changes in our life to prevent a loss to Budget Direct by taking a trip next year. A trip we just can't take. So now we have to take the loss. Disgusting company, never ever use. I

We have all probably heard of it happening in the broader insurance company community whereby the Insurer deliberately creates delays and generally makes it so hard for the consumers to pursue legitimate claims that the claimants eventually give up. Going on our own personal experiences and by looking at so many other similar instances documented on this site, it is very apparent that Budget Direct are the masters of employing these tactics. We lodged our claim for international flight refunds (flights cancelled by the airline)then followed up several times when nothing happened and were then asked to submit "additional" information (which we had already previously submitted) then chased up again and again. After months of deliberate delays our claim was rejected as the airline, South African Airways (SAA), have offered to anyone holding a cancelled ticket a "credit" against future travel. However as the trip for us was a one-off and we will never be flying long-haul again due to our age and health reasons (further complicated by the advent of Covid 19). Additionally SAA have been placed in something akin to Receivership with the SA Government making a recent commitment to inject funds some funds into a new national carrier. SAA announced that they will not be flying into Australia and have already sold the only planes that were capable of flying that route. So even if we were wanting to fly again we could not use the so-called credit for a flight out of Australia.

As a result of all this we then asked that the rejection be reviewed by a Manager/Team Leader in accordance with Stage One of the Budget Direct Dispute Resolution. We were promised written determination within ten business days and then fifteen business days but nothing ever happened well beyond that period. No contact, no apologies just silence.

Now after further urging from us we today received an email saying the claim is still rejected even though we had comprehensive cover but we can further challenge the decision by going to Stage 2. Here is how Budget Direct summarised things:

"Given the above information, we are only able to provide coverage for items which you are unable to recover from any other source and you must take all reasonable steps to reduce your loss which could possibly lead to a claim. As you have been offered credits for the bookings you are claiming, this is considered as recovering the costs from the source and accepting these is considered a step which you could take to reduce your loss. Therefore the costs are outside the scope of the policy."

Apparently according to Budget Direct it doesn't matter that the offered "credit" cannot be used by us or the fact that SAA are unable to provide anyone future flights from Australia it is simply a matter that the airline has made an offer and we according to Budget Direct's interpretation are obliged to accept a worthless offer. Go figure.........

So don't be fooled by the cheap insurance quote you may get from Budget Direct as its real value will only be exposed if you have to make a claim. Our strongest recommendation to anyone considering using Budget Direct is DON'T USE THEM AS THEY ARE TOTALLY UNETHICAL.

Have called and asked for help in a travel natter have been transferred to different departments then to claims , to hear nothing back. Called again no calls back. Was told EVERY MANAGER. Was in a meeting. Waited for feedback and waited . No notes were recorded and no return calls. The response NOTHIBG WE CAN DO ! Service staff rude, go with a company that knows what they are doing !!!
Would NEVER recommend!

Our life time trip cut short and these muppets can’t even process a claim. 3 months 90 days later nothing. Not a cent.
Lots of good companies have gone to the wall due to the virus and shyt ones like this grow fat in cheating customers.
Go on holiday without insurance or use these herberts. Same thing.

before taking out my claim I searched for a insurance that covered pandemics, I asked the sales rep if i was covered and told them i was concerned about going as the pandemic was getting worse- but they reassured me as my destination was not on the do not travel list that I would be covered- in the middle of my trip the government issued an urgent return home notice as they were about to close the border- being a student with tight funds I was not able to buy new flights- I was unable to contact my airline so wrote to budget direct again asking what to do- whether rescheduling would be covered and the online chat helper said yes and i should log a claim- so i did- and then after months of waiting the claim was denied- so requested to receive a copy of the chat logs (I also asked for a copy of the chats in the chats and was told i would be sent one) and they waited a few months and just denied my claim again? I wanted the chat logs? i was very clear in the emails and phone calls? anyway- very misleading manipulative company do not give them money

DO NOT TRUST THIS COMPANY! THEY MAKE EXCUSES TO NOT PAY GENUINE CLAIMS! THEY DONT RESPONSE TO CLAIMS UNTIL MONTHS LATER! You will know if an Insurer is good during claims time and it is no point buying any insurance at low cost when they dont actually pay you when you need to make a claim. This is an extremely hard lesson I learnt googling for "best insurance companies in Australia or cheapest", CHEAP IS BAD and this is BUDGET DIRECT, their name itself is a reflection. They spent a lot of advertising money and mostly appears at the top of search engines and many Comparison sites like Canstar, Find, Comparethemarket, etc, to ENTICE ignorant consumer like me to buy their policies but when it comes to claims time, they do not response at all until months later and make all sorts of excuses to NOT PAY GENUINE CLAIMS! So please DO NOT GET SCAMMED, read each and every fine print in their policy! They used this to argue themselves out of paying claims. I am taking my case to the AFCA, also read the reviews of other policy holders before you buy! I am a frequent business traveller, been buying travel insurance since 30yrs ago with different companies and last year, it was UNFORTUNATE I came across Budget Direct whilst googling. I bought a comprehensive multi-trip travel insurance in 2019 for my trip to Egypt and Jordan during Xmas holidays. Halfway through my trip, my Mum passed away overseas, and I had to break my trip and fly back for Mum's funeral. Hence, I had to rebook my Business Class Air Tickets and cancel half my trip, and rebook all hotels overseas attending mums funeral for a week. To rub salt into the wound, when I tried to make a claim, I received no response for almost 2 months, sent them multiple emails, they of course made excuses using COVID-19, asked for mum's death cert and all documents to proof my flights, travels, hotels cost etc. They then come back to inform that MY CLAIMS HAVE BEEN REJECTED! Below is their response:-

"The claimant has lodged the above claim under Section A-Cancellation and Amendment fees. As the claimant has already departed Australia she will not be covered under this section. We further considered this claim under Section C1- Cutting Your Trip Short & Section C2-Additional expenses. However, as the incident did not occur in Australia the claim does not fall within the scope of the policy and is therefor denied at this time."

I wondered why the Hell would anyone purchase travel insurance for overseas travel if not for unfortunate events like what happened to me! My mum passed away when I was travelling, and this is NOT A GOOD ENOUGH REASON for Budget Direct to pay my claims! So BEWARE all of you, think 100x before you think of engaging this company's services as CHEAP/BUDGET doesnt mean quality and this is often TRUE each and everytime. I am really keen to hear what the OMBUDSMAN AFRA had to say about this when I lodge a FORMAL COMPLAINT about Budget Direct tricking ignorant, unbeknownst consumers hundreds of million of dollars purchasing their policies hoping NO ONE MAKES A CLAIM and if one does, Budget Direct goes "see, read our 10,000 lines of fine prints in our terms of policies document when you purchase, you are not covered!!!" So unless you are a lawyer, and you have read through each and every word in the terms of their policy document, you are in for the SHOCK OF YOUR LIFE, when most of us would have thought we are covered by travel insurance if a family member passed away during your travels!!!

Flights to UK cancelled resulting from the pandemic, but we thought we were one of the lucky ones that wouldn't suffer loss because our travel insurance stated we were covered for a pandmic and we took it out in Dec 2019 - pre-COVID.

Unfortunately, because we have been offered a voucher by the travel agent, we are advised we are ineligible for a refund. This, despite that fact said travel voucher must be booked by end 2020, rendering it useless, in light of international travel restrictions

Budget Direct are hiding behind 'travel credits' as grounds for refund avoidance. The travel credits offered will almost certainly be useless within the time frame we have to use them.

We have been traveling for two decades, have taken out travel insurance dozens of times, and made a claim on two previous occasions, both of which was satisfactorily rseolved. This was our first time insuring with Budget Direct. Take heed BD. When this is all said and done, people will remember and you will get your just desserts.

These guys do everything they can to not pay you when you need them the most.
I’ve been through the hardest time of my life recently having to deal with getting back to Australia during covid 19 and after another life catastrophe.

I will never use this company for anything ever again.

Has cheaper premiums but the reality hits when a claim is made.
Four months to assess a claim and they only pay a portion of the claim

I wish I had read these reviews before getting their travel policy. Lost $1200 on a policy that will not cover anything. As others have stated claiming is very difficult and then they find excuses to decline the claim. In our case they declined medical expenses that are clearly covered by the policy. The excuse was that their terms require documents that no clinic will provide for a regular doctor's visit. Never experience anything like this with any other travel insurance. Medical expenses have been paid out by other insurances without any problem. I provided them all the documents from the clinic, prescription and all the receipts. But that's not enough according to their PDS. To me seems illegal and I'm filing a case with AFCA and we will see if it is (illegal) or just a legalised scam.

Whatever you do, do not take any policy with Budget Direct. I've also cancelled my car insurance with them.