Doesnt Pay Genuine Claims!

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!!!

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