Cancellations and Insurance Cover

A tricky subject this one, now that so many people are booking holidays on-line, and not using travel agents. When you book the parts of a holiday separately you have to watch exactly what you are able to insure against.

Flights tend to be OK as most airlines are bonded, but villa owners are not. In my own case not for lack of trying. Having this wonderful villa close to Manasota Beach I am very aware that when guests book this villa they are trusting me to make sure it is available for them. They hope I won’t have double booked, or not arranged for cleaning, and that I have the villa fully-equipped.

Well – I do all the above and anyone booking my luxury villa in Florida is going to get a good deal. I know it is up there with the very best in that I made sure that everything a guest could need is provided. Several of my guests have commented that whatever they went to look for was there!

However, not all villa owners will take that much care, and guests have had cause to complain. This is where it gets tricky as there is no bonding organisation that will cover privately owned villas. There are one or two organisations that will inspect and award ratings, but this information is not freely available to guests.

If the guest has cancelled all or part of their holiday through any reason other than illness most insurance companies will not cover them for the individual parts of their holiday, and it is up to the villa owner to work out whether or not to refund the money. Airlines will usually allow flights to be deferred if the reason for cancellation is valid, but not always (beware of cheap flight offers).

Now the other side of the coin is when a guest has to cancel the holiday. The villa owner has no come-back except to keep the rental money, but there arises a moral dilemma. If the cancellation is due to illness then some insurance companies will repay the cost of the villa. For most other reasons they refuse to pay out. Now the poor villa owner has to evaluate the loss of income and compare it with the distress or hardship suffered by the guest. Also how does the villa owner know that the reason for cancellation is genuine?

My own view is that each case has to be evaluated at the time. If the villa can be re-let then there is a case for refunding some of the rental money. If not then no villa owner I know can afford to lose this income (how else can we pay the mortgage, management company etc?).

My solution is this: if the reason given is illness then I always offer to supply proof of the booking to the guest’s insurance company if this should be required, as the insurer should cover all parts of a holiday if serious illness causes the cancellation. Surprisingly the few times this has happened to me this offer has never been taken up, so either the insurance company has paid up or the reason for cancellation was not genuine………….

I think I am a fair-minded villa owner, and offer a wonderful villa holiday in Florida at a reasonable price, but I am not a charity and I don’t make any profit out of renting. However you’ll never know what you missed if you don’t try – so come on book a holiday in Paradise and stay in my luxury villa at Manasota Beach on Florida’s wonderful Gulf Coast.