Sneaky insurance coverage clause that noticed younger household DENIED £2,500 payout when tsunami stranded them in Japan
- Zurich turned down insurance claim because they booked a connecting flight
In the summer of 2025, Erin Niimi Longhurst and her husband, Thomas Durrands were navigating the joys and challenges of their first trip abroad with a small child.
Erin, 34, and Thomas, 35, had taken their then five-month-old son Haruki on a trip from home in east London all the way to Japan.
Making the most of their shared parental leave, the couple wanted to visit Erin’s mother, and allow the extended family to meet their little boy for the first time.
‘We stayed there for a month to introduce our son to my Japanese relatives, but also to take advantage of some extra childcare support through my mum who was excited to help out with grandmother duties,’ Erin, a half-British, half-Japanese writer, said.
The trip went by without a hitch – until on 30 July, the day they were due to fly home, a major earthquake struck in Kamchatka, Russia.
This led to a tsunami warning in Japan, throwing the family’s journey into disarray.
First holiday: Erin and Thomas took their five-month-old son to visit family in Japan
‘What had been a lovely trip was marred due to the fact that, on the day of our return flight, there was a large earthquake in Russia, resulting in a tsunami warning which grounded all public transportation in Japan as a precaution,’ said Erin.
‘The tsunami warning was quite frightening when it happened as we were staying in the coastal town where my grandmother lives.’
Roads were closed, trains cancelled, and the family was therefore unable to make their originally planned return flight, due to the fact they were not able to get to the airport.
This led to them paying for another return flight the next day, once travel had re-opened, so that Thomas, who works as an anaesthetist in the NHS, could get home in time for work. The cost for the three last-minute tickets was £2,500.
‘We had to book a flight for the next morning as soon as possible so Tom could get back to working at the hospital without disruption,’ Erin said.
‘Many others were in our situation so we had to scramble to book our flights after the Japanese Government gave the all-clear for trains and roads to be opened up again.’
The airline couldn’t place them on another flight free of charge in that time, as so many passengers were waiting for new flights.
Thankfully they had taken out travel insurance to cover them in such an eventuality.
They had an annual multi-trip policy which they had booked with the website Multitrip.com, underwritten by the insurer Zurich and costing £119 for the year to cover the whole family.
When they returned home, and recovered from the stressful journey, they made a claim under the ‘missed departure’ part of the policy.
The family were stunned to have their insurance claim turned down after a tsunami cancelled their travel plans
They even included Japanese newspaper articles from the time, to prove that all transport was grounded and they couldn’t get to the airport for their flight.
So they were stunned to have their claim turned down.
The reason? Their initial journey home included a connection via Bangkok, Thailand, rather than going direct to London.
In the small print of their insurance policy, it said they would be covered for a missed flight if ‘you fail to arrive at the international departure point in time to board the public transport on which you are booked to travel on the final part of your return journey to the United Kingdom.’
The loophole, it seemed, was that because they had a connecting flight, the leg from Japan to Bangkok was not the ‘final part’ of the journey.
When Erin queried this, an email from Zurich’s loss adjuster Gallagher confirmed that they weren’t covered because the flight ‘wasn’t directly to the UK.’
Most people would reasonably expect that their full journey home would be covered, if they had an insurance policy that covered missed departures.
Erin tried to get some clarity from Multitrip and Zurich about why this wasn’t made clearer when she took out the policy, but said she found herself ‘struggling to speak to a human being.’
‘We found it really confusing,’ she said. ‘Surely this policy should make it clearer that connecting flights aren’t covered – we would of course have booked a different flight or chosen a different insurance policy if we had known.’
Should connecting flights be covered?
Since 2023, insurers have been subject to new standards brought in by the Financial Conduct Authority, which are known as the Consumer Duty.
The small-print ‘final leg’ clause that caught out Erin and her family is the sort of thing these rules were intended to nip in the bud.
The ‘consumer understanding’ section of the consumer duty rules reads: ‘Consumers can only be expected to take responsibility for their financial decisions where firms’ communications enable them to understand their products and services, their features and risks, and the implications of any decisions.’
With millions of holidaymakers travelling on connecting flights every year, whether or not an insurance policy covers the full journey should be stated upfront.
Had Erin’s family been clearly informed that the second leg of their journey might not be covered, they would never have taken out the policy.
This is Money approached Zurich to ask whether it was right that the family had their insurance claim denied, and if so, whether its communication of this ‘final leg’ clause should have been more transparent.
It told us that Erin’s claim should have been paid out, but that it was ‘not correctly processed’.
A spokesman said: ‘Having reviewed the claim for Thomas Durrands and Erin Niimi Longhurst, we recognise it should have been paid and are sorry it was not correctly processed.
‘We are now resolving this by settling the claim in line with the policy limits, offering additional compensation for the inconvenience caused, and adding interest from the date the claim should have been paid.
‘We apologise for the experience the family had and are taking steps to help ensure this does not happen again.’
Zurich paid the family compensation of £200 to reflect the inconvenience caused, and added 8 per cent simple interest to the settlement from the date the claim should have been paid.
Their insurance policy had a claim limit of £500 per person for missed departures, and an excess of £145 per person. In total, including interest and compensation, they will receive around £1,300.
Zurich’s response suggested that the information the family was given about not being eligible due to their connecting flight was not correct.
This is Money therefore asked Zurich whether the claim was initially rejected because of the connecting flight.
Its only response was that the claim should have been subject to an ‘escalation process’, but that this did not happen. It added that it had taken steps to ensure this did not happen again.
This still leaves other families in the dark over whether they will be covered by insurance if they book a connecting flight.
Therefore, it is advisable to check the wording of your policy ahead of any trips. If it is unclear, as in Erin and her family’s case, check with the insurer before you travel.
