Travel Insurance Claim Partially Rejected for Co-Insured Spouse? Here Is What You Can Do

Rohan Iyer and his wife Kavita Iyer, residents of Gomti Nagar, Lucknow, had purchased an international travel insurance policy from Bajaj Allianz General Insurance in early March 2025. The policy covered both of them under a single family floater plan for an international trip they had planned together, with joint flight bookings and a shared hotel reservation. Rohan's grandmother passed away on 18 March 2025, just days before their scheduled departure, making it impossible for either of them to travel.

Rohan filed a trip cancellation claim immediately. Bajaj Allianz accepted his portion, acknowledging that his grandmother qualified as an "immediate family member" under his policy coverage. But they rejected Kavita's claim entirely — reasoning that Rohan's grandmother was not Kavita's immediate family member as per the policy definition. Only half the hotel cost was reimbursed, and the full flight cancellation amount for both was denied.

Rohan had already written to the insurer's grievance cell twice and received the same templated response each time. A general civil lawyer he consulted advised him to simply accept the partial settlement. Dissatisfied, he approached Advocate Sudhir Rao, who identified this as a textbook case of arbitrary and one-sided contract interpretation by the insurer, actionable under consumer protection law. A formal complaint was filed before the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, supported by a detailed legal argument on the indivisible nature of the trip cancellation event. The Commission ruled in Rohan and Kavita's favour, directing full reimbursement along with compensation for mental agony and litigation costs.

You can read about this case in detail at https://sudhirrao.com/travel-insurance-claim-partially-rejected-co-insured-spouse/