Pain at the airport - and insurance hassle at home

I suffered chest pain at Gerona airport and was taken to hospital. International Medical Rescue (IMR) arranged a hotel for a few extra days and a flight home. It also promised to provide a translation of my illness from Spanish for my GP. My claim for medical costs has been paid by IMR but Aon Travel Solutions has queried my expenses for the hotel bill and train fare to Barcelona airport.
WO'N, Prescot

After I began talking to Aon on your behalf, you received a letter from the company rejecting your claim for expenses apart from £8 for a medical prescription. This was a mistake and Aon now admits to mislaying your paperwork. This has further delayed settlement but the company has at last agreed to pay all your expenses. It is arranging for its own doctor to explain your illness to your GP immediately.

Car park crash cost us dear

Our car was damaged while parked in a supermarket car park. The driver failed to leave details and repairs cost £197. Our insurer, Royal & Sun Alliance, says it will pay the claim only if we pay £400 in excess premiums because we had not disclosed our speeding fines. We were unaware of the requirement to do so and clearly there was no intent to withhold the information because we declared it on the claim form. We have been with Royal & Sun Alliance for more than 35 years for motor, commercial motor and household insurance.
RS, Rotherham

Motoring offences are expensive. Insurance renewal forms include a paragraph saying you must own up if anyone who will drive the car has been convicted of any motoring offence, including fixed-penalty offences during the past five years or has a prosecution pending, although you can ignore minor parking offences.

A few insurers expect policyholders to inform them immediately they are convicted. If you had done this, your renewal premiums would have gone up. Not doing so entitles the insurance company to refuse a claim. R&SA decided it would pay your claim but only if you reimbursed the shortfall on premiums, some back to 1999, because you are a long-standing customer and it believes you did not set out deliberately to mislead.

If you fail to pay the £400, whether claiming or not, RSA will void your policy, which means you have no motor insurance.

Scottish Friendly's four-year backlog

I invested in a Scottish Friendly Assurance Child Bond for my grandson and set up a direct debit for £200 a year. I recently noticed that the money had not been claimed for four years. Scottish Friendly admitted making a mistake but said I should have made sure the premiums were paid.

They will reinstate the policy if I pay £800 for the outstanding premiums or will increase the surrender value from £305 to £350, even though they have already taken £400 from my account. I consider it their responsibility to draw the direct debit and not mine to monitor it.
AS, Hastings

The selling point of direct debits is that, once set up, you can forget about paying bills because the chore is done automatically. Nonetheless, we do have a responsibility to check our bank statements for accuracy. When the first direct debit was unpaid, Scottish Friendly should automatically have alerted you, then sent a reminder and finally a forfeiture notice. A clerical error overrode the automated system so no letters were sent.

Scottish Friendly's gesture is to add £45 to the cash-in value, which is still a typically poor deal for surrendering early. Although the company has offered to reinstate the policy, this is not straightforward.

Once you have missed more than a year's premiums for a life insurance policy, you lose the tax advantage. As the benefits will be paid to your grandson, this is a problem only if he is a higher-rate taxpayer when he gets them.

You would also have to complete a new medical questionnaire on his life and have to pay a late payment fee of £80 which Scottish Friendly did not tell you about.

Your choice is between a known amount of cash and the gamble that your grandson might eventually get more than you have paid in premiums.

· Email Margaret Dibben at money.writes@observer.co.uk or write to Money Writes, The Observer, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER and include a telephone number. Do not enclose SAEs or original documents. Letters are selected for publication and we cannot give personal replies. The newspaper accepts no legal responsibility for advice.