Travel insurance - missed connections

[orpine]

So, I'm doing a multi-leg trip across Europe and I'm interested in travel insurance, specifically the part that covers cancellation, delays, and missed connections.

Take the following trip:
Leg 1 - Eurostar to Paris.
Leg 2 - Paris to Munich
Leg 3 - Munich to Poland.

All of them are part of the same journey with a few hours of connection time between them, with the final destination being Poland. The tickets were all brought from different providers.

Let's assume that something goes wrong on Leg 1 and I miss the connection to Leg 2.
It's my understanding from attempts to read policies that the only bit that'll get paid out for a delay is the "leaving the uk to go abroad" part, so they wouldn't pay out for this scenario, and this is the bit I'd like to make sure is covered (it'd be expensive to catch up).

Does anyone have any experience with this? What do I need to be looking for in the policies?

 

[Bletchleyite]

If it's one journey in the EU regardless of how many tickets it's on[1] you should get CIV protection, which would accommodate you on the next available[2] train if a connection is missed.

[1] It has to accommodate splits, as some European countries don't do through ticketing at all, it's one ticket with a compulsory reservation per train.

[2] This might mean a long wait if they are compulsory reservation and booked up.

 

[orpine]

I've heard of CIV in relation to getting national Rail tickets when catching the Eurostar but wasn't aware it went beyond that.
I already have the tickets for the journey, will it be included by default?

Also, assuming it's not covered, I'm still left with wondering what to look for in travel insurance.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've heard of CIV in relation to getting national Rail tickets when catching the Eurostar but wasn't aware it went beyond that.
I already have the tickets for the journey, will it be included by default?

http://help.loco2.com/article/283-london-st-pancras-international-civ-tickets I think explains it, notably:

"In Europe, domestic travel is generally protected by CIV if you can provide evidence of onward cross-border travel. Note that any purely domestic delays/cancellations will be handled by the standard delay compensation procedure."

Can't really help re the insurance side, I'm afraid - perhaps one to ask an actual insurance company.

 

[orpine]

http://help.loco2.com/article/283-london-st-pancras-international-civ-tickets I think explains it, notably:

"In Europe, domestic travel is generally protected by CIV if you can provide evidence of onward cross-border travel. Note that any purely domestic delays/cancellations will be handled by the standard delay compensation procedure."

Thanks for that link.

The best quote would be "The acronym "CIV" is printed on eligible tickets to show that they are covered under the terms of the contract. Every international train (i.e. one that crosses a border) has CIV protection by default, under EU law. "

I took a look at the tickets - all of them have "CIV 1185" on them in the top left, though google doesn't find anything about the 1185 bit. Now I'm curious - does anyone know what the 1185 is? Odd that it's on different tickets from different providers so I guess it's part of CIV.

 

[30907]

1185 is the UIC Carrier (country) code for Swiss railways. Various other country codes should appear in the routing shown on the second and third tickets.

Not sure why it appears on the tickets - UIC HQ is Paris - but I bet someone on the forum does....

Just seen a tweeted DB issued ticket which has CIV 1080 on it.

 

[orpine]

Interesting. Two sets of tickets I got from SBB (the swiss folks).
Double checking I see the third set is 1187, I got them from Loco2. I guess they're National Rail/Atoc?

Thanks for the info.

 

[30907]

No, that's SNCF, GB is xx70. Eurostar use their system and ATOC basically don't touch international. Loco2 access various systems and I assume it will depend on the actual ticket issuer.