'Travel insurance won't pay for the cruise I had to cancel due to heart condition' You had two holidays booked. One was to have been in that month and the element of that claim concerning flights booked for you and your wife was met. You had also booked, in August 2012, a cruise to depart in January 2014. The initial deposit was £1,028 and the balance of £9,528 was due on September 27 2013. As the date for paying the balance was approaching you contacted NFU Mutual to confirm that cover would extend into your new insurance year, but were told that coronary and vascular conditions would be excluded from renewal. You checked with the cruise company, which stated that full medical insurance had to be in place with no exclusions. With little time left to do anything else you cancelled the cruise immediately so that you lost only the deposit. Any further delay could have incurred far greater costs. However, even though the booking had been made long before the diagnosis, NFU Mutual wrote: "The contract of insurance lasts for 12 months and our underwriters would review any claims or changes in risk before deciding whether to invite cover and, if so, on what terms for the following year. There is no guarantee that the terms will remain the same. So NFU Mutual wouldn't cover the holiday in full or pay the £1,000 or so cancellation costs that resulted from that decision. With so many cards stacking up against you the insurer was not to my mind responding within the spirit of the agreement. I said as much to NFU Mutual, which responded: "Our underwriters have carefully considered this case and come to a fair conclusion based on our standard underwriting procedure and recent changes to Mr T's circumstances. Our responsibility to all our members means we have to take a sensible and prudent approach but we also have to treat each member fairly. I pushed the insurer again to change its mind but it would not budge, so I advised you to try the financial ombudsman. Giving the insurer short shrift, it found in your favour and NFU Mutual was obliged to pay the cancellation cost of just over £1,000. I pressed NFU Mutual for a comment and eventually it said: "In this case we acknowledge that our service did not meet our member's needs. To make sure that this does not happen in the future we are reviewing the way we administer our travel policies. The Financial Ombudsman Service is at Exchange Tower, London E14 9SR or on 0300 123 9123; the website is financial-ombudsman.org.uk