Manjit and his wife were scheduled to travel overseas when, unfortunately, he was diagnosed with a highly contagious communicable disease. Since it was an infectious disease, and his wife was in close contact, the treating doctor had advised both to self-quarantine.

As a result, they had to cancel their trip, and a claim was made to their insurer. The insurer repudiated their claim on the basis that the Trip Cancellation coverage is only applicable as a direct and necessary result of the ‘Specified Cause’ and that self-quarantine related to contagious disease is not covered.

OUR FINDINGS

Based on our review of the policy wordings, we noted that ‘Compulsory Quarantine’ was not defined in the policy. The dictionary defines ‘Quarantine as a concept developed by society to protect against the contagious disease outbreak’.

In this case, the complainants were clearly following their doctor’s advice to ‘self-quarantine’.

OUTCOME

Without a clear policy definition of ‘Compulsory Quarantine,’ the case manager applied the contra proferentem rule and issued a recommendation in favour of Manjit. Contra proferentem is a rule of contract interpretation that states an ambiguous contract term should be construed against the contract’s drafter.

The insurer accepted our recommendation and paid the full claim for the cancellation cost.