Package holiday injury claims
What happens if you have an accident whilst on holiday? You do have protection if you booked and paid for your holiday in the UK. However, how you booked your holiday is important.
Personal injury solicitor Carrie King explains more about how different types of bookings afford different types of protection for you.
What is a package holiday?
Pretty much what is says on the tin! A package holiday is two or more travel services, for example flight and hotel, combined and sold for one price by a travel company or tour operator. When the holiday is bought, you enter into a contract with the travel company and they are then responsible for each part of the package.
The scope of a package holiday was recently widened to include linked travel arrangements. This might include tickets to a theme park that have been bought with the single booking and form part of the package holiday contract.
What can be claimed?
You can claim for both your injury and any accident-related financial losses associated with that injury. This might include loss of earnings or out-of-pocket expenses. As well as this, you can claim for loss of enjoyment of your holiday.
As an example, if you’re an adventurous sort and planned on three days of rock climbing but sprained your ankle on arrival by, slipping on a wet floor in the hotel foyer, you would certainly lose out on enjoyment from your holiday.
In addition to physical injuries, you are entitled to claim for food poisoning and gastric illnesses if you can show the symptoms were caused by the negligence of the travel company. It can however be difficult to successfully claim for gastric illness because it can be tough to prove the illness was caused because of the negligence of the tour operator’s representatives e.g., the chef at the hotel.
Can you make a claim?
The ‘package travel regs’ formally known as the Package Travel and Linked Travel Regulations 2018 allow you to make a claim against your tour operator. To successfully claim, you must show:
- You were on a package holiday;
- You suffered an injury through no fault of your own (you will probably be subject to some scrutiny if you to try claim injuries you suffered while voluntarily cliff diving!) and;
- Your injury was caused as a result of the negligence of the travel company or their representatives.
What are the time limits?
Generally, you have three years from the date of the accident (or date of knowledge if food poisoning) in which to begin court proceedings against the company you hold responsible for your injuries. Failing which, your claim will be statute barred, i.e., out of time. The exception to this is if your injury happened while on a plane or aboard a boat, in which case the time limit is two years.
What if you weren’t on a package holiday?
If you were not on a package holiday and suffered an injury, this makes your claim far more complicated because you would likely be outside of the UK jurisdiction. The way to make a claim would be governed by the country you had the accident in and their laws. In all likelihood, these laws will be different to ours. In this instance, you could consider claiming on your own travel insurance if you found yourself in this situation.
To find out more about package holiday injury claims, contact our personal injury team on 033 3344 9600 or email [email protected]
