Thomas Cook adds voice to fight against false holiday sickness claims
Thomas Cook has added its voice to growing concerns about the rise in false holiday sickness claims by Brits abroad.
The travel giant said that ‘in common with the rest of the UK package travel industry’, it has seen an increase in illness related claims from UK consumers.
"At a time when customer satisfaction levels are increasing, we believe many of these claims are questionable and are motivated by the actions of certain claims management companies," it said in its interim report today.
"We are working closely with our hotel partners and the authorities, particularly in Spain, to improve processes in resort and will continue actively to lobby government for changes to legislation in this area."
ABTA is already working on behalf of the industry to try to curb the rise, blaming unscrupulous compensation claims companies and changes in legislation.
It believes the rise in claims coincided with changes in the law in 2012 for other sectors, such as motor insurance, which has made cases like whiplash claims less profitable for claims companies.
Jet2holidays has even begun employing undercover detectives in resort to sniff out touts who hang around resorts to coax holidaymakers into making false claims.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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