Ashley Seager’s expensive NatWest policy failed to pay out, so he complained to the ombudsman – only for the label of quality to be dismissed as ‘meaningless’

NatWest’s travel insurance was one of the main reasons that I, like so many other of the bank’s customers, have an Advantage Private account. For an annual fee of £240 it says it is “packed with exclusive features”, chief among them its five-star Defaqto-rated annual worldwide travel insurance, which the bank claims is worth £160 alone.

Last year, I put it to the test. I took my family to Canada on holiday – only to be stranded by the collapse of Zoom Airlines. But instead of the insurance kicking in and returning us home, NatWest refused to pay out. To my surprise – and cost – it said the insurance did not cover the failure of a scheduled airline.

Furious, I took my case to the Financial Ombudsman. Surely, I argued, “five-star” had to mean that it was a fully comprehensive policy that would cover me in most eventualities – such as, in my case, a scheduled airline going bust. After all, NatWest proudly displays its five-star rating prominently over its literature for the Advantage Private account.

A year later, I have finally had my complaint judged by the ombudsman. He has found in favour of NatWest, and I won’t be getting any compensation. But the reason why I’ve been rejected makes for interesting reading. The ombudsman, it appears, thinks that the five-star ratings that financial companies use to promote their products are entirely meaningless.

“I do not consider that there is any common agreement as to what the phrase means. In my judgment the term “five-star” has no specific meaning and amounts to nothing more than “puff”,” wrote ombudsman Reidy Flynn in her judgment.

I contacted the ombudsman’s office to discuss the lack of logic, but it declined to comment. Its basic judgment is that the Natwest Advantage Private bundled account with its five-star travel insurance was not obliged, in any way, to cover for the failure of an airline, or any other transportation company. I should have read the small print, no matter how small.

My complaint had made the following points: that it was unreasonable that a five-star policy did not cover airline failure – any normal person would expect to have such a thing covered if they were travelling abroad; that it was unreasonable that such an exclusion would not be on the list of “significant exclusions” at the front of the policy; and that it was unreasonable that it should be buried in the small print.

I had tried to find out, prior to travelling, whether this point was covered but could not get through to NatWest on the phone, or find the relevant documents on its website. I could not find the documents at home, either, although NatWest insists they were sent. So I relied on the “five-star” rating, thinking it sounded good.

I have since learned that across the insurance industry not many policies cover airline failure. But the Post Office does, and that’s not an obscure little company. It would have cost £1-1.50 per person for NatWest to cover their policy holders for a year against airline failure. Was it reasonable to expect them to have done so for its premium account customers? You might think so, but NatWest did not, nor did the ombudsman.

Defaqto was bemused by the ombudsman’s comments. “I am surprised it has couched it in those terms,” said its head of research, Brian Brown. “Our ratings are independent but do not purport to offer any kind of legal guarantee of what a product may contain. People should check the details.”

He denied that banks and insurers pay a fee to Defaqto to use their ratings, implying the company was biased towards issuing “five-star” ratings. He added that the company only issued five-star ratings on 10-12% of products and no comnpany pays to appear in its analysis. The bulk of its revenue comes from a business-to-business database it compiles and sells to banks and insurers.

Perhaps, though, if the ombudsman service thinks five-star ratings are meaningless and “puff”, it, or another authority, should move to ban them? That’s the only conclusion a reasonable person could reach.

A couple hit with a chancel repair bill for £230,000 and legal costs of £250,000 forced to sell their inherited home

A couple who face costs of £230,000 to repair a nearby church under a law dating back to the reign of Henry VIII sold their property at auction last night to cover the cost of the liability.

Andrew and Gail Wallbank inherited Glebe Farm in Warwickshire in the 1980s, and last night sold the property at auction for £850,000. However, the bulk of the proceeds are already spoken for as the couple must pay £230,000 to repair the chancel of Aston Cantlow’s 13th-century church, and cover legal bills of around £250,000 following an unsuccessful battle against the ancient law.

Chancel repair liability affects a small number of properties across the country, and where it applies it leaves a property (or more commonly a number of properties) liable for the repair of a church’s chancel, although indemnity insurance policies can be bought to cover owners against any potential cost.

Mr Wallbank said he had no regrets about battling the law. The 69-year-old from Carno, Powys, told the Press Association: “I felt what they were doing was so wrong that we had to take a stand against it.

“It was quite disgraceful the way the whole thing was handled – why they couldn’t have agreed to let us buy ourselves out [of the covenant] I just don’t know.”

His wife, 62, also criticised the church authorities for attempting to make them pay for the repairs before defending their actions in the courts. “It is completely against Christian principles,” she said. “As the auction was going on I was thinking ‘you are giving the church our house’.”

The law is set to change surrounding these ancient covenants. By 2013, any chancel repair liability that has not been lodged with the land registry by a parish will no longer bind property owners.