Quora Answer: If I Have Two Travel Insurance Policies, What Prevents Me from Claiming from Both Simultaneously?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “If I have two travel insurance policies, what prevents me, except good faith, from making the same claim for both of them?”

There is a process to check if multiple claims are made on the same incident.  You are far from the first person to think about this.  Making a multiple claim is considered fraud.  Whilst it is unlikely that the insurer will report you considering how small the claim likely is, they will not only decline to pay your claim, but all the insurers will cancel your coverage and refund your premium, less costs.  They can cancel coverage because there is a clause in the claim form where you have affirmed that you have no other similar pending claim.  If you lie on that, it nullifies your coverage.  This will put you on a blacklist, and make it almost impossible to get future coverage from the same insurer.  Other insurers may also decline coverage. 

In the unlikely event that they have paid out for the claim before realising this, the insurer will demand the money back, and they will take legal action if necessary.  They will do so even if the amount claimed is less than the cost of legal actions because they do not want to encourage this, and will make an example of you.