The UK woke up this morning to see James on Good Morning Britain talking about the delays at the passport office as the backlog reaches 500k cases
The passport office usually expects a replacement passport to be issued within 3 weeks and 6 weeks for a new passport. That figure is now well over 4 weeks on a replacement passport, potentially affecting thousands of peoples holidays adversely.
If you are in this situation contact the Passport Office and get yourself upgraded for free to their Priority or Fast Track service. This will either get your passport issued on the same day if you go to one of their offices around the country or within 7 days from when the passport application is accepted. For this we recommend calling the Passport Office which you can do through the resolver App and record your phone call.
What if you are delayed?
If you are delayed and this impacts on your ability to go on holiday. Then you should complain to the Passport Office and you can use resolver. They do not offer guarantees, except for Fast Track or Priority, unless there are exceptional circumstances and we feel that now is an exceptional situation as the strikes are impacting their ability to deliver.
Can you claim on your insurance?
Generally, the answer is no. Most insurance companies will insure you for issues relating to your passport once you are on holiday but a delayed passport is outside of your insurance policy. However, a limited number of insurance companies will provide you with cover for this issue. The best way is to check with your insurer.
However, according to the Financial Ombudsman Service, they expect insurers to treat their customers fairly where they’ve clearly been prevented from travel by excessive delays at the passport office. Your insurance will will need to demonstrate to us that these were clearly highlighted in the policy. If they aren’t this could be argued as being unfair.