She cancelled the trip to be near her distraught mother. But now Co-op is refusing to pay out for the cancellation, Rosanna Spero reported in The Daily Mail.

Mrs Thorn, 37, says: “We were going out to Malta for my brother’s wedding, but obviously had to cancel. I had bought the travel insurance through the Co-op at the same time as my holiday. The insurers now say that they will not pay the claim because my father had a pre-existing condition and I had not declared it when I bought the policy.

“But I was not travelling with my dad, and nor did I know all the details of his heart condition.”

Yet although Mrs Thorn was unaware of her father’s heart condition, and that it might have an impact on any claim, the travel insurers demand to know the health not only of people travelling on holiday but that of a wide range of family members.

And if you don’t know their medical history, or forget an incident that might have happened several years ago, you might not be paid out if you are forced to cancel or curtail a trip because of their death or ill health.

A spokesman for Co-op Travel Care told the paper: “The policy clearly states that it contains exclusions relating to persons who are not travelling but on whose health the trip could depend.

“Like all customers buying travel insurance, Mrs Thorn had a 14-day ‘cooling off’ period to review her cover and to ensure it met her requirements.”

Mrs Thorn, from Enfield, Middlesex, says she is now considering taking her case to the Financial Ombudsman to recoup the £1,800 the holiday cost. The Ombudsman takes a dim view of insurers trying to wriggle out of paying such claims.