Wales has been left off the official map for the second time in three months. An insurance company has told a customer of 10 years in south east Wales that they could not renew his policy because Wales was not a country.
Last October EU statisticians airbrushed Wales off the front cover their annual official yearbook. In the latest “missing Wales” episode the firm has apologised, saying it was an inputting error.
Sentinel Card Protection told 71-year-old Bernard Zavishlock, from Abergavenny, last month that they could not renew the insurance policy he had held for 10 years because Wales was “an unknown country”.
A spokeswoman for Sentinel Card Protection said: “We unfortunately sent a letter in error to a customer in Wales stating that he could not re-new his policy because he lived outside of the UK.
In October last year Wales was missed off a map used by European Unionstatisticians to illustrate the front cover of their official annual yearbook.
The map of Europe on the front of the Eurostat Yearbook 2004 showed England and Scotland in the correct position. But between the Welsh border and Ireland there was nothing but the Irish Sea.
A spokesperson said that the omission was a “design fault” and the European Commission later sent a “grovelling letter of apology” to First Minister, Rhodri Morgan.
