imessage does not send automatically by sms when recipient not available

Has something changed in imessage or is something wrong with my settings. In the past, when a recipient that had used imessage was out of data coverage, any message that I would write to them would be automatically sent as an SMS. For some reason, now, it tries to send it as an iMessage (the bubble stays blue) but i don't see the words delivered underneath the bubble. I have to manually choose "send as text message" for the text to go as a text message. (I have activated the option "settings/messages/send as SMS").

This annoys me to no end because in europe data roaming is expensive and many people turn off data roaming, when i send them an iMessage, i have to manually check that it has been sent or i risk them not getting the message until they are back in their country or in wifi. imessage should automatically send as an SMS where no delivery report is received within say 5 minutes.

Does it work differently for anyone else? I am keen to know if my settings are wrong. Thanks