I'm somewhat sympathetic to the insurance company here. Travel insurance is there to take care of emergency medical care. It's not for long term care. The guy clearly didn't want to travel because he preferred to be cared in Singapore. From his e-mail:
>I intend to stay in Asia for some time yet. I did consider travelling home to have surgery in the UK, but the medical Service here is excellent and I'm already scheduled in for the procedure on Monday. I was concerned about the long haul flight and travel time with a broken hand and fractured rib, as well as potential waiting times on the NHS.
So he's pretty clearly trying to game the situation. He wanted to keep traveling and avoid the NHS. The letter from the doctor saying he was not fit to fly simply states:
>The patient Badger Ryan Sean was admitted from 11/6 to 12/6 for an operation for a right index finger proximal phalanx avulsion fracture on 31/5 and was not fit for flying before his operation for his fracture.
It's reasonable for the insurance company to ask for more details and a specific reason why he wasn't fit to fly.
I’d always assumed that “Travel Insurance” means you’re covered for whatever treatment you need in the country you happen to be in. (EDIT: providing the accident happens on your trip).
Flying you home and palming you off onto the state seems kinda shady to me. That’s not really “medical cover”, it’s just a flight home. And to make matters worse they made out as if flying him home was doing him a favour.
EDIT: Reading some of the other comments makes me think I’m just another mug who doesn’t read his insurance policies. But I still think that offering “£5,000,000 in medical cover” without qualifying that it really means "£5,000,000 in medical cover, only if we absolutely can't get you home and get the NHS to do it for free", borders on deliberately misleading.
Warning bells starting chiming as soon as I read how much the insurance cost. He might not have known better, but £273.70 for 18 months of insurance is at least 10x too low.
My trick is simple: Get an Amex Platinum if you need insurance for under 2 weeks [1] and buy insurance from your bank for anything longer. Banks compete on trust, so they don't randomly fuck you over. I actually used my bank's health insurance when I needed it and they were nothing but professional. It was RBC Canada, if it matters.
[1] Reach out to me if you do this and we'll both get enough points for a free transatlantic flight.
Yeah, it's unclear to me why he didn't ask for/demand coverage for the emergency finger-attaching procedure. In the article, he skipped the details on that in terms of supposedly having to inform them beforehand for an emergency procedure.
That emergency procedure, not the follow-up, seems more in line with what the plan is designed to cover.
> So he's pretty clearly trying to game the situation.
I think you've misinterpreted some ambiguity in his statement because he neglected to use the proper tense when justifying his reason for not having a return flight booked.
They inquired if he had a pre booked flight home:
>> Our medical team believe this injury may require long term care, so we would see if beneficial that you return to the UK for treatment, if you have a pre booked flight home please advise us on the date?
His response to that line was:
>> The medical team here have suggested that I will require physiotherapy once a week for 4 to 6 weeks. I have no return flight booked at present, as I intend to stay in Asia for some time yet. I did consider travelling home to have surgery in the UK, but the medical Service is excellent and I'm already scheduled in for the procedure on Monday.
The partial quote you took, "I intend to stay in Asia for some time yet", was his justification for not having a pre booked flight home, not an expression of his refusal to comply with their recommendations.
> He wanted to keep traveling and avoid the NHS.
You've also mistaken his desire to finish receiving treatment in Singapore as a desire to avoid the NHS. His desire was to receive the most immediate care possible and the surgery was intended to install a plate to stabilize his hand and ensure that it heals properly.
They were asking him to fly for 20+ hours in a coach seat, considering his hand was unstable that seams unreasonable. It also increases the likelihood of additional injury as he travels.
The were asking him to transition his medical care from one hospital to another in another country on the other side of the globe. That by itself would introduce considerable delay in treatment as the new medical team would need to fully access his treatment up to that point and establish a new treatment plan. The surgery he was prescribed was to stabilize his injury to ensure it healed properly, delaying that treatment could potentially lead to improper healing.
As someone who popped a pulled tendon and had to wait 6 months (MURICA!) for an appointment with an orthopedist at which point my injury was healed (thankfully correctly), I can fully understand his desire to stay put and finish his treatment.
I worked in insurance for a company with a reputation for being unusually ethical, etc. While working in insurance, I heard that it was quite common for other insurance companies to train their claims processors to look for a reason to deny, not a reason to pay. I was trained to look for a reason to pay, not a reason to deny and still sometimes found the bureaucratic process stomach-turning.
I generally am sympathetic to the conclusion of the author that the intent was to screw him out of his money. Having working in insurance, I have heard from reliable sources that this is a common tactic and attitude at most insurance companies and I believe that to be true.
Then, on top of that, issues for the insured are compounded by bureaucratic snafus etc. which I find abhorrent given that the industry generally runs on claims of being there for you when they are needed.
I have said previously that it boggles my mind that insurance is legal, especially health insurance. I think car insurance and house insurance and such make more sense, but health insurance strikes me as being like an ugly Running Man style game show called "You Bet Your Life" and I go through life shaking my head at the idea that the world is apparently okay with this state of things.
I think it is completely unreasonable to expect anyone to indur a long international flight. The fact that they expect him to fly with broken bones is inhumane.
Private health insurance is by definition avoiding the NHS, which was 10,000 miles away anyway, so I’m not sure what point you’re making here? If the terms of the policy were we’ll fly you home in cattle class and dump you on the taxpayer then that should be made clear
I always wonder when I buy insurance, if I need it will they actually pay out.
You should be able to get insurance for your insurance. So when you need insurance and it doesn't pay out. Then that insurance company can go after the first one without having to resort to twitter or medium to shame them.
I would like to second and strongly advise this advice to contact the ombudsman.
I got cheap UK travel insurance, got my jaw broken in Australia, racked up huge hospital bills, hotel bills, curtailment bills...
They tried every trick in the book to not pay.
Although it took over a year the ombudsman made them repay every penny.
It seems you documented everything well - the ombudsman attaches a huge weighting to the medical opinions of treating doctors, so you have a good shot.
Looks like they wanted him to use NHS, unless he was dying. Luckily, I live in America, where no travel insurrer will ever tell you to return to as costs will increase by 40x.
Oh, I'm quite sure they would as, once you're back home, you're off their hands and in the hands of your regular medical insurance company which you hopefully have.
These travel policies may notionally cover some level of urgent medical care but they're mostly designed (and priced for) cancelations due to injury/sickness/emergency, lost property, and getting you back home even if that requires a helicopter from some remote hillside (hopefully).
I'm sure there are 12 month policies you can buy that legitimately cover international health care for a 12 month period in addition to other travel-related risks but they'll cost a lot more.
From his telling, the company was not very communicative when he contacted them, but, fundamentally, saying he should fly back to the UK for treatment and they'll cover the flight does not seem unreasonable.
He complains that "unless you are injured so horrifically that you cannot survive another moment without life saving surgery, odds are they’ll just tell you to fly home and have the surgery for free." But, to me, this is exactly what travel insurance is (which is why it's so cheap). Expecting fancy Singaporean hospitals unless it is strictly necessary seems totally unreasonable.
If they were not so communicative, he also basically decided to not get back to them on the vital "is he fit to fly?" issue for a few days (he had been OK to fly to Singapore after all), until after the surgery. There were a few days to go until the surgery, so that was enough time to get him back to the UK. Also, why hadn't he gotten in touch before? He texts pictures to friends, books flights, &c, and does not call the insurer or even ask somebody else to call on his behalf?
For what it's worth, I think he made the right decision in getting treatment in Singapore at his own expense, but that was still his decision.
>this is exactly what travel insurance is (which is why it's so cheap)
And that's one of the huge issues!! Very often people don't read their policies so they have misunderstandings about their coverage!! This is a big problem!
I always read all of my policies, I suggest everyone else does the same. I want to be very clear what losses are covered and what my deductible will be before any losses occur. In fact, for legal documents, insurance policies are pretty easy to understand.
I really wish he included the text of his policy.
While I have sympathy for him, I think he got himself into a pickle when he flew to Singapore than claimed he was unable to fly. Yes, Singapore is a million times closer to Indonesia than the UK, but he should have known if he left Indonesia the insurance company would have expected him to return to the UK.
Insurance companies always felt like a Govt sanctioned scam. These companies are the real scammers that thrive by finding grey areas and loop holes to shirk their responsibility. Making this mandatory is just the government whoring its citizens out to these companies.
I cant imagine how I'd have dealt with a $20000 hole in my pocket. Come to think of it, I should seriously work on saving up for a "personal insurance fund" that I can draw from in cases of emergencies like this and not trust the insurance companies at all. Your story was a wake up call.
This approach by the company is not surprising at all.
I have family in Canada who come and visit the US. They buy the insurance. One of them had a heart attach while in the US. Insurance paid something like $50,000 to put them on a private medical jet back to Canada. Far cheaper than having the care in the US.
I think what surprises me is that they wanted to fly the guy half way around the world. Canada and the US border each other.
I DO think that the gentleman made a bad decision saying that he was intent on staying in-country for 6 months afterwards. That's probably all the insurance company needed to think, "Yeah, this guy is using travel insurance as regular insurance"
Still, I do think the gentleman get the wrong end of the stick. I know I won't use this company, but now I really don't know who to use.
I really feel for the guy, he has gone through a lot of pain and suffering.
That said, as someone who has gone through life and used my share of insurance, I think the guys attitude is exactly backwards. There are huge numbers of people out there working insurance fraud schemes. I nearly ran into a couple that was trying to 'brake unexpectedly and get insurance payments.' Since I leave enough following distance I didn't hit them and they were quite irritated. It would have been funny if it were not sad.
So the insurance folks try to set up a lot of processes that minimize that fraud or make it harder on perpetrators.
This guy seems to have set out with the idea that insurance was trying to rip him off, and by operating under that assumption, taking actions (or not taking actions) that make himself look suspicious.
An alternative course of action might have been to familiarize himself with the policy before hand, and the processes and requirements he needs to meet when he needs to use it. And then set up things like putting into his wallet, "If I am being treated at a hospital or clinic please call this number and inform this insurance company xx xx xx xxxx" My sister in law is a nurse and we know a guy who works as a volunteer medic around the world, and when you come into the hospital they will always look through your wallet for identification and insurance information, help them out there.
Life is so much harder if you assume other people are "out to rip you off" or "get you" as your going in position. It can ruin possible relationships and it certainly damages business relationships.
This is true, but the reality is I doubted my insurance would pay from the start. I was expecting to pay for everything myself. It was only once I got the quotes in Singapore that I realised I might not actually be able to afford it that I resorted to the insurance. And their response was even worse than I expected it to be. I appreciate there are countless fraud attempts and they need to protect themselves, but I was lucky, it could have been a lot worse, I'm sure for other people it is. And I guarantee you when you're facing emergency surgery the LAST thing on your mind is "I best call my insurer and start the form filling process". It's fuck, FUCK. This fucking sucks.
Insurers should be required to list the statics for the number of accepted and rejected claims on the policy website. Currently there is no way to tell which insurance is more or less likely to screw you.
The insurance company is likely not in the wrong here. I think part of the problem is that, as Brits, we are used to not worrying about this kind of thing. If we get hurt in the UK we get unlimited "free" healthcare (paid through taxes) and there are reciprocal agreements throughout Europe whereby healthcare is either free or has a nominal charge to reduce Moral Hazard. We don't have to think about communicating with an insurance company.
Since moving abroad I have gotten used to carrying my insurance card and calling their number before any elective insurable event takes place. I feel that the OP was unfortunate in finding this out the hard way.
You really should have health insurance when travelling around Europe. A friend of mine broke her arm and had a one night stay in a hospital in Germany. It came to €1000.
There's no point in even buying travel insurance if your upfront assumption is that you're not likely to need it so you're going to buy on price.
On the other hand insurance is tricky at the best of times. (shill warning) In situations like this I put my trust in Costco because they have a track record of consistently providing a good deal the price.
I once knew a guy who ran a roofing business. He said that it was easy for him to insure his workers if they fell off the roof, but difficult to get coverage for when they hit the ground.
He paid £275 for 18 months of travel insurance? Well yeah, of course they are going to want to fly him back to the NHS. As a US traveller my insurance was $2600 for 12 months. When you enter into a legal agreement (insurance) read the fine print, it'll save you a lot of disappointment.
People should be able to expect that insurance is as advertised, and there's no "not really" in the fine print. UK courts are much less accepting of such things than the US. The infamous case is PPI misselling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_protection_insurance
When our daughter visited Bali with a friend last year she was also in a motorbike crash. I guess a lot of people think it will be fun to ride a motorbike in Bali. Her hand was badly cut and needed stitches. We had to transfer the cash to her friend's debit account so it could be paid out on the spot, but once that was done the ER docs did a great job sewing her up, and $700 seemed like a hell of a bargain compared to what a visit to the ER and some stitches probably would have cost in the U.S.
What a story. But it's not insurance that's bad, it's (local) insurers. In the Netherlands for international coverage there are two main support companies covering all insurers that provide help while abroad. That help is pretty extensive. If you deliver early abroad, they might send a nurse or doctor to help fly you back. They can book you flights and taxis if a relative dies or get you a new car pretty much anywhere worldwide. This all from personal experience, my professional experience gives me the same impression. In this case they would have probably guided him with a nurse or doctor to Singapore.
Which leads to my only gripe about this story. Why did he act though and not ask for help from the get go. Is there no international support in UK policies? Flying while sedated and bleeding...
Any insurer should see paying out as the prime deliverance of the customer promise. You don't skimp on paying out, but do try to be very careful about getting swindled. Getting called after 20k is spent would get the flags up in any insurer, good faith or bad.
My 2 cents would be that a good timeline and documented claim (like this blog post without the fluff) could still get him the 20k. It's an insured event, without the time for proper evaluation and without malice. That's a good basis for any claim.
What I was astonished to find out is that insurers actually have people or departments whose sole job is to find reasons not to pay and how they cling to absolutely every detail, true or not.
More or less the same thing happened to me with a 6 months travel insurance. I had an unfortunate series of light medical problems that racked up about 1500 EUR. I was somehow lucky that I over-informed the insurer anytime anything concerned them and they pre-approved each doctor's visit. When it was time to get my money back, they denied the claim saying that I flew back home one month into the trip (and then left again) and that legally concluded my trip. That was, of course, non sense.
I wrote them a letter saying that if they don't return my money in 30 days, I will fill in a complaint with the insurance oversight authority in my country. They didn't so I did. The nice part is that this authority shoots first and asks questions later so in a few days I got a really passive aggressive letter saying they will be paying in full, that they already decided that a week before so there was no need for me to file the complaint (I was, of course, not informed) and they asked me to withdraw my complaint.
I'm assuming Insure and Go will be in touch at some point requesting me to take down my post as it's amassed 30k views in 24 hours. But I won't. Even if they don't pay out because of it, I'd prefer that people have access to this information. Paying me the $22k would be a drop in the ocean for them, but hopefully, the post will live on for years.
Expecting insurers to be magnanimous will always lead to disappointment and anger.
Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that insurers will nearly always err on the side of denying a claim if they can find an excuse to. That's why it's important to (a) read the fine print in the policies you purchase and (b) hire an attorney if you believe that you have been unfairly denied a claim.
Even if a claim is valid, insurers will also do whatever it takes to minimize their payouts. In this case, paying for transport to the UK for additional treatment would have been far cheaper than paying a Singaporean hospital for it, and so it's unsurprising that they pressured the claimant to hop on a flight instead of stay in Singapore since the injury did not contraindicate air travel (or at least there was significant disagreement as to that question).
Since moving to the UK I've found that insurers here have SO much more legalese in their contracts. It's really hard to figure out what they actually cover ("two-fifths of fuck all").
My top "Gold" level travel insurance doesn't even cover my phone getting stolen while overseas.
This is why it's important to read the policy itself, not just the marketing materials. Usually they have the specific details of what you have to do and what you're entitled to receive.
The insurer definitely didn't handle it well but it would have gone much smoother if the expectations were properly set by reading the policy.
The travel insurance that comes for my credit card for example makes it quite clear that you have to contact the insurer as soon as possible after an accident and that in most cases, they'll opt to have you repatriated for care in your home country.
It's probably particularly important with travel insurance because travel insurance exists for reasons in addition to a standard health insurance policy (which may, in fact, be your primary health coverage for out-of-country travel in any case).
I think of travel insurance as serving two main purposes.
- Insuring against not being able to take or having to cut short an expensive pre-paid trip or
- Evacuating you (e.g. a helicopter rescue) if you injure yourself in a remote place (especially if you're doing activities like mountain climbing).
Of course, it depends on the quality of your main medical insurance.
He got a medical opinion that he was not fit for travel before his operation. This wasn't a case of not reading the small print, it was a case of the insurer valuing their own medical opinion over that of their customer's doctor.
[+] [-] trocadero|7 years ago|reply
>I intend to stay in Asia for some time yet. I did consider travelling home to have surgery in the UK, but the medical Service here is excellent and I'm already scheduled in for the procedure on Monday. I was concerned about the long haul flight and travel time with a broken hand and fractured rib, as well as potential waiting times on the NHS.
So he's pretty clearly trying to game the situation. He wanted to keep traveling and avoid the NHS. The letter from the doctor saying he was not fit to fly simply states:
>The patient Badger Ryan Sean was admitted from 11/6 to 12/6 for an operation for a right index finger proximal phalanx avulsion fracture on 31/5 and was not fit for flying before his operation for his fracture.
It's reasonable for the insurance company to ask for more details and a specific reason why he wasn't fit to fly.
[+] [-] J-dawg|7 years ago|reply
Flying you home and palming you off onto the state seems kinda shady to me. That’s not really “medical cover”, it’s just a flight home. And to make matters worse they made out as if flying him home was doing him a favour.
EDIT: Reading some of the other comments makes me think I’m just another mug who doesn’t read his insurance policies. But I still think that offering “£5,000,000 in medical cover” without qualifying that it really means "£5,000,000 in medical cover, only if we absolutely can't get you home and get the NHS to do it for free", borders on deliberately misleading.
[+] [-] 3pt14159|7 years ago|reply
My trick is simple: Get an Amex Platinum if you need insurance for under 2 weeks [1] and buy insurance from your bank for anything longer. Banks compete on trust, so they don't randomly fuck you over. I actually used my bank's health insurance when I needed it and they were nothing but professional. It was RBC Canada, if it matters.
[1] Reach out to me if you do this and we'll both get enough points for a free transatlantic flight.
[+] [-] mamurphy|7 years ago|reply
That emergency procedure, not the follow-up, seems more in line with what the plan is designed to cover.
[+] [-] cptskippy|7 years ago|reply
They inquired if he had a pre booked flight home:
>> Our medical team believe this injury may require long term care, so we would see if beneficial that you return to the UK for treatment, if you have a pre booked flight home please advise us on the date?
His response to that line was:
>> The medical team here have suggested that I will require physiotherapy once a week for 4 to 6 weeks. I have no return flight booked at present, as I intend to stay in Asia for some time yet. I did consider travelling home to have surgery in the UK, but the medical Service is excellent and I'm already scheduled in for the procedure on Monday.
The partial quote you took, "I intend to stay in Asia for some time yet", was his justification for not having a pre booked flight home, not an expression of his refusal to comply with their recommendations.
> He wanted to keep traveling and avoid the NHS.
You've also mistaken his desire to finish receiving treatment in Singapore as a desire to avoid the NHS. His desire was to receive the most immediate care possible and the surgery was intended to install a plate to stabilize his hand and ensure that it heals properly.
They were asking him to fly for 20+ hours in a coach seat, considering his hand was unstable that seams unreasonable. It also increases the likelihood of additional injury as he travels.
The were asking him to transition his medical care from one hospital to another in another country on the other side of the globe. That by itself would introduce considerable delay in treatment as the new medical team would need to fully access his treatment up to that point and establish a new treatment plan. The surgery he was prescribed was to stabilize his injury to ensure it healed properly, delaying that treatment could potentially lead to improper healing.
As someone who popped a pulled tendon and had to wait 6 months (MURICA!) for an appointment with an orthopedist at which point my injury was healed (thankfully correctly), I can fully understand his desire to stay put and finish his treatment.
[+] [-] DoreenMichele|7 years ago|reply
I generally am sympathetic to the conclusion of the author that the intent was to screw him out of his money. Having working in insurance, I have heard from reliable sources that this is a common tactic and attitude at most insurance companies and I believe that to be true.
Then, on top of that, issues for the insured are compounded by bureaucratic snafus etc. which I find abhorrent given that the industry generally runs on claims of being there for you when they are needed.
I have said previously that it boggles my mind that insurance is legal, especially health insurance. I think car insurance and house insurance and such make more sense, but health insurance strikes me as being like an ugly Running Man style game show called "You Bet Your Life" and I go through life shaking my head at the idea that the world is apparently okay with this state of things.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] moltar|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaius|7 years ago|reply
Private health insurance is by definition avoiding the NHS, which was 10,000 miles away anyway, so I’m not sure what point you’re making here? If the terms of the policy were we’ll fly you home in cattle class and dump you on the taxpayer then that should be made clear
[+] [-] jwmoz|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dalore|7 years ago|reply
You should be able to get insurance for your insurance. So when you need insurance and it doesn't pay out. Then that insurance company can go after the first one without having to resort to twitter or medium to shame them.
[+] [-] kinard|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bancrates|7 years ago|reply
I got cheap UK travel insurance, got my jaw broken in Australia, racked up huge hospital bills, hotel bills, curtailment bills...
They tried every trick in the book to not pay.
Although it took over a year the ombudsman made them repay every penny.
It seems you documented everything well - the ombudsman attaches a huge weighting to the medical opinions of treating doctors, so you have a good shot.
[+] [-] true_religion|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jochakovsky|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|7 years ago|reply
These travel policies may notionally cover some level of urgent medical care but they're mostly designed (and priced for) cancelations due to injury/sickness/emergency, lost property, and getting you back home even if that requires a helicopter from some remote hillside (hopefully).
I'm sure there are 12 month policies you can buy that legitimately cover international health care for a 12 month period in addition to other travel-related risks but they'll cost a lot more.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] luispedrocoelho|7 years ago|reply
He complains that "unless you are injured so horrifically that you cannot survive another moment without life saving surgery, odds are they’ll just tell you to fly home and have the surgery for free." But, to me, this is exactly what travel insurance is (which is why it's so cheap). Expecting fancy Singaporean hospitals unless it is strictly necessary seems totally unreasonable.
If they were not so communicative, he also basically decided to not get back to them on the vital "is he fit to fly?" issue for a few days (he had been OK to fly to Singapore after all), until after the surgery. There were a few days to go until the surgery, so that was enough time to get him back to the UK. Also, why hadn't he gotten in touch before? He texts pictures to friends, books flights, &c, and does not call the insurer or even ask somebody else to call on his behalf?
For what it's worth, I think he made the right decision in getting treatment in Singapore at his own expense, but that was still his decision.
[+] [-] dblohm7|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] astura|7 years ago|reply
And that's one of the huge issues!! Very often people don't read their policies so they have misunderstandings about their coverage!! This is a big problem!
I always read all of my policies, I suggest everyone else does the same. I want to be very clear what losses are covered and what my deductible will be before any losses occur. In fact, for legal documents, insurance policies are pretty easy to understand.
I really wish he included the text of his policy.
While I have sympathy for him, I think he got himself into a pickle when he flew to Singapore than claimed he was unable to fly. Yes, Singapore is a million times closer to Indonesia than the UK, but he should have known if he left Indonesia the insurance company would have expected him to return to the UK.
[+] [-] greedo|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reacharavindh|7 years ago|reply
Insurance companies always felt like a Govt sanctioned scam. These companies are the real scammers that thrive by finding grey areas and loop holes to shirk their responsibility. Making this mandatory is just the government whoring its citizens out to these companies.
I cant imagine how I'd have dealt with a $20000 hole in my pocket. Come to think of it, I should seriously work on saving up for a "personal insurance fund" that I can draw from in cases of emergencies like this and not trust the insurance companies at all. Your story was a wake up call.
[+] [-] emurray|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] refurb|7 years ago|reply
I have family in Canada who come and visit the US. They buy the insurance. One of them had a heart attach while in the US. Insurance paid something like $50,000 to put them on a private medical jet back to Canada. Far cheaper than having the care in the US.
[+] [-] justinator|7 years ago|reply
I DO think that the gentleman made a bad decision saying that he was intent on staying in-country for 6 months afterwards. That's probably all the insurance company needed to think, "Yeah, this guy is using travel insurance as regular insurance"
Still, I do think the gentleman get the wrong end of the stick. I know I won't use this company, but now I really don't know who to use.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|7 years ago|reply
That said, as someone who has gone through life and used my share of insurance, I think the guys attitude is exactly backwards. There are huge numbers of people out there working insurance fraud schemes. I nearly ran into a couple that was trying to 'brake unexpectedly and get insurance payments.' Since I leave enough following distance I didn't hit them and they were quite irritated. It would have been funny if it were not sad.
So the insurance folks try to set up a lot of processes that minimize that fraud or make it harder on perpetrators.
This guy seems to have set out with the idea that insurance was trying to rip him off, and by operating under that assumption, taking actions (or not taking actions) that make himself look suspicious.
An alternative course of action might have been to familiarize himself with the policy before hand, and the processes and requirements he needs to meet when he needs to use it. And then set up things like putting into his wallet, "If I am being treated at a hospital or clinic please call this number and inform this insurance company xx xx xx xxxx" My sister in law is a nurse and we know a guy who works as a volunteer medic around the world, and when you come into the hospital they will always look through your wallet for identification and insurance information, help them out there.
Life is so much harder if you assume other people are "out to rip you off" or "get you" as your going in position. It can ruin possible relationships and it certainly damages business relationships.
[+] [-] rsbadger|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] opwieurposiu|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robjan|7 years ago|reply
Since moving abroad I have gotten used to carrying my insurance card and calling their number before any elective insurable event takes place. I feel that the OP was unfortunate in finding this out the hard way.
[+] [-] aembleton|7 years ago|reply
Her insurance were excellent and paid the hospital, in full, directly. The insurance company is STA - http://www.statravel.com/travel-insurance.htm
[+] [-] DanBC|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sunstone|7 years ago|reply
On the other hand insurance is tricky at the best of times. (shill warning) In situations like this I put my trust in Costco because they have a track record of consistently providing a good deal the price.
I once knew a guy who ran a roofing business. He said that it was easy for him to insure his workers if they fell off the roof, but difficult to get coverage for when they hit the ground.
[+] [-] weeksie|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnode|7 years ago|reply
People should be able to expect that insurance is as advertised, and there's no "not really" in the fine print. UK courts are much less accepting of such things than the US. The infamous case is PPI misselling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_protection_insurance
[+] [-] markbnj|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wjnc|7 years ago|reply
Which leads to my only gripe about this story. Why did he act though and not ask for help from the get go. Is there no international support in UK policies? Flying while sedated and bleeding...
Any insurer should see paying out as the prime deliverance of the customer promise. You don't skimp on paying out, but do try to be very careful about getting swindled. Getting called after 20k is spent would get the flags up in any insurer, good faith or bad.
My 2 cents would be that a good timeline and documented claim (like this blog post without the fluff) could still get him the 20k. It's an insured event, without the time for proper evaluation and without malice. That's a good basis for any claim.
[+] [-] kioleanu|7 years ago|reply
More or less the same thing happened to me with a 6 months travel insurance. I had an unfortunate series of light medical problems that racked up about 1500 EUR. I was somehow lucky that I over-informed the insurer anytime anything concerned them and they pre-approved each doctor's visit. When it was time to get my money back, they denied the claim saying that I flew back home one month into the trip (and then left again) and that legally concluded my trip. That was, of course, non sense.
I wrote them a letter saying that if they don't return my money in 30 days, I will fill in a complaint with the insurance oversight authority in my country. They didn't so I did. The nice part is that this authority shoots first and asks questions later so in a few days I got a really passive aggressive letter saying they will be paying in full, that they already decided that a week before so there was no need for me to file the complaint (I was, of course, not informed) and they asked me to withdraw my complaint.
[+] [-] rsbadger|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bucephalus355|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] otterley|7 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that insurers will nearly always err on the side of denying a claim if they can find an excuse to. That's why it's important to (a) read the fine print in the policies you purchase and (b) hire an attorney if you believe that you have been unfairly denied a claim.
Even if a claim is valid, insurers will also do whatever it takes to minimize their payouts. In this case, paying for transport to the UK for additional treatment would have been far cheaper than paying a Singaporean hospital for it, and so it's unsurprising that they pressured the claimant to hop on a flight instead of stay in Singapore since the injury did not contraindicate air travel (or at least there was significant disagreement as to that question).
[+] [-] nrki|7 years ago|reply
My top "Gold" level travel insurance doesn't even cover my phone getting stolen while overseas.
[+] [-] throwaway9d0291|7 years ago|reply
The insurer definitely didn't handle it well but it would have gone much smoother if the expectations were properly set by reading the policy.
The travel insurance that comes for my credit card for example makes it quite clear that you have to contact the insurer as soon as possible after an accident and that in most cases, they'll opt to have you repatriated for care in your home country.
[+] [-] ghaff|7 years ago|reply
I think of travel insurance as serving two main purposes.
- Insuring against not being able to take or having to cut short an expensive pre-paid trip or
- Evacuating you (e.g. a helicopter rescue) if you injure yourself in a remote place (especially if you're doing activities like mountain climbing).
Of course, it depends on the quality of your main medical insurance.
[+] [-] icebraining|7 years ago|reply
Yes; and that's a shitty thing to require when the person has a broken rib and a detached fingertip and is 20h+ away from the home country.
The problem wasn't that he didn't know the policy, it was the policy itself.
[+] [-] gnode|7 years ago|reply