Travel insurance- read the small print!

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Originally Posted by paw

We were lucky at Celebration that DH survived.

We arrived about 10 at night as an emergency, sent by our insurance provider. They examined DH straight away decided on his emergency treatment but wouldn’t start treatment until the insurers American agents agreed to fund it. A long and worrying hour. When he was discharged they wouldn’t provide a fit to fly letter unless we took a box of injections for the flight which the insurance said wasn’t needed so we had to pay. The hospital at home threw them all away as they weren’t licenced for Europe.

The insurance was actually excellent as we saw the bills which came in for over a year and we stopped counting when they went over 100k.

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Wow, how worrying. Hope he is fine now.

I was amazed how many are self employed at US Hospitals. We had separate bills from loads. Triage Nurse, On duty Dr, Surgeon, Anaethetist, Theatre Sister etc etc.

[Loulou127]

Wise words, it’s only because of my mom getting poorly that I’ve needed to look into this, I fully appreciate that anything she had before we took out the policy wouldn’t be covered, but was shocked when I told them about her new diagnosis and they said you can cancel now and be covered but you can’t wait until nearer the holiday, that’s certainly not explicit in the small print of the policy 😢😢

[k100dmk]

Originally Posted by Loulou127

Wise words, it’s only because of my mom getting poorly that I’ve needed to look into this, I fully appreciate that anything she had before we took out the policy wouldn’t be covered, but was shocked when I told them about her new diagnosis and they said you can cancel now and be covered but you can’t wait until nearer the holiday, that’s certainly not explicit in the small print of the policy 😢😢

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Insurance companies will usually (if you get someone who speaks sense) allow the insurance to stand until a diagnosis is provided IF and only if it would not amount to costing the insurance company more money, for instance if you are 6 months out from your holiday, providing it takes less than a couple of months the insurances liability would not alter, if you went within that time frame then the insurance would be liable for most if not all costs as the amount you lose goes on a sliding scale. It seems harsh but it is very fair, they aren't going to take more risk than needed and their only obligation is to cover you which they have done, the risk has now changed.