What travel insurance really means • Hacker News Board

Re: What travel insurance really means

#151

Post by trocadero » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 9:12 PM UTC

jwmoz wrote: post #142

trocadero wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You've also mistaken his desire to finish receiving treatment in Singapore as a desire to avoid the NHS It's right there in his e-mail. He was concerned: "About potential waiting times on the NHS". >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. IMHO if his hand is well enough t…

Your attitude is disgusting. Do you work for the insurance company or something?

>Your attitude is disgusting.

Oooh please elaborate on your personal insult.

>Do you work for the insurance company or something?

I am a software consultant, which, I suppose gives me a higher than normal aversion to people trying to get more than what is in their clearly stated contract.

Re: What travel insurance really means

#152

Post by DanBC » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 9:18 PM UTC

robjan wrote: post #72

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…

You need your EHIC as a minimum to take advantage of the arrangements.

Re: What travel insurance really means

#153

Post by DoreenMichele » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 9:20 PM UTC

trocadero wrote: post #37

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 schedu…

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.

Re: What travel insurance really means

#154

Post by trocadero » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 9:28 PM UTC

mijoharas wrote: post #123

luispedrocoelho wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentive to say so is pretty clear: if he flies away, not only does the doctor lose a 15,000 costumer, he can also be liable if anything does go wrong. Maybe he was indeed in no shape to fly, but he should have argued it properly in those days. Even now, it seems more like "it would have been awful to fly economy" and not "it would have been dangerous".

You may argue the doctor gave the opinion in bad faith, but that's pure speculation. As a patient what would you do? You have been given a medical opinion that it is unsafe to fly. I definitely don't think anything the guy did was unreasonable.

As an insurance company what would you do?

On one hand, you have published medical standards saying that he is fit to fly. You also have your own doctors review the x-rays and find no reason that he can't fly.

On the other hand you have literally one sentence from an intern saying he isn't fit to fly.

It's a no brainer that you find him fit to fly and deny his claim.

>As a patient what would you do? You have been given a medical opinion that it is unsafe to fly. I definitely don't think anything the guy did was unreasonable

Personally, I go to my doctor and have him write a letter giving the specific reasons why I am unable to fly.

Re: What travel insurance really means

#155

Post by justinator » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 9:31 PM UTC

malyk wrote: post #128

rsbadger wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my first ever blog post attempt, I thought the gifs helped make up for my poor writing abilities

I loved the gifs and thought it was well written and 'fun' to read. You can't please everyone.

There's always room for improvement.

Re: What travel insurance really means

#156

Post by ordinaryperson » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

Once I filed for travel insurance after my travel plans to Patagonia were delayed by a blizzard.

Getting there required 3 separate flights and 2-hr cab ride in the middle of nowhere Chile, which cost like $200.

After Kafkaesque paperwork my claim was initially denied. They said I didn't have my boarding pass from the 3rd flight (first 2 legs were Air Canada, easy to reproduce, but the third was some small, domestic Chilean airline with a barely-there website and a Spanish-only hotline).

Who saves a boarding pass at the start of a 2-week hiking trip through the Patagonian wilderness? Why is that third flight stub necessary, since I'm asking to be reimbursed for the cab ride when I got there (which I have documented proof for)?

I had to arrange for a conference call with a Spanish translator and the insurer (srsly), and eventually they paid up. But how many people go that far? It felt like the plot of "The Rainmaker".

The only other time I had to use travel insurance was when I lost my brand new iPod while changing planes in Seoul, South Korea. Even though the insurance covered "lost or stolen" they claimed they couldn't reimburse me because I hadn't filed a police report with the South Korean airport police (it was the middle of the night, I don't speak Korean and I didn't realize it was gone until later). And why do I need to have a police report if it was lost?

So I can definitely sympathize with how unscrupulous these travel insurance rackets are. That being said, I don't think asking him to fly home was that unreasonable. How are they supposed to validate the care he's getting there? He just going to dictate his care and hand over a massive bill from Singapore?

But usually this involves taking them to court and getting a settlement.

Re: What travel insurance really means

#157

Post by ghaff » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 10:13 PM UTC

This whole thread has me curious. If you're in a country with national health insurance (and no private supplementary insurance), are you pretty much always advised to buy travel insurance when out of the country?

In the US, decent private medical plans typically cover emergency medical treatment when traveling. Pretty much the only time I buy travel insurance is when I either have large non-refundable payments because you never know when you'll have an accident or a family emergency or I'm doing some specific activity like a Nepal trek where an evacuation could be very costly.

I'd never buy travel insurance because of potentially lost luggage or extra flights/taxi rides.

Re: What travel insurance really means

#158

Post by ghaff » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 10:16 PM UTC

lozenge wrote: post #113

3pt14159 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

That's a perfectly normal price for travel insurance in the UK. Because it doesn't include healthcare when you aren't travelling.

That's a pretty normal price in the US too because it also typically doesn't cover healthcare when you're not travelling or, indeed, non-emergency healthcare at all. Normal travel insurance != global healthcare insurance.

Re: What travel insurance really means

#159

Post by kbutler » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 10:38 PM UTC

Flimm wrote: post #43

TwoBit wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly it was partly his fault for not reading the policy.

He did read the policy. He also read the 94 page medical manual they later sent him, which presumably wasn't in the original policy. He found the reason in all those pages of text why he was eligible for getting his costs covered, and they still replied with: > “This is a general exclusion and doesn’t apply to you specifically. Our decision still stands with curtailment. No further medical input needed. Why do you fe…

The blame comes earlier - he should have read his insurance policy before buying it. Along with the policies of the airline(s), cabs, web sites, phone services, hotels, ...

Basically, every service provider provides custom contracts with different exclusions, because that's the environment.

We need to get to a common set of expectations - like in a restaurant. Those expectations differ between countries/regions (is tipping expected? is water free?) but you have a common set of expectations that aren't governed by individual contracts for each restaurant.

Re: What travel insurance really means

#160

Post by trocadero » Tue, Jul 17, 2018, 10:56 PM UTC

armitron wrote: post #146

trocadero wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I felt that paragraph was the most relevant to me And not the one specifically dealing with broken bones? >I wasn't going to ignore the advice of a DR who was holding my X-rays to appease an insurance company who doesn't give 2 shits about my health. Which is not something anyone is going to argue about with you. Except, of course, those that have to write the $15K check. They are going to want more documentation th…

Standard medical advice? Are you even reading what he wrote? His doctor did not clear him to fly. It's crystal clear from the way they conducted themselves that the insurance company would find any excuse to deny his claim. It's also very probable that their delays were deliberate. I hope OP can talk to an attorney and take them to the cleaners. At the very least, he named them so potential future victims will have s…

>Standard medical advice? Are you even reading what he wrote? His doctor did not clear him to fly.

That's not how insurance works. They aren't going to pay for stuff on the say so of one doctor. The expectation is that they pay for treatment according to published and accepted standards of care. In this case, those say that you can fly with broken bones.

>With all the responses you've generated here and the way you go about your argumentation I wouldn't be surprised to find out that you work for the insurer.

Of course I don't work for the insurer. I am just an experienced backpacker that understands the concept of travel insurance.

> It's crystal clear from the way they conducted themselves that the insurance company would find any excuse to deny his claim

I see no evidence of that. What they offered was exactly what travel insurance is there for. That is, travel home for further treatment after a patient is stabilized. OP wanted to argue he wasn't stabilized. In response, they told him specifically what he needed to get from his doctor in order to justify his claim. As far as I know OP, for whatever reason, never bothered to get that.

IMHO, it's debatable whether or not you should be travelling with unset broken fingers. However, if all you bring to your side of the debate is a single sentence, you're going to lose.

We also don't know what their reaction to paying for the emergency services would be. OP, for reasons that are clear only to him, has decided not to claim ~$6,000 worth of covered expenses.