This is why I'm an expat in the philippines.
Are insurance companies better in the Philippines?
I’m guessing, at least, out of pocket medical expenses are cheaper. Don’t they have a medical tourism thing going on?
What travel insurance really means
31–40 of 186 posts
Re: What travel insurance really means
#32Question for those who might know about this: If I find myself in a similar situation as in this article, is there some sort of "insurance professional handler" laywer kind of guy you can hire so that he does what is necessary and who knows all the traps, so that you have good chances of being covered?
This person is in the UK, I can't speak for the UK but in the US you can contact the Department of Insurance for your state if you have issues with insurance companies. They are responsible for regulating insurance companies and making sure their actions are within the bounds of the law.
Re: What travel insurance really means
#33I 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.
Every time my wife's parents travel to the US we get them insurance. Their most recent visit was the first time we actually needed to use it, and it was just minor.
After they arrived they both quickly got sick, not flu type symptoms but a weird spot on the neck, dizziness, and a couple other things I can't remember. It seemed like it could be serious so we took them in. Doctor examined them, said they were okay and we went home. Filed a claim with insurance.
Insurance asked for medical history. They literally don't have any, nor was it really relevant as they weren't diagnosed with anything. I think the insurance wanted to claim pre-existing conditions (which they don't cover). They still refused to pay anything. The bill wasn't even that much, maybe a few hundred dollars? It was less than what I paid the insurance!
Re: What travel insurance really means
#34Looks 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.
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Re: What travel insurance really means
#35This 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 y…
in most cases, they'll opt to have you repatriated for care in your home country. 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.
Certainly it was partly his fault for not reading the policy.
Re: What travel insurance really means
#36I 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.
Every time my wife's parents travel to the US we get them insurance. Their most recent visit was the first time we actually needed to use it, and it was just minor. After they arrived they both quickly got sick, not flu type symptoms but a weird spot on the neck, dizziness, and a couple other things I can't remember. It seemed like it could be serious so we took them in. Doctor examined them, said they were okay and…
Name and shame, please.
Re: What travel insurance really means
#37I'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.
Re: What travel insurance really means
#38Expecting 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).
Re: What travel insurance really means
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Canada See this CBC Marketplace piece on travel health insurance. https://youtu.be/G08phgECt3I Basically, from what I recall, those medical forms are impossible to fill out correctly and they are used to deny claims.
Too late to edit, but after skimming through it a second time, here's the issues laid out in the piece: They make you fill out medical forms that are written by lawyers and for lawyers. Any minor mistake on the form is grounds for denial for any claim. So if you forgot you stubbed your toe 11 months ago, your aneurysm isn't covered. For one man interviewed they used unintentionally undisclosed GI bleeding to deny his…
I can see two obvious solutions to this. One would be to require insurers to prove bad faith when using a form error to deny a claim. Honest mistakes should not result in denied claims. Another would be to have a statute of limitations, where the insurer has, say, three months to find and point out any mistakes, and after that they’re stuck with what they have.
Re: What travel insurance really means
#40I 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.
For large businesses that's a huge market, it's called re-insurance. State Farm buys a policy that (for example) protects itself against hurricane claims in the state of South Carolina for 2018 against a Reinsurance company.
Yeah but that's for the insurer. Getting "insurance insurance" would be for the customer, to protect getting screwed over by their original insurer, who has chosen the short-term option of rejecting a valid claim, but which results in long-term loss of trust in the entire industry. The only solution being...more insurance? Crazy.