Insurance

[Rodney]

I am currently looking at insurance and trying to find the best deal. A work colleague has recommended Tesco as the best price and value. She recently had to visit hospital in orlando and found them very helpful.
I have looked around and there are cheaper deals on the net but cheap is not always best. So I thought why not ask the oracle! This forum has always come up with the answer to every question I have asked.[clap][clap][clap]
So has anyone had experience of claiming and what insurance do you recommend both in terms of cost and claims experience.
Thanks

[cmale35]

have to be careful about recommending anywhere as these do travel insurance and are not allowed to give alternatives as its a breach of forum rules

[Nostromo]

With Travel Insurance, it is always best to shop around since there are so many variables applicable to individual cases like age, general health, medications, travel pattern etc. For example, for my elderly in-laws, American Express gave a very good deal while none of the others came close; yet, the same Amex gave us (my wife & I) a very uncompetitive quote.

There is a hidden Travel Insurance link on this forum under the 'Flights to Florida' section. Try that out first.

[Ray&Sarah]

My parents have a Tesco annual insurance, they had to make a claim two years ago and I have to say that the claim was dealt with promptly and efficiently. Tesco are not the cheapest around and we are probably going to use the insurance attached to this site when we renew our annual policy.[msnsmile2]

[pieman790]

Be careful with all travel insurance. We were in Florida last November and my daughter got an ear infection the day before we were due to fly home. The hospital told us that she could not fly for 72 hours. We would therefore miss our flights. I contact our insurance and they told me that i was to fly home with my son on the booked flight and my wife was to stay with my daughter and they would arrange another flight for them we my daughter was able to fly. It does say in the small print that it only covers the injured party unless it is a small child in which case it covers one child and an adult.
They would not pay for accommodation (not the villa,only a hotel room) or car hire, no food or other expense.
We all stopped and flew home together and had to pay the extra for myself and my son.
I was also suprised that i had to pay all hosptial cost myself and claim them back. $150 just to see a doctor and $90 for medicine.

[steph_goodrum]

As has been said many times it's not the cost but the cover that is important.
My sisters 2 sons have pre-existing medical conditions and she obtained cover for them making sure they were covered. When they went to Greece in July 2003, 2 hours after they arrived the 18 year old died suddenly in the sea.
The travel rep in the resort and insurance company took care of everything promptly, including rearranging flights for the rest of the family to come home the next evening and Martins' repatriation etc. and all the local Coroners' costs etc.
In fact the only thing they weren't able to do was to pay for the flights as Easyjet who were the only ones with availability would not accept the credit card (or authorisation from insurance) so the rep booked and paid for them on her personal credit card.

As you can imagine when faced with the ultimate nightmare scenarion on your holiday (especially with it being predominantly a non English speaking island), any money you have paid out for insurance pales into insignifcance if you have to call on it.

[Lyn]

Had a similar problem as Neil & Cathy but fortunatly our son was well enough to fly home after paying for medical attention & medication, it had not occured to us that we would have to pay and then claim it back when we got home, there was a British girl in the waiting area while we were there who had just started working for an airline and had been in the States 2 days when she cut her foot she was expected to fork out $300 which she had to borrow from friends, she had been told she needed 3 stitches - she was worried that the $300 would be per stitch and not for the 3! don't know how she got on as we left before she went in.

[Steve and Dawn]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by Lyn
Had a similar problem as Neil & Cathy but fortunatly our son was well enough to fly home after paying for medical attention & medication, it had not occured to us that we would have to pay and then claim it back when we got home, there was a British girl in the waiting area while we were there who had just started working for an airline and had been in the States 2 days when she cut her foot she was expected to fork out $300 which she had to borrow from friends, she had been told she needed 3 stitches - she was worried that the $300 would be per stitch and not for the 3! don't know how she got on as we left before she went in.
[/quote]

Yes It can be expensive, Dawn had to have some treatment while we were there a couple of years ago. We both had a bit of flu or some kind of infection, so we went to a walkin med centre, and her heartbeat was also fast and irregular. The Doc said it would be best to check her out at hospital. So along came an ambulance and off we went to Celebration Hospital. She had excellent treatment, and within an hour she was ok. She had x- rays, blood tests, water tests alsorts of things. It took about 2 hrs. Then I got the bill. $2075. Together with the $350 I paid at the Med centre. I had to pay with Credit Card. They only take insurance cover directly if you get admitted. I did ring the insurance co and they were great. Just said to claim it back on my return. Ok it was expensive but you don't worry about that at the time. I can see why it is expensive as it struck me as being very hightech. I guess you get what you pay for. Anyway the upshot is we did get re insured the next year but with an excess of $500 for any recurring problems for which she was previously treated.

Steve & Dawn