Travel insurance and medical repatriation

[TheGodOfSmallThings]

Looking for some advice, please, on what we can expect from our travel insurance company, who have been a nightmare so far, leaving DH in agony on a hospital trolley with a badly broken ankle for two days before they agreed to fund the surgery that was obviously needed. The stress of dealing with them has been unbelievable; the hospital said they’d never experienced a patient being left in that situation for so long. And it was an expensive, all-bells policy that we took out as the holiday itself was an expensive, once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Anyway, he’s having the surgery today and the next phase is obviously going to be getting him home. What should the insurance company be providing? There are no direct flights between where we are and the U.K., it’s going to be a 3 hour domestic flight then a 14 hour flight back to the U.K., and another couple of hours on the road after that.

Any advice would be welcome as I need to brace myself for the next round with them.

Oh gosh how awful. I have no idea but wanted to bump the thread for you so others see it in active. I hope all goes well.

That sounds terrible
I hope your DH's op went smoothly
Is it just the two of you or do you have DC with you as well or other family or friends?
When were you due to fly home? And what was the original plan? Can you still follow that plan - with airport assistance if necessary - or have you missed or will you miss your flight?
My only experience of claiming on travel insurance was when DC1 had chicken pox on holiday so couldn't fly home. She was 2 at the time and was our only child. The insurance would pay for accom and replacement flights for her and one parent. As they provided a double room, DH stayed on too free of charge in the room and shared taxi's with us and then we paid for his flight separately. They also paid for the visits to the doctor, first to confirm she had chicken pox and then to confirm she was fit to fly
When we were away with MIL once, she broke her shoulder on day two. We got a taxi to A&E, had it x-rayed and put in a sling and then got a taxi back to the hotel. She flew home at the end of the week as normal. I don't think we involved her travel insurance at all as this was pre-Brexit so her EHIC would have covered medical treatment.

I used to work for a medical repatriation company (to be fair quite a lot of years ago)

It would generally be ambulance / taxi to airport.
Potentially nurse to accompany on the flight - if not wheelchairs and assistance etc arranged. Extra seats may also need to be booked. We also used to book stretchers in some cases for a break but would assume as it's an ankle it would not need that.
Ambulance / taxi to home / hospital as appropriate

Thank so much for the replies. As we’ve now hit the weekend, it seems that the op won’t happen until Monday. It’s infuriating, since if the insurance company had got their act together it would have been done yesterday, or even the day before.

We were due to be on holiday until 12th August, but with another internal flight to our final destination of the trip on the 6th. We rarely fly as DH is 6’6” and will only fly long-haul in business class. Will the insurance company try to put him in an economy seat? His legs don’t fit those seats in normal circumstances. If they do want him to fly in economy, I’m wondering if we should try to get our original flight home on the 12th, though there is a stop-over in Istanbul rather than it being direct and it will mean more hanging around here than necessary.

Do you have any idea what sort of cast he will be in and how much of his leg it will cover. Is there a reason you don't think you can do the flights on 6th or 12th? If you're in business class, then you'll have a lie flat bed so he can elevate his ankle.

5 experiences with broken bones on holiday....

one broken ankle, no surgery needed, foot in moon boot.
insurance paid for taxi to/from airport, arranged assistance, arranged seats eith airline (upgrade to business class) and again assistance & taxi on the other side.
was not able to elevate leg during take off and landing and also had limited space to do so during flight. was only a 3 hour flight and pure hell tbh. very very painful by the end of it all.

the other was a broken leg, operated on and cast from hipnto toe.
insurance arranged medical repatriation with ambulance from hospital to airport. flight was with a freight plane that had a medical area (apparently sometimes passenger planes have an area adapted as well). patient was transported lying down with a nurse by the side. on arrival abulance took patient to the nearest hospital (apparently they were not allowed to take patient home).
other family members were not part of this journey and had to take the original flight kr rebook themselves at their own cost.