Another day, another person with inadequate travel insurance

[JulietteHasAGun]

So very sadly a British man has died in Cape Verde while on an all inclusive Tui holiday with his wife.

She believes his travel insurance wouldn’t cover repatriation of his body so has buried him in an unmarked grave over there and had to come home without him. Which must be very distressing for her. I do sympathise but also think why on earth don’t people get adequate travel insurance. I know it’s expensive as you get older and have pre existing conditions, etc.

friend of mine it cost 5k in travel insurance for her mum to go to Florida for 2 weeks when terminally ill but they paid it. I pay £hundreds for Dd due to her medical issues.

If i couldn’t afford it I wouldn’t go. They could have gone to Spain and had a cheaper holiday, then afforded holiday insurance as well plus being covered by ghic…..though obviously that wouldn’t cover repatriation.

Have to say I’m surprised Tui didn’t help out as they have their own planes especially because there’s lots of rumblings about Brits dying in their hotels over there due to Norovirus, stomach bugs being rampant in their hotels and this guy died after a severe episode of d&v.

But you could get any old cheap policy that was rubbish

It’s not unknown for a stone on a lair in someone’s home town to refer to mortal remains in a distant land.

Not to derail the thread and I appreciate it's too late for your lovely old dog's insurance but my insurance company tried that when my older horse got an abscess in her foot from standing on a stone (injury by accident). I asked my vet to write to the insurers to advise in his opinion it was an accident and should be covered. Surprise, they paid out.

Just in case you or anyone else finds themselves in that situation, speak to your vet.

In an ideal world, ordinary people would be able to understand all of the eventualities in a clear, comprehensive way and ensure that they included everything, or indeed understood what they were excluding; but the reality is that this is impenetrable to the average person.

It's very much in the insurance industry's interests for them to control what they offer; and their lovely, fluffy advertising department that urges people to know that they have peace of mind that they are 'fully' covered is right at the other end of the building - with a huge wall between them - from their department that carefully words the policies to make it look like it's fully comprehensive, but actually to pull back any ground of liability that they possibly can in every way.

Right next to them is the department that looks at scenarios that apparently were covered, but where they can find any tiny reason for refusing the payout - leaving trusting families and individuals heartbroken and destroyed, but a slightly higher figure on their own balance sheet; so that's all obviously just great.

Did she even check with the travel insurance? Or just make an assumption?

Aren't they?

I absolutely do check my insurance and what it does or doesn't cover, including repatriation. I thought that was normal!

If u can afford a holiday u can afford insurance.

What on earth makes you assume that? There are plenty of us who could otherwise afford a decent basic holiday abroad, but who have health conditions and disabilities which mean that insurance would slam the door on that opportunity shut to us for the rest of our lives.

We're firmly 'second-class' people in that respect. "Oh, isn't it lovely to have a wonderful, relaxing holiday and making memories with the family after working hard and looking forward to it all year.... oh, no not YOU!!"

I googled and from CV it’s 3.5k to bring a body back. But yes you’d have to pay and then claim and there’s the risk if the insurance can find a reason not to pay then they won’t.

I remember reading about a woman who broke a leg in an accident and insurance said she hadn’t declared being on hrt and refused to pay. I have a lot of sympathy with such cases.

dd had an £80 hospital bill last year. I had to pay £50 excess and the hoops I had to jump through to get it paid were insane. They wanted proof of her flights in and out of Portugal but she’d flown to somewhere like bulgaria, then got a train to Spain and a bus to Portugal. So had no proof of a journey into Portugal. They spent more than £30 worth of time arguing about it.

In the original post it does not say they didn't have travel insurance but that she believed her husband's travel insurance would not cover the repatriation. So she did have insurance and it still did not cover this.

That is great they claimed for illness, but there is a big difference between and illness and being dead! Do you know for certain they would have paid out if you died?

People have already answered, but to re-iterate:

Maybe she didn't care- more and more people are having direct cremations and no headstone anyway, so maybe they chose to save money by getting travel insurance that didn't include repatriation.

Maybe she bought travel insurance assuming it would cover repatriation of a body and it didn't. Most people don't thrill at the idea of reading small print, they just want a simple affordable policy (the exact opposite of what the insurance industry offers).

Maybe she was shafted by the insurers. Perhaps he had a glass of wine the night before he died so the insurance have wriggled out of paying by attributing his death to alcohol.

Anyway, the people who post these threads every summer usually wang on and on about consequences. This woman got her consequences- shouldn't you be happy things went your way this time?

Not the person taking it out, the cruise company checking you have it

I have a dp with a chronic health condition that's tricky to get coverage for. I wouldn't dream of going away without arranging insurance though, that seems absolutely irresponsible! Yes, we pay more that another family would have to, but we're adults and it's responsible to plan for emergencies.

Ultimately holidays are a luxury. It probably is unfair that families with health issues have to pay more for insurance, so might go away less often. But, there are so many other reasons people pay more - number of dc, jobs that only allow time off at peak times if year, care responsibilities. I think as individuals we just have to cope with the situation as it is sometimes.

Honourable mention to people who get basic travel insurance but don't declare pre-existing conditions then wonder why it doesn't pay out. For those unaware even if the cause of death or injury isn't directly related to the pre-existing condition a lot of policies will be void if not declared.

I think a lot of travel insurance is a scam, I have never checked if repatriation is included. No idea why people feel better about themselves by chastising others.

That's a really old news story, plus she is not doing a GFM. The story is more about poor standards in CV hotels and healthcare.

I think it's irresponsible to publish these sorts of stories about insurers failing to pay out without the full facts. Surely all it does is lead people to think well why bother with insurance if they're not going to pay out anyway. In this case, there's no confirmation that there is insurance at all.

Surely, if you were actually looking to make people aware you'd say, we bought insurance from the post office, it was their bronze policy and we were unaware it didn't cover repatriation....

We have used trave insurance for 38 years and made our first ever claim in Budapest last year for emergency dental treatment. Not even particularly complicated and only around E1500 total and all with an English speaking provider. The insurance company were an absolute nightmare. Long prolonged calls from the hospital, then being referred to another Department and starting everything again, sending documents to wrong email account that they were told was not accessible, not phoning back when they promised to, refusing payment on a technical aspect of one page not having a stamp, insisting on Hungarian notes being translated. This all whilst in hospital getting emergency intravenous antibiotics to prevent sepsis. After 6 months complaints and investigation they admitted the service wasn't 'their usual high standard' and gave us 100 Euro compensation which didn't even cover all the calls and transport. It's really hard dealing with them from abroad when you or a loved one is sick, so I have sympathy for those that struggle. But to not have insurance in the first place is neglectful. It's just part of the holiday budget.

Why do you care OP - how does it affect you if someone doesn't buy adequate travel insurance?

And one of the pre-existing conditions is.....drumroll....menopause! You have to declare if you are on HRT (I am not but I still find it outrageous).

That's interesting, I had no idea.

I always get travel insurance, but I must admit I've never thought to check whether anywhere I'm going on holiday has a crematorium/what funeral type facilities they have in general.

travel insurance companies are awful for not paying though.

We had to pay 5k for flights and hotels when our DS ended up in hospital while away. We had travel insurance, but they refused the claim.

Luckily for us we could put it on a credit card, but many people couldn’t do that.

We also fought the insurance company when we got back and won. They paid the 5k plus compensation for the credit card interest and the stress. One of their staff members basically said they deny most claims first time round as policy.

Insurance companies are not known for being helpful.
The husband of a friend died whilst abroad.
My friend arranged for his cremation & a small ceremony in that country.
When she claimed on the insurance, she was told that she was only covered for repatriation of the body, not funeral expenses.
The costs bear no comparison - £x000 v. £x00

It took a long fight to get the money.

I've just checked our (packaged with a bank account) travel insurance due to this thread and it does cover repatriation of a dead body or ashes. I wonder if some of the cheaper ones I've used in the past have....

It's a strange one this - I would rather repatriate than leave a relative somewhere thousands of miles away in an unmarked grave.

I declare HRT but it has made no difference to the premium.

It is medication with a possibility of serious side effects, so I’m not surprised they want to know.

I’m surprised they got the money at all given that they would have had to pay for it themselves if he had died at home.