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Learning The Hard Way Don't
assume that your Policy will automatically cover emergency evacuation or
repatriation. Check the detail and make sure you understand the definition of
terms
A
car crash is a car crash
- third party or fully comprehensive, you know the difference when it
comes to making an insurance claim. OK for car insurance, but what is fully
comprehensive when it comes to making an evacuation or repatriation claim on an
international private medical insurance policy?
Take
the unfortunate case of cartographer John McAdam, aged 45. When Mr McAdam's UK
publishing company offered him a handsome golden handshake as part of a
restructuring exercise, he leapt at the opportunity. He had long wished to spend
more time on what had hitherto been a regular holiday pursuit of mapping
archaeological remains hidden by centuries of overgrown foliage in the rain
forests of Colombia.
With
a daughter settled at Oxford and a son teaching at Bristol, he and his wife
moved from London to a remote town in northern Colombia. Unfortunately, after
just three months Mr McAdam fell off a ladder while trying to repair some
damaged roof tiles at the tumble-down hacienda he and his wife were renovating,
to be both home and office base for Mr McAdam's mapping excursions.
A
local doctor could do little more than offer temporary emergency medical
treatment to alleviate Mr McAdam's pain, for what turned out to be a complex fracture
to his right femur. Unfortunately, when Mrs McAdam contacted their international
private medical insurer in Britain, she was informed that their particular
policy did not cover emergency medical evacuation at all. Luckily for the McAdams, a US military plane was able to transport them to Bogota for initial treatment. Subsequently they returned on their own to the UK for further treatment. Six months later the McAdams returned to Colombia with a private medical insurance policy that would provide comprehensive medical cover and treatment. After an expensive oversight, the McAdams are now satisfied that in the event of any unforeseen accident they have adequate emergency evacuation cover.
An
area that should be of grave concern for any globetrotting expatriate is what
happens if you need emergency evacuation
or repatriation. The McAdams learned the hard way.
Although
repatriation and/or evacuation cover should be available in some capacity for
international private medical insurance policies in general, the type of cover
that you get may differ greatly from one insurer to another. The playing field
of cover is not always level.
First
there is the definition of terms. Some insurers say that you will be repatriated
to the UK or the country you are living in and you will be evacuated
from the country where you have been taken ill, which is neither the UK or your
place of residence, but a third country.
Insurers
might say that evacuation refers to returning alive and repatriation refers to
bringing back the mortal remains. Other international insurers use evacuation as
a catch all term for moving you from A to B for any medical emergency.
Insurers
might offer repatriation and evacuation cover with all their international
policies whether the policy is basic, standard or fully comprehensive. Or there
may be the case where there is no cover at all included on the policy, but it
can be purchased as a policy adjunct. This is what happens at BUPA International when evacuation cover comes in the form of an optional policy to be taken out in addition to the main policy. It can be taken out with any of the three BUPA International policies basic, standard or fully comprehensive.
"In
places like Russia, China or Thailand or in Latin America or Africa this top up
policy would be optional but recommended." The policy means that you will
be evacuated to the closest location for you to get suitable treatment.
The principle
of being evacuated to the nearest location to where you are living is common
practice. By way of illustration,Expacare
cites the case of a male policyholder aged 35 and resident in Indonesia
who was
evacuated with acute appendicitis to Gleneagles
Hospital in Singapore. He had
joined the
scheme in October 1998. The evacuation order was granted by a physician in
Indonesia because there was no local service there to treat the condition. Be Prepared
Expatriates
are particularly vulnerable when it comes to an unforeseen medical emergency in
a foreign country. Although many health systems around the world are on a par
with Britain's National Health Service or its private health network, many are
not. No cover at all can prove both dangerous and expensive, as John McAdam
discovered in Venezuela. It pays to look carefully at your international private
medical insurance policy to see if it would cover the worst possible scenario
abroad should you be victim to an unexpected medical emergency. CSM Ltd offer a complete range of international private medical insurance plans that can be tailored to your specific requirements. Click Here to request an information pack on healthcare insurance plans by writing "Healthcare" The above article was supplied by Resident Abroad |
Send mail to webmaster@csmltd.com with questions or comments about this web site.
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