Globalti
Legendary Member
We have just returned home five days late after our son aged 13 crashed while skiing and compressed a vertebra. I thought you might be interested in reading about our experience with our travel insurance brokers.
We took out a one year travel policy with winter sports cover for around £46 with Essential Travel. When the accident happened they were excellent; on the ball, professional, as quick as can be expected and well set up to communicate in French with the hospital and guarantee cover for the 20% of the cost (1350 Euros a day) not covered by our EHIC card. We were in twice-daily contact with their call centre in the UK, the staff were sympathetic, bright, well-spoken and experienced. The pace only slowed once our dossier had been passed to their travel agents for the travelling home arrangements.
By contrast we met two injured skiers in the hospital whose insurance brokers had call centres outside the UK; one young lad who had been stuck for two days longer than us with only a broken arm and collarbone and whose call centre was in Portugal and another man who had been stuck for NINE days and was hugely depressed and frustrated - his insurer was American Express and their call centre in India. He told us AMEX insurance were garbage and he would never use them again.
The moral of the story is: always check the whereabouts of your travel insurer's call centre before signing.
A couple of other points: don't EVER travel outside the UK without insurance, they are wise to the various scams and will check your identity very carefully before they put you "on cover".
If skiing a carte neige simplifies things but is not vital if you have proper insurance and don't use it as a substitute as it won't get you repatriated.
If you have an accident, expect every step of the process to take 24 hours; things just don't move any faster than that.
Gti Junior is now wearing a super back brace and expected to make a full recovery.
We took out a one year travel policy with winter sports cover for around £46 with Essential Travel. When the accident happened they were excellent; on the ball, professional, as quick as can be expected and well set up to communicate in French with the hospital and guarantee cover for the 20% of the cost (1350 Euros a day) not covered by our EHIC card. We were in twice-daily contact with their call centre in the UK, the staff were sympathetic, bright, well-spoken and experienced. The pace only slowed once our dossier had been passed to their travel agents for the travelling home arrangements.
By contrast we met two injured skiers in the hospital whose insurance brokers had call centres outside the UK; one young lad who had been stuck for two days longer than us with only a broken arm and collarbone and whose call centre was in Portugal and another man who had been stuck for NINE days and was hugely depressed and frustrated - his insurer was American Express and their call centre in India. He told us AMEX insurance were garbage and he would never use them again.
The moral of the story is: always check the whereabouts of your travel insurer's call centre before signing.
A couple of other points: don't EVER travel outside the UK without insurance, they are wise to the various scams and will check your identity very carefully before they put you "on cover".
If skiing a carte neige simplifies things but is not vital if you have proper insurance and don't use it as a substitute as it won't get you repatriated.
If you have an accident, expect every step of the process to take 24 hours; things just don't move any faster than that.
Gti Junior is now wearing a super back brace and expected to make a full recovery.
