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  • T +1 215 489 3785
  • F +1 215 489 8525
  • For assistance in Africa contact:
  • T +27 10 209 8300
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  • For assistance in the Asia Pacific contact:
  • T +662 645 3932
  • F +662 645 3732
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Case Studies

Hours to Live

Hours to Live

Scenario:

One area of cover on many travel policies is curtailment. In the event that a close relative becomes ill or die whilst the policy holder is travelling abroad the policy will cover emergency return travel arrangements to the UK. The obstacle for the 24-hour assistance company is that all the conditions and exclusion that are applicable to the policy holder are also applicable to the person who gives rise to a claim.

In the event that a claim does occur Specialty are unable to provide their services under the insurance cover until all the relevant checks have been concluded, this can include obtaining a medical report from the treating doctor as well as the usual General Practitioner for the ill or injured person back home. The time taken to investigate these claim is not always acceptable however, if a loved one has hours to live.

Specialty was contacted by a 54 year old woman in Tenerife just before midnight. She had been out with friends and on arriving back at her hotel collected a message to call her brother in the UK. The news was not good. Her father had suffered a massive stroke and was not expected to survive the night. Alone and upset she contacted Specialty to activate her assistance service.

Specialty immediately explained to her the limitations under which we had to work which were inherent in the terms and conditions of the policy. The insured was upset and disappointed but understood our predicament. We requested 15 minutes in order that we could investigate the best options for her. A call was placed to Specialty’s 24 hour travel agent who was able to find an early morning flight into Madrid that connected with an Easyjet flight to London Gatwick. The only foreseeable problem was that as the second sector was with Easyjet she would need to collect her luggage from the first flight and formally check-in for the Easyjet flight. With a connection time of only 50 minutes this would not be possible.

Specialty called the insured back and advised that we could get her back to London Gatwick by 1350hrs for a cost of £565. We also advised that should she undertake this she would need to travel with hand luggage only and provide credit card details, so that our travel agent could run the transaction against it. Her claim could be submitted after the event so that a decision could be obtained from the insurers.

The insured took the flights with the limitations imposed and although we do not know whether she saw her father alive for the last time we consider that we did all in our power to give her the best chance to do so. We were successful in recouping her expenses.

Other Case Studies