Insurance nightmare after holiday crash
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- Published on Tuesday, 06 September 2011 15:41
The family of a Mallow man injured while travelling in Cambodia have slammed the company he took out travel insurance from prior to his trip. The insurers, however, said that 30-year-old Michael O'Riordan's cover was not valid as he had taken out the policy after he had left the country.
Mr O'Riordan (pictured) was critically injured in a bus accident on the Cambodian/Vietnamese border last month. The bus in which Michael was a passenger in collided with a grain truck en route to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam in the early hours of Sunday, July 31 last.
Michael's father John described the residency requirements of the policy as ' unclear' and accused the company of being 'forensic in their behaviour in terms of being unhelpful'.
Michael, he said, is lucky to be alive and now recovering in CUH. THE family of a Mallow man injured while travelling in Cambodia has slammed the companies he took out travel insurance from prior to his trip, describing their actions as 'unreal'.
Thirty-year-old Michael O'Riordan, who was critically injured in a bus accident on the Cambodian/Vietnamese border last month, was brought to Cork University Hospital last weekend, having received treatment in Bangkok.
The bus in which Michael was a passenger in collided with a grain truck en route to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam in the early hours of Sunday, July 31 last.
Michael had just started a nine-month trip around South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand at the time of the crash.
Michael, along with other seriously injured passengers were transferred to the Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh.
"We had received a phone call in broken English to tell us of the accident, we spoke briefly to Michael who told his mother that he loved her. We contacted the Irish embassy in Vietnam who began a search for him, about three to four hours later he was found in Phnom Penh, semi-conscious, by the British Consul, as Ireland has no embassy in Cambodia," Michael's father John explained.
"We tried to establish his medical condition. It was very difficult, but he has severe pelvic damage, ribs and lacerations and severe loss of blood and unknown internal injuries. The situation was grim.
"I was aware that Michael had travel Insurance but I did not know the details.
"Having spoken to a number of people the advice we were getting was that for quality care Michael needed to go to Singapore, or Bangkok. As we tried to come to terms as to what was happening we were told by Michael's insurers in the UK that there might be a problem with his cover. We thought this might refer to some excess having to be paid which is not that unusual," John said.
As it was a bank holiday weekend, it was Monday before the insurers told Michael's family that he had no cover but that they would move Michael on a noninsured basis.
"We were shocked. He had paid €149 fifteen days before his accident for travel insurance cover," John said, describing the actions of the companies involved as 'unreal'.
First Assist provided the O'Riordans with a quote to move Michael to Bangkok for £20,095. The O'Riordan's offer to pay €12,500 towards the move was declined by the insurers who insisted on full upfront payment.
"This was a true nightmare knowing what needs to be done but not being able to do it.
"On the following day, Tuesday evening, we e-vaced Michael — for half the quoted price — from Cambodia to Bangkok where he got emergency treatment, with financial assistance and medical advice from the HSE.
Repeated attempts were made to pressure the insures for assistance but to no avail," he said.
Michael had major surgery in Bangkok International Hospital on Wednesday, August 3 and remained in a critical condition for the next two weeks.
"It is truly outrageous that a person having taken out travel Insurance can be refused cover on a technicality buried deep in the terms and conditions, and that a family can be abandoned in a foreign country many thousands of miles from home in its attempt to obtain medical assistance.
"Were it not for the support and help from Foreign Affairs and HSE, and many friends and neighbours, there is every possibility we would have lost our son," John said.
Source: healthinsurance.co.uk by Joe Leogue
