Watching your 18-year-old shoulder a huge backpack and say goodbye as they leave for several months on their pre-college gap year is an emotional moment.
Will they be safe on their trips around the world? Stories of muggings, moped accidents and mishaps abound.
My daughter Alice joined more than 220,000 young people in the UK aged 18 to 24 who are expected to take a gap year in 2024, according to Department for Education and Skills (DfES) estimates, with 56 per cent the ‘gappies’ choosing to travel abroad.
Ahead of their six-month trip to Nepal, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam in January, we researched various travel insurance packages together before opting for Tesco Bank’s backpacker insurance, which costs £250.
She was a backpacker; Tesco is a trusted British brand. So if disaster struck and she could no longer carry the backpack, she would be covered to fly home, right?
Backpacking: Alice Walters on a cooking course in Thailand during her gap year. The 18-year-old had to be flown home after becoming seriously ill in Cambodia.
We read the fine print. The policy, under the Tesco name but provided by AXA, appeared comprehensive, and even said that repatriation, if advised by a doctor, would be covered up to £20 million.
According to the Association of British Insurers, travel insurers dealt with 362,000 claims in 2022 for a total of £352 million, with the average claim being the highest ever recorded: £973, up 33 per cent on the previous year.
The average claim for emergency medical treatment hit a record £1,750, up 26 per cent on the previous year.
Three months later, we received a call from Alice in Cambodia to tell us that she had fainted and had been taken to a small town hospital.
A doctor said she was dehydrated (it was 40°C there) and put her on a drip for a few hours before she was discharged with antibiotics for enlarged tonsils.
Two days later, he called again from an island without medical assistance. She was vomiting, with a crushing headache and fever.
Over the next 24 hours, we received increasingly worrying phone calls as his condition deteriorated.
The kind owner of the guesthouse where he was staying organized a ferry and private car transfer to the hospital in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.
Desperately anxious: was it meningitis? — I bought a one-way ticket for £581 to Phnom Penh. I paid for it myself since Alice’s insurance wouldn’t have covered it. I didn’t buy a return because I didn’t know how long she would be there. I arrived to find Alice drugged, looking devastated.
Ultrasound and blood tests revealed that he had a severely swollen liver, spleen and gallbladder. Doctors diagnosed him with glandular fever, caused by the Epstein-Barr virus, which in turn had caused hepatitis.
Hospital: The kind owner of the island guesthouse where Alice was staying arranged a ferry and private car transfer directly to the hospital in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia (pictured).
After three nights she was discharged, told to rest and return a week later for more tests.
Until then, AXA had been brilliant: it paid the entire bill for his admission, tests and scans directly with the hospital. His medical bills eventually amounted to £2,819. AXA also paid his £79 taxi fare from the ferry terminal to the hospital.
A few days later, still very ill, Alice developed a terrible rash all over. Her skin felt burning. I took her to another hospital.
He had more blood tests and ultrasounds and was told it would be extremely dangerous to backpack again anytime soon. Exertion, such as lifting a backpack, could cause the spleen to rupture with potentially serious consequences.
His best chance of recovery was to fly home, when it was safe to do so: his organs were still so swollen that flying risked rupturing and forming blood clots. Both the doctor and the hepatologist (liver specialist) confirmed the initial diagnosis of glandular fever and hepatitis.
We transmitted the results of his blood tests, scans and diagnosis to AXA and asked him to arrange repatriation, based on the doctors’ recommendation.
But we were shocked to receive the response that the AXA medical team did not believe Alice’s condition warranted repatriation.
She should “stay still”, collect herself and continue.
Guy, my husband, who was at home calling AXA and checking emails (to which he only received automated responses), emailed again, begging me to reconsider, highlighting the diagnosis of hepatitis and glandular fever. He seemed impassive.
Alice, who had been completely stoic throughout, was deeply upset. ‘How is it possible that they don’t believe the doctors who treated me here?’ she asked.
As a journalist, I was able to call AXA’s press service to try to find out what was happening. Only then did things start to move. A manager called us and our case was “escalated” to a complaint.
Travel: Alice made a full recovery and after six weeks of rest at home she was able to fly and continue her travels. In the photo: Halong Bay in Vietnam (archive image)
AXA reluctantly agreed to fly her home about a day after she was given the all-clear: “Only because she has complained and against the advice of our medical team.”
AXA organized the flights for Alice and me, so we don’t know how much they cost. He also paid £243 for our seven-day stay in the hotel while Alice recovered, £81.45 expenses and a taxi from Heathrow to our home in Wiltshire.
Once back, we submitted our outstanding expenses that AXA had not yet paid directly, including outpatient medical bills and hotel bills, totaling just over £800.
We didn’t hear anything. Three weeks later, after I contacted their press office about this article, we received an email saying our complaint was being investigated, then another saying it would be resolved in full, plus £100 compensation.
Fortunately, Alice has now made a full recovery. After six weeks of rest at home, she was able to fly and continue her journey.
So what can you do if your travel insurer lets you down? Sam Richardson, deputy editor of Which? Money warns that not all travel policies are the same.
‘Only about half of the 40-plus policies we looked at were good enough to merit our recommendation in our last review and, sadly, complaints are all too common.
Solved: Axa finally agreed to pay Alice’s claim
‘Rejected applications are worryingly common: more than a third of people faced this problem last year. If the claim is denied, press for the reasoning in writing; Having a paper trail can be helpful.
“If after escalating your complaint, the complaint is still not resolved to your satisfaction, please take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service – 62 per cent of complaints you receive are upheld.”
My own advice to anyone traveling is to appoint a friend or family member who can still call insurers from the UK, which is difficult to do if you are sick, abroad and without an international SIM card.
Insurers should make things easier for policyholders abroad by issuing a WhatsApp number for urgent calls and an easy-to-use method to fill out claim forms and upload medical reports and invoices. AXA’s nine-page PDF claim form was impossible to complete on a mobile phone.
An AXA spokesperson said: “We are sorry that Alice became ill whilst traveling and sympathize with her situation. Following initial assessment of Alice’s condition, our medical team considered that she was able to continue her journey and did not need to return to the UK early. .
“However, upon further review it became clear that Alice’s condition meant she would not be able to fully experience her trip, so we made appropriate arrangements for Alice and her mother to return to the UK.
‘We regret that there has been a delay in payment of a new claim by Alice. We recognize that on this occasion the service we provided did not meet the high standards we aim to achieve at AXA Partners and we will provide compensation in recognition of this. The claim has already been resolved in its entirety.’
Tesco Bank added: “We are sorry to hear that Alice became ill whilst traveling to Cambodia and that she and her family were disappointed with the service they received…we will discuss this case further with our partners to understand if any improvements can be made.” to be made.’
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