I recently described how a long-anticipated holiday in Gran Canaria turned into a nightmare. To recap briefly, I became very ill and in need of urgent, lifesaving surgery. Thankfully, I hadn’t skimped on insurance and had taken out a top-of-the-range platinum policy with reputable UK insurers.

Or so I thought. The policy document had been suitably reassuring: “If you are ill while away, call our emergency assistance line so we can help you”. Sounded so simple, but at the end of day it involved around 40 calls to the insurers’ UK-based agents, rarely speaking to the same person and repeating the same information over and over again. Far from helping us, the process put stress levels through the roof.

The hotel doctor had referred me for diagnosis and treatment to a local private clinic, five minutes by taxi from our hotel. It was only when we got home that I consulted the Financial Ombudsman Service website that suggests most travel insurance policies do not cover costs incurred in private clinics “and cover treatment in public hospitals only”.

Although there is no reference to that in our policy document, it makes me wonder if that was a factor in our insurers’ reluctance to confirm they would meet the €25,000 cost of surgery at a private clinic.

Without covering old ground, the insurers appeared to be looking for loopholes to avoid paying out. At 4.30pm on a Friday for example, my wife was asked to obtain two years of my medical records from our GP in Aberdeen. Largely due to the insurers’ procrastination and the need for immediate surgery, I was transferred to the public hospital 40 miles way.

I don’t appear to be alone in believing insurance companies deploy a range of strategies to avoid paying out or paying out in full. A 2019 YouGov report, Better Safe Than Sorry, analysed British people’s attitudes to insurance. The report revealed a real lack of public trust in the industry. Their principal strategies have been described as “the three Ds”: Deny, Delay and Defend. From my recent experience, I would add a fourth, Death.

The intention appears to be to wear down claimants, usually causing more, not less stress. This is particularly hard on policy holders who may be elderly or sick, or in my case, both. Even arranging our delayed return to the UK turned into a severe test of stamina and endurance.

The day before our rearranged flight, our insurers contacted us to say I needed a further medical test to obtain the all-important “Fit to Fly” certificate. It would have been too simple to arrange the test at the clinic round the corner from our hotel. Oh no, we were faced with an arduous 80-mile round trip to Las Palmas, incurring taxi costs of €70 each way.

The fact that I had undergone four hours of surgery only days earlier cut no ice. There was no awareness or recognition from the insurers and their agents of the stress involved. A lack of familiarity with local geography and distances involved, might have been a contributory factor. All in all, if this was being helped, I wouldn’t like to experience obstruction.

I would like to report that since getting home, our insurance woes have disappeared. Fat chance. Trying to reclaim our up-front expenses, such as the €620 paid to the hotel doctor, has opened up a whole new chapter of deflection, delay and frustration.

Naively, I believed the insurers’ website that the easiest way to submit a claim was online. I duly completed the form and scanned in all receipts. Almost by return, three emails popped up informing me that they now required among other things, completion of another form and a lengthy declaration to be made by my GP. I could have wept.

My claim could not be progressed “without the requested documents above”. Why on earth not? A phone call to clarify what was required meant being in a queue for 30 minutes, regularly being reminded “the easiest way to submit a claim is online”. Aye right. “The three Ds” were in full swing.

It's not just travel and health insurance that causes claimants stress and heartache. For 2020/21, the Financial Ombudsman Service reported over 44,000 new insurance-related complaints, an increase of 36% on the previous year. Perhaps not surprisingly, the most complained about issue was “claim denial”. The fact that around one third of complaints were upheld, suggests that some companies “are at it”.

Yes, yes, I know a significant number of claims are false or inflated and insurers are being taken to the cleaners by “no win, no fee” lawyers. Many will have been asked at the car repairers, “is this an insurance job?”.

Nevertheless, we’re entitled to something a whole lot better. Making a claim is stressful enough without being compounded by a deliberate policy of prevarication. It’s time to stand up for ourselves. From now on my motto is, “Don’t let the b*****ds grind you down”. Watch this space.

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