Travel Insurance 4 Medical - Exeter

Oliver S

There always seem to be horror stories with insurance companies. I did a bit of research before buying insurance for a 6 month backpacking trip through Asia. Ultimately, I didn't expect much and expected the worst.

In reality, my experience was almost faultless with TI4M. On 2 occasions, they saved me a fortune in medical bills and went above and beyond to make sure I was receiving the correct treatment.

1st claim - severe food poisoning in Cambodia. The hospital were withholding treatment unless I gave my card details up front. I knew not to do this, however insurance companies cannot agree to pay until they have a final medical bill, otherwise they are essentially signing a blank cheque (which is what the Cambodian hospital wanted them, or myself, to do).

I was almost unconscious within half an hour of arriving at the hospital. It reached a point where they thought I may have sepsis as my condition was deteriorating fast. My friend communicated this on the phone to TI4M, who spoke directly to the doctor, they almost shouted my rights down the phone to pressure them into providing the treatment I needed, stressing they had a duty of care to me and once they had a final bill it would be paid.

Total cost came to around $1800 for treatment, I paid my £75 excess when I was discharged, everything else was taken care of directly between the hospital and TI4M

2nd Claim - Dengue Fever

A much simpler process, I called, said the doctor suspected I had dengue fever and needed to do bloods and possibly admit me to the local medical clinic. It took one call, they raised a case number and everything was paid for directly - 10 days of accommodation, fluids, food, blood tests, Dr's time, and eventually even a private boat evacuation to a larger hospital on another island. Again, £75 excess upon discharge. They even emailed me to check how I was feeling over those days.

I may be able to claim back flights that I missed due to being in hospital at this time too, I only just got back and intend to raise a case about this.

Finally, I extended my policy with them for another month. I was expecting there to be a huge charge after the amount of claims I'd made. It cost £2.75.

My experience was incredible, I'd have been in serious trouble without them. I would just stress to raise a policy number *before* treatment, that way everything is dealt with directly rather than being reimbursed and having to prove your expenses.

Only criticism is I wish they had a WhatsApp contact - I had to pay around £10 to call them to make a claim. Realistically though, when you need to make a claim for your health, the £10 cost isn't a big deal.

Rosanna Loach

Do not bother buying insurance from here- painful for simple payouts. They do not understand backpacker insurance(which they sell), taken me 4 months since I claimed and I still havent got an answer. Their systems are clearly very faulty as none of the staff are able to pull through documents from the portal or emails so end up (twice for a different claim) having to relay all the information over the phone anyway. Very frustrating and seems apparent they do this in the hopes people will just give up and not claim as they make it so difficult.

Julie Appleyatd

10 days before I was due to go on holiday my son had a life threatening fall which left him with life changing injuries. He had multiple leg, heel and foot fractures,2 bleeds on his brain, multiple pelvic fractures and multiple facial fractures. We had to cancel our holiday and my partner got paid out with Admiral insurance no problem. I however have had a total different story. When I made the original phone call to claim to the office in England I had no problem. I was then passed onto Collinsons (foreign office) which has been totally different story. They asked me to send the relevant evidence to an email address which I photographed and sent from my iPhone. They came back to me from their office abroad and said they needed everything in pdf attachments which I sent. They then came back to me to say they didn’t accept screenshots so I ended up posting all the paperwork to them. Now they have come back saying the sick note listing all my son’s injuries which had been hand written and signed by the hospital doctor is not adequate and that I need to get a form filled in by the hospital. I just feel that Travel insurance 4 medical are trying to make it as difficult as possible for me so that I will not carry on with the claim. This has been the worst 4 weeks of my life since my sons accident and this insurance claim experience has given me a lot of stress I really don’t need at this time. Taking out the policy was a piece of cake - claiming though has been a nightmare.

Jennifer Brown

Best price, easy to fill out information required. Helpful staff. Will deal with again.

carol thomson

I bought holiday insurance for 1 years cover. I stupidly deleted the email with the policy documents by mistake. It wasn't until I was about to go on holiday I discovered that I realised what I had done. I didn't have any documents or policy number to have at hand should I need it, the only proof I had was the cost of the policy on my back statement. I emailed the company explaining my mistake and the next day a new policy was emailed to me. Thank you so much for a satisfactory response so quickly.

Keith Robinson

Thank you Sarah for your help with changes to my policy, you were very helpful and patient while on the phone to me, I had forgotten what good online service was until you answered the phone. A+

Blue Bean Photography

We’ve had to make two medical claims in the last year on our policy and both times we didn’t experience any difficulties with our claims, however you are not able to phone the claims company direct and they don’t reply to email enquiries it would seem, however when they do call back the wait isn’t too long. Both of our medical claims have been settled within 3 weeks.

Haz

They outsource to the worst collections team in the world, I had receipts and evidence of work done but they wanted even more paperwork...the collections team are made up of people who make it impossible to claim. I spent hours on the phone and had them put me on hold and hang up so many times. I'm determined to get what i'm due, only £80 worth of claims in total and my insurance was £200 but its the principle...