 Poster: A snowHead
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A younger member of my party had a classic slow speed / pile of snow / knee twisting fall and was unable to get down the piste despite much parental coaching, bribery and threat! We had to get the blood wagon out for him and he was transferred by ambulance (200 yards!!) to the medical centre.
On investigation at the medical centre we were reassured he didn't have any breaks, just a grade 1 strain of a medial collateral ligament - pain killers / knee support prescribed, job done. Doctors certificate said he should refrain from skiing or other sport for 15 days.
This was on the first day of our holiday - days 2 and 3 consisted of the various adults taking sessions "off" to look after him at the apartment, with day 4 being "you say your legs alright now, let's try an hour on the green run near the apartment" followed by an afternoon off again.
Day 5 was "ski with us in the morning and see how you go" extended to "skiing fine, let's make a full day of it" and day 6 was "right you're back to ski school today, ski with us as usual in the afternoon".
Before he went skiing again, to avoid any nasty surprises if he was caught out on the slopes we added the local equivalent of the "carre neige" to his lift pass so that there would be no difficulty with the insurance position if the blood wagon were needed again.
Anyway, my query starts here - my policy (insure & go) carries a £250 excess on the medical and no excess on refunds for lost days skiing etc due to injury.
At the medical centre, I called the insurers and they advised that if the medical costs were about £250 then it would be straightforward if I paid the medical costs and then they would settle the 470 euro bill for the blood wagon & ambulance, which they dutifully did.
Am I likely to need to submit any of the paperwork around this to them for further action? I ask because if I don't, then I have the receipts and I believe I can then put these receipts through the NHS medical repayment process which I've done before when we've had very minor costs in France (a few stitches to a childs head after a bump cost 110 euros I think).
Also, do you think the insurers would raise any eyebrows about me claiming for ski pack loss etc when we took a decision to allow him to ski before the expiry of the 15 days "don't ski" certificate by the local doctors? Clearly we took the risk that if he got a similar injury that wouldn't have been covered (you may or may not consider that to be irresponsible parenting on my part, but we did it and that's that), but if we had kept him off skiing for the whole holiday then we would have put in a larger claim for all of his missed ski school / lift pass / hire costs etc.
I'm only posting this here for advice - I've never had to make a claim via travel insurance before, and you can perhaps understand why I don't necessarily want to ask these questions directly of the insurance company in case it prejudices my position.
I also don't want to do anything which is illegal or could be considered on the bounds of being fraudulent as my reputation is very important to me, so if you think I am crossing any of those lines please advise.
Thanks!
Matt
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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If you only claim for the two days he actually "lost" I should think there is no problem about being fraudulent. However insurers sometimes expect you to claim the lift pass back from the lift company, which you can normally only do if you have Carre Neige, I think. And you would have had to surrender the pass, which you obviously didn't.
You would probably have to give the insurance company the medical paperwork and receipts for the bills you paid (£250 sounds a lot - more than I paid for a fractured pelvis which included 2 private ambulance journeys of about 5 miles, a short piste rescue and a fair few drugs, as well as an X ray).
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Hmm. Wow, you got a bargain there!! I think it was 158euros for the medical review plus x-ray, and then about 90euros for the prescription (which included 69euros for a knee support!!)
The £250 is the excess, and as the piste rescue along with the short ambulance trip was billed at 470euros, I'm faced with the excess no matter what.
I've just spoken with them though, and for the medical "claim" they don't appear to want me to send them any paperwork - I guess them paying 410 euros (I think they deducted a further 60 euros so that I am liable for about 300euros in total, not a bad rough approximation of £250 for the excess) for the rescue costs and believing that is the end of the matter represents a fairly small claim from their perspective, so its all been settled.
So that leaves me with the "feuille de soins" certificate from the hospital which (from previous experience) I can use to recover monies from the NHS. Which would leave me in the odd position of having paid in cash the excess whilst I was there, but effectively claiming it back in the UK (via the NHS / EHIC refunds route), which I'm really surprised I seem able to do.
I'm also going to claim for the days lost by me / wife as we couldn't leave him unattended - but be clear to them that that is what I am doing, so that they can choose whether or not that feels like a valid claim.
Matt
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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larkim, my hubby's medical bills for weeks' stay in hospital in France were sent to the insurers as part of the claim (we had to sign a form to give them permission to comtact DWP or whoever dealt with it in the UK). I could also have chosen to claim them back myself, so should be no problem to do so.
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