Lady Gets £50,000 Bill Because of Ineffective Insurance

Joyce Kettle, 74, a great-grandmother from Blyth, Northumberland, was hit with a £50,000 bill for an airlift to a hospital from the Marella Discovery 2 (according to the Telegraph 31st January 2018 – but it is also widely covered).

Now we are in a pandemic. So, it can be of no surprise that health and travel insurance is being checked. It may be checked by the cruise line so that you can travel. Your telling of the facts may dictate whether that policy is valid should you need it – and who knows the future? If you claim, the insurance company will no doubt check before they pay out.

Whilst some people have cruised with cheaper travel policies before, they were actually breaking the contract which has always demanded everything we are discussing here. It has always been in their terms of booking; and by booking and going, you agreed. We understand that chain acts as you having agreed on a contract.

At Doris Visits, we suggest you are correctly insured and that your EHI Card (or similar) is up to date (yes it has a validity date on it!).

I intend not to get into an argument with anyone as to the validity of any card. Arguments are for barristers to do, and for judges to rule on. But if you are lifted off a ship, and your partner follows and stays in a foreign hotel while you are in hospital, they may need the card. As you leave the hospital and travel home, you may also need a card. (Similarly, if you are put off a ship after being arrested for fighting or shoplifting or any crime on a zero-tolerance ship. We think all ships have similar rules.).

There are some modern complications with the card now we are not in the EU. There is the EHI Card, the new UK EHI Card, and a UK Global Health Insurance Card (UK GHIC).

Click here to go to the Government page

Or search yourself, or use the actual link. We are not selling… (we do write novels; we don’t insure).

https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/healthcare-abroad/apply-for-a-free-uk-global-health-insurance-card-ghic/

Joyce apparently had free BANK TRAVEL INSURANCE THAT INCLUDED CRUISE. Apparently, it was not enough.

Here we suggest every detail is checked. Verbally is not enough for these sums of money. Get the document, read it, check you have at least the following written in your terms:

• Ability to Cruise i.e. specific cruise insurance
• For the length of the cruise
• For the place that you are going to cruise to (and maybe lifted off to) – the Americas and sometimes the Caribbean may not be covered on general European Cruise Insurance
• Does the insurance require medical history?
• Does the insurance require the double-jab (and the booster to come)?

It is that old saying: You get what you pay for. Buy cheap, buy twice.

Some cruisers have avoided cruise insurance. They bought the basic minimum, never declared their medical history, took huge risks.

Now, in the global pandemic, cruise companies are being specific; you must have the right insurance – just as you are wise to have snow and ski cover when doing those events, or ensure you are covered if going white water rafting.

Insurance companies insure what you have asked for, what they have agreed to, and what you have paid for.

I am not sure that insurance will form a future cruise crime novel of mine, but you never know. My cruise crime novels are set on real ships and deal with some real and pressing issues, as well as some new things and ideas about where cruising is going.

Thanks for reading the Doris Chats blogs which I hope are helpful. Please take a look at my novels which will run you around a ship, above and below decks and deal with many issues as accurately as a novel can. A holiday in a novel. And there are quite a few in the series now.