“If you can’t afford travel insurance, you can’t afford to travel”. Link Travel Group General Manager Scott Darlow recounts a recent “nightmare” family holiday that underlined the critical importance of travel insurance coverage firsthand.
“You never think it will happen to you until it happens to you.” That is my lasting thought of my 2024/25 family Christmas holiday – a multigenerational trip and cruise that had been planned for 18 months with 10 people visiting some amazing, once-in-a-lifetime places, such as Mauritius, Reunion, Madagascar, Seychelles, Maldives and many more.
Travel insurance on board
If we rewind a tad, thankfully, we all had comprehensive travel insurance policies booked, as I am a firm believer that if you cannot afford comprehensive and reputable travel insurance, you can’t afford to travel.
I would even support some sort of government rule that Australian passport holders must have travel insurance when they travel abroad, similar to how some states, such as NSW, mandate compulsory third party insurance for vehicle registration. Of course, that is a debate for another time.
Medical issues in Mauritius
Back to our once-in-a-lifetime trip. Not long after we arrived in Mauritius, it became apparent that my father was not well and 24 hours later, he was unconscious in the back of an ambulance, or moreso, a glorified van with room for a stretcher, being driven recklessly at breakneck speed through the dark and narrow streets of Port Louis.
I was in the van with him and, of course, we stopped along the way at the hospital’s head office where they came out with the portable EFTPOS machine so I could swipe away a few grand, giving us the privilege of continuing to the main hospital.
My father ended up spending 17 nights in ICU, which meant many cancellations and replanning. We lost the cruise, sent six members of our family back home due to a severe lack of accommodation in Mauritius during the week leading up to Christmas and needed to take care of expenses for the few of us that remained to care for Dad.
Good news story
Luckily, my wife had already spoken to our insurer’s emergency assistance team and by the time I arrived at the hospital with Dad, the wheels were already in motion.
I can only simply say that the emergency assistance team at Cover-More World Travel Protection (WTP) were absolutely amazing! Over 17 days, I was kept up to date and informed multiple times a day and they truly were reassuring, especially in such a stressful time.
Dad’s care was their absolute priority and, thankfully, they decided to cancel a planned air ambulance to an emergency centre in Johannesburg, simply because the doctors at WTP decided he was not stable enough to travel at all. Hence, he completed his recovery dodging the mice that had taken up residency in the Port Louis hospital’s ICU!
That decision was a godsend and while the hospital was “questionable” to say the least, the care of the doctors and nurses was very good. Ultimately, the story had a happy ending with Dad repatriated to Australia, complete with a travelling paramedic, all arranged by WTP in record time.
The people behind the WTP service
After my return to Australia, I was able to arrange to meet some of the WTP team in the Brisbane office to thank them personally. Chatting to some of the staff, you could see the passion they have for their jobs and the genuine willingness to help where they can.
I reassured them about the positive effect of talking down the line to a client any time of the day or night during a high-stress occasion. I also realised that these dedicated professionals are really out of sight and out of mind, similar to law enforcement professionals in that you don’t really want to know them until something goes wrong.
The people who work in all these emergency assistance teams are worth their weight in gold and we should all hold them in extremely high esteem. Ultimately, they could be looking after your family, your clients and your interests as part of our travel ecosystem when things go wrong.
In everyone’s best interests
While I understand that travel Insurance is not the “sexiest” product we sell in our industry, it is not only lucrative but also absolutely vital to avoid costly claims or worse.
If your travel agency is not actively working hard to increase your travel insurance attachment, I’d urge you to start doing so. As I said at the start, you never think it will happen to you until it happens to you!
