My dad was in an incident on his motorbike in france today ….. Hes come off not too bad how ever the scale of the incident meant ambulances and all manor of scans and a hospital stay.

His travel insurance are insistant he pays upfront and claims back – and they will pay if the at fault french driver pays up…… the bill currently is in excess of walking around money.

Not sure who the company are but is this standard practice?, if so whats the point in insurance. Surely its just hiring s lawyer in advance incase you need him as oppose to any actual financial cover ?

If there was no third party involved i would hve though they would hve just ponied up for the bill ? As theres no one to claim back from

Ps its unlikely to be the cheapest of cheap insurance as he needs highly specialist imsurance due to pre existing conditions.

He’s covered by EHIC. From my small experience in Spain that’s all they were interested in even though I had separate private insurance.

ASsuming he has an ehic card. Mums currently looking for it at home.

I have a suspicion its an e111 card not an ehic….

same thing but it got updated to EHIC

When did he get his EHIC card? You need to apply for a new one every 3 years. Things could be tricky if he hasn’t got an EHIC.

As above, I’d have thought this would be covered under EHIC, and if anything his bike insurance.

As an aside, iirc most travel insurance requires a current EHIC to be valid.

Pretty standard for you to have to pay the bill on smaller / non critical claims and claim back afterwards. As others have said, much of it should be covered by your ehic card and you shouldn’t have to pay for treatment using that iirc. It only provides five within certain limits though, usually emergency care which scans and tests often fall outside of

Who is he/you speaking to? At this point you should be using the assistance company rather than the claims dept

If you can’t find your EHIC card you could ask for a PRC by phoning the NHS Mon-Fri 8-5.

You could apply for an ehic for him. I know that on the NHS side they just need to know that you’ve got one (if you’re an EU resident being treated in the UK), they don’t need it physically there.

That insurance does sound rubbish though. What if something worse had happened when he was further away and he needed a private air ambulance to fly him back to the UK? Would they expect him to stump up the £50k(?) up front?!

THankyou wwpaddler relayed that info and hopefully that will sort it .

The travel insurance doesnt cover trafic accidents as said above it should be covered by ehic.

The bike insurance will pay out only if the third party pays up.

He is sore today. Just seen photos of the accident it is MANGLED . Unrecognisable. Very lucky man

It appears my cc is taking the hammering to get him home toda, worry about it later.

Insurance are a bunch of bollocks

Seen his mates go pro of the incident now.

The van overcooked the corner and steered too agressivly snd braked at the same time and just careered over the road into my dad

Police have seen the vid and the van driver was taken away in cuffs .

Should be back home by 10tonight

^^above sounds like a good outcome

“It appears my cc is taking the hammering to get him home today, worry about it later.”

i’d email the insurance people stating how you currently understand the situation – what you’ve paid for to date, costs you suspect exist but are unknown and how you are proceeding with the intent to minimise expenditure and asking them for pointers on how they will be assisting

Id say once hes home and regained his strength the bike insurance company better duck for cover.

I wouldnt argue with the man when he is angry and believe me he is angry,

Im on a train to london atm so limited to what i can do but booked him a flight home and hes getting collected at edinburgh by my mum.

antigee – Member

i’d email the insurance…

trail_rat – Member

The travel insurance doesnt cover trafic accidents as said above it should be covered by ehic.

As an aside, iirc most travel insurance requires a current EHIC to be valid.

Is this true? I’m not an EU citizen, but are UK resident, so not eligible for an EHIC card. I have annual travel cover, through my bank, but don’t recall being asked anything other than whether I’m normally resident here. I’d have thought that if an EHIC was required then I’d be asked to pay a supplement.

Well the correct answer is… Travel insurance doesnt cover rtcs,

Bike insurance how ever does, they even admit as much, they have dropped some clangers though,

The other bike guys insurance stumped up quick paid for minor injurys and got him home the same day.

In the hands of the motorbike lawyers now. Not a fan of ambulance chasers on the whole how ever i believe its justified in this case.

trail_rat – Member

Well the correct answer is… Travel insurance doesnt cover rtcs

What?! That’s utter bollocks! RTCs should be covered just as much as falling down stairs or any other random incident! Which company is this?

legend – once a Direct Line travel insurance person.

no can do legend , cheers though.

its with the legal sharks now

Read the small print time.

I just looked at insurance for us to be able to Mtb and White water canoe – and even some of “adventure sports special” companies had so many exclusions. E.g. Having to be on a marked trail, no stunt riding including drops, bumps or any wheels off the ground stuff, no matter how minor and the “all precautions we (insurance) deem appropriate to minimise risk or severity” (so in other words, if you are on a trail we don’t like not wearing full dh body armour and riding like aunt Sally, you are not covered). A few also limited search and rescue to £5k or £10k – not a lot in the real world. The final one was even if I paddle an easy section of river (grade 1-2), if there is a more challenging section a 100km upstream, I am not covered to be on the easy bit.

Travel Insurance covers what it says on the policy

EHIC covers the bills (80% of them in France I recall) if you have the card with you otherwise hospital will ask for 100% and get you to reclaim from the NHS.

NHS rejected my claim of the 20% after ski accident I had to pay in France. Travel insurance (free with my HSBC bank account) paid it and the repatriation costs. Normally travel insurance doesn’t cover road accidents, those should be covered by the motorbike insurance.

Insurance generally works by a) trying not to pay, eg exlcusions b) paying later, ideally much later

Well make sure he gets a different policy next time anyway e.g. to go back to DL, they just have an exclusion that says “you’re not covered unless you have a full UK licence”, in which case, crack on! Used to cover folk touring Europe with no problem, spoke to a couple of people that had to claim without issue too.

Normally travel insurance doesn’t cover road accidents, those should be covered by the motorbike insurance.

Bearing in mind that an accident might only involve the policy holder, where in the motor(bike) insurance policy is going to cover medical costs (and potentially repatriation)?