How World Nomads screwed me over
When choosing travel insurance you want a company that you can trust will provide you with assistance when you need it the most, one that is easy to make claims with whilst abroad and one which will be quick to help. I chose World Nomads, firstly because they were recommended by Lonely Planet and secondly because so many other travel bloggers have recommended them. Unfortunately I made a bad choice.
I have spent close to three weeks in Auckland City Hospital following an ankle injury the result of which is a recommendation from the doctors that I cannot continue my trip. In their infinite wisdom however, World Nomads’ underwriters, Millstream, have decided to ignore that recommendation and have rejected my claim for my trip to be curtailed.
The decision from the underwriters came after almost two weeks of communication between Specialty Assist (World Nomads’ medical assistance team) and my social worker who has been acting as a liaison between myself, the doctors and World Nomads because I have had no means of communicating with them myself whilst in hospital. Specialty Assist have dragged out the claim for much longer than necessary by repeatedly requesting the same information and telling my social worker that everything was progressing as expected. My social worker was actually told that all that needed to be done was to arrange the flights, but then when she called the following day she discovered that the underwriters hadn’t actually approved the claim yet. Specialty Assist dropped the ball big time. They have failed to pass on the correct information to the relevant parties and they misled my social worker and consequently myself for over a week. After being told that the claim had not yet been approved, my social worker had the case escalated and ended up speaking with the managing director of Specialty Assist. During this conversation it was confirmed to her that there was no problem with the validity of the claim, they had all of the information that they required and a promise was made to have a plan ready the following day. That plan was that the underwriters had decided to reject my claim.
Millstream decided that after six weeks of recovery in New Zealand I would be perfectly able to continue to South America. So they saw no reason for curtailment and therefore rejected my claim. Since my flight back to the UK (from Ecuador) was not until August, Millstream reckoned that I would have plenty of time to recover so there was no need for me to return to the UK aat that time, despite the medical team at Auckland City Hospital recommending it and disputing their claim that I will be fit to travel again in six weeks time entirely. Not only have Millstream ignored the recommendations of the medical team, they have also failed to take several other factors into consideration when making their decision. The majority of my time in South America was going to be spent trekking. I was going to go on several treks ranging from 4 to 10 days in Patagonia, Huaraz and the Inca trail, but there is no chance at all of doing anything so strenuous so soon after this injury. They have also failed to realise that I have not budgetted for an extended stay in New Zealand. If I was to stay in New Zealand for a further six weeks whilst I recovered, the majority of my budget for South America would be gone. And on top of all of that, I would be rather isolated staying in Auckland. Due to being on crutches and having limited mobility I would be pretty much confined to my accommodation for at least a few weeks until I could put weight through my ankle. All of this information was provided to Specialty Assist, but Millstream have chosen to ignore it. I have truly been left stranded by World Nomads.
Whilst in New Zealand I had no means of disputing Millstream’s decision. Specialty Assist are the only people contactable by phone and they relayed the standard “your claim has been rejected” line and all I have is a postal address for Millstream’s complaints department, so I was left with no choice but to fork out for a flight back to the UK myself despite it being World Nomads responsibility to pay for it. My flight back was not however what the doctors recommended. Their recommendation was for a reclinable seat with the ability to have my leg elevated during the flight, minimal flight changes and the shortest flight times. With the ticket I have it is not possible to do that. The only way I can have my leg elevated is if I buy an additional two seats or buy a new business class ticket, both of which are prohibitively expensive for me. I will be changing flights twice on my way to Glasgow, firstly in LA where I need to wait ten hours before my flight to London and then another change in London for the flight to Glasgow. This is because my ticket only allows for travel in one direction on my way around the world.
Once I return to the UK I will be disputing World Nomads decision through their complaints procedure and I will be contacting the Financial Ombudsman as World Nomads have failed to provide the service that I have paid for and have shown no duty of care. I am thoroughly disappointed by World Nomads. They left me stranded in New Zealand and were unwilling to reconsider their decision or help me in any way at all. For that reason I strongly advise everyone to look else where for travel insurance, World Nomads have taken my money and have done nothing but screw me over in return. Its unfortunate that you cannot tell how good an insurance company is until you try to make a claim, I’ve learnt the hard way.
Update: Chris Noble, General Manager of World Nomads, is now looking into my claim personally after reading about it on twitter.
Posibly related posts:
What a miserable way for such an amazing adventure to finish up. I have noticed in your tweets that you have copied in @worldnomads, it will be interesting to see whether they react to the criticism and put things right. I hope you will keep us posted!
Very sorry to hear about your awful situation. Hope all goes well upon your return to Scotland. Thank you for sharing this story.
They really suck! They cannot leave you like that. Can you take them to court here? save a receipt for everything everything you spend!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dan, Dan, Daniel Barlow, William Randolph, Keith Savage and others. Keith Savage said: Scary read. RT How World Nomads screwed me over – http://www.dansadventure.co.uk/2010/04/29/world-nomads-screwed/ [...]
Hi Dan,
Please email me your policy number so I can follow up with Specialty & Millstream in regards to your case. My email is chris(at)worldnomads.com.
It is never our intention to ever leave a World Nomads customer stranded.
Please allow me the opportunity to follow up directly with our UK team.
Kind regards
Chris Noble
General Manager
WorldNomads.com
Terrible. However I think that most insurance companies are like that, they always have a clause that gets them out of paying, or at least they try it on. Scoundrels. Fight all the way!!!
So sorry to hear about your ankle and your trip. I know what it feels like to have to end an epic adventure early because of an injury. Honestly I'm surprised to hear that you have had such a rough time with World Nomads. My experience with WN was completely different.
Two months into what was supposed to be a seven month trip through South America, I fell off a roof in Mendoza, Argentina. While unconscious I was taken to a public hospital where surgeons operated on my shattered wrist. They drove three deck-screw size pins into my arm and in doing so they severed a tendon, damaged all the nerves in my hand and complicated the break. Once conscious, I called World Nomads and explained my situation. WN had me move to a different hospital with equipment to assess my head injuries, and even made an appointment for me to see an English-speaking orthopedic surgeon (who removed the pins as soon as he saw my x-rays).
After many phone calls with a nurse from WN and medical clearence to fly, I made my way back to New York. Since then I've had three operations on my wrist and one on my face to fix multiple fractures.
As is their policy, I had to front the cost of the plane ticket home (about $2000) and all of the medical expenses. Like you I should have been in a reclining seat, but I didn't want to pay more because I was worried about getting the money back. That seems silly to me now because WN not only reimbursed the cost of my return flight and all medical expenses, but they also covered plane tickets to Brazil I had purchased and planned to use the following week.
Myself and my right hand will be forever grateful to World Nomads for their help during what was one of the scariest accidents of my life. There's no getting around the fact that being injured while traveling sucks. Again I'm sorry to hear about your ankle and hope that you can rectify things with WN once you're home.
Maybe we can meet in South America and both finish our trips once we've recovered!
Jackie Rose
I think its stated in WN and every other travel insurance policy that if you can receive adequate medical treatment where you are, they will cover your costs there. Insurance companies only fly you home or to another country if its medically necessary.
Of course if you can't do the trip the way you planned because of an injury, you'd rather go home, but that's not really a travel insurance company's problem. If they didn't have a way of determining when it was medically necessary for someone to move to a different country, people would be getting free flights home from paper cuts.
I hope you are able to rectify things with World Nomads.
As someone whose seven-month adventure was cut five months short after a major accident, I understand your pain.
Wow, this sucks. What's the point of trip insurance, if your circumstances aren't covered? That's the exact kind of situation you NEED travel insurance for.
I am surprised though, because I have also heard really good things about world nomads. Hopefully Chris Noble can help you get this escalated, although, I would hope you don't have to be a blogger in order to get your claims paid.
@Jackie – It is most likely that the underwriters and assistance teams used in the USA and UK by World Nomads are different. Its the UK companies that World Nomads use that I have had the misfortune of dealing with. The curtailment of my trip was deemed to be medically necessary by the medical team that treated me at Auckland Hospital.
Hi dan i saw you in hospital
In fact, I'm not sure that I would generally buy travel insurance. We submitted 700euros for doctor receipts for Dee's foot and haven't heard anything back. We just got back into Canada so I'm going to follow up, but there was also a fee for making a claim. This was with CAA.
Keep us updated as to what's going on!
hey, so sorry to hear what happened both about your accident and how WN manage your claim. it's very disappointing when you paid for such an importance service and then you are left in that way. you must be really frustrated. I was going to opt for WN too since they are highly recommend it but at the end I went for Amex. I too got few problems, not as big as yours, but had a urgent dental treatment in NZ that cost me $900 and at the end I got all my money back.
Dan,
After a post like this how can one write something nice or even clean?
To pay Insurance and have the schematic b******s leave you in a Country for however long makes me question why we take out insurance in the first place. What makes me think is why Chris Noble would want to leave a personal message on your comments page? Chris the damage is done, no amount of advertising or recommendations overcome this kind of bad press.
If you only had your mugshot on the WN website more honest paying customers would think twice about insurance with a ribbon in an empty box.
So what's going on now? Are they giving you your money back?
I understand all these comments about why you shouldn't even bother buying travelers insurance. It seems that most people think of travelers insurance the way they think of health insurance. When you have a cold and go to the doctor, its covered. With most travel insurance companies you can submit those claims, but what you're really counting on them for is to get you to the right hospital or evacuate you in an emergency.
It's inevitable that people with serious but not life-threatening injuries get stuck in the middle. If a client NEEDS to be moved to a different hospital at risk of their life or a life-altering injury, the travel insurance generally covers. If you are medically safe where you are at the time of the injury, they pay for you to be treated there.
Since they determined that you should stay in Auckland, did you have any reservations or tickets you had already paid for in South America? If so, that should have been covered, but they can't reimburse things that weren't already paid for, such as plans to hike for five days.
Dan, I really do hope you are healing well. Saw you were riding a train on twitter so I hope that means you are not stuck at home too much.
Jackie Rose
That's terrible! Luckily, social media is a powerful tool. Hopefully it gets taken care of