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You and Yours - Transcript 成人论坛 Radio 4 |
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TX: 02.02.09 - Travel Insurance and Mental Health PRESENTER: JULIAN WORRICKER |
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Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 成人论坛 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. WORRICKER At the moment if you go on holiday and are unlucky enough to suffer a severe illness, maybe a first heart attack or stroke, the chances are your insurance company will pay out. But many insurance policies don't cover travellers if they suffer their first bout of mental illness. There's more cover now than there used to be but there's no industry standard and the mental health charity MIND would like to see that change. In the meantime it's advising travellers to check the small print to ensure that they're covered. Well one person who didn't do that and has lived to regret it is Rosalind Butt. Her family has been left with a bill of £36,000 because her policy with the travel company STA didn't provide cover for mental illness. Here's Carolyn Atkinson. BUTT There's me and my bike, cycling around the [indistinct word]. It was very hot work, cycled about 16 kilometres or so. ROLAND BUTT And there you are on your bike. BUTT People I met on the trip. ROLAND BUTT You show me that - one of those pictures of you on the camel in the desert, in the Tengger Desert. BUTT Yeah that was the main - real highlight of my trip. We had two nights in the desert and we camped out under the stars. ATKINSON University student Rosalind Butt leafs through photos with her father Roland showing him the highlights of her trip to China last year during her summer break. But after two fantastic weeks she started to feel ill. BUTT Yeah here we are setting up the tents. It started in Beijing and it went down through the south and through the city, and you could do kind of cycling and we camped in the desert, liked camping in the desert, and then trekking, doing all sorts of adventure stuff really. ATKINSON And when you were booking the actual holiday what was talked about in terms of insurance? BUTT Well they gave us a leaflet which had several insurance policies. He talked us through it very briefly and said just have a read of it yourself and then get back to us. So we looked on the leaflet and it said it covered kind of medical expenses and luggage claims and personal loss and things like that. So we went for that. ATKINSON So you left this country thinking that you were fully insured and if something happened you would be covered? BUTT Yes definitely expected everything to be fine, yeah. ATKINSON But in the small print was an exclusion clause which says the company will not pay up for: EXCLUSION CLAUSE Any claim sustained whilst suffering alcoholism, drug addiction, sexually transmitted disease, terminal illness, stress, anxiety, depressive conditions, suicide attempt or psychiatric illness. Some other companies include similar clauses - Columbus Direct for example also exclude: EXCLUSION CLAUSE Any claim which arises directly or indirectly from depression, stress, anxiety or mental disorder. But Insure and Go say they would consider claims from people who suffer their first episode of mental illness and would judge each claim on its individual merits having taken appropriate medical advice. BUTT I started having panic attacks every day and I hadn't eaten much and I hadn't sleep much because we were travelling for like 22 hours and there wasn't a lot to do and I kind of wake up at five, five or so in the morning. ATKINSON So as things deteriorated you then ended up in a hospital. BUTT We went to local hospitals and then went to another hospital following that just because things got incredibly difficult and I kind of lost the sense of control over what was happening with my body and my mind. ROLAND BUTT I was absolutely frantic. I thought that she had an insurance policy that covered her for every eventuality. I was devastated when I heard the news that cover had been declined. ATKINSON You then had to work out how to raise the money to actually airlift her out. ROLAND BUTT The costs were quite staggering - £36,000. I was very fortunate that I was able to call on a family member who was able to raise those funds. I myself would not have been able to raise those funds. And the longer it went on the longer Rosie was stuck in that hospital. BUTT It was how you would imagine - in a room by yourself, bars on the windows and I was allowed to wander around but then they'd put me back in my room and lock the door. I haven't been away on that many trips but I do try and look in to different insurance companies and make sure it's the best cover and I think it should be made aware to everyone that medical costs are just physical. And I just think it's really appalling that they don't cover mental illnesses because they are so common. ATKINSON Rosalind and her father Roland have been trying to claim the money back and the case is currently with the Financial Services ombudsman. Sophie Corlett from the mental health charity MIND says it's far from a one off. CORLETT That's really common. Very few travel insurances actually will cover mental health and most people are absolutely not aware of the fact that they're apparently comprehensive, very good in every other way and recommended perhaps insurance doesn't cover mental health. ATKINSON Now what is your attitude to that as MIND, what do you think about that fact? CORLETT I think it's terrible and I think it's terrible - I mean I think this situation has arisen for a couple of reasons really and one, perhaps the most important, is that actually people just don't think that it's going to happen to them and this is the situation not just in terms of travel insurance but just generally in society, that although one in four have mental health problems of some sort people really don't identify themselves as possibly being likely to develop that although they might consider other things that might happen to them, they might consider an accident or death abroad or often quite unlikely things happening to them but they don't consider mental health as being anything which would relate to them. KERWIN Historically travel insurance policies are there to cover things which typically would happen out of the blue and are unexpected events. And usually mental health issues are slower in onset and take longer to diagnose. ATKINSON Nick Kerwin is from the Association of British Insurers, with almost 500 members many of whom offer travel insurance policies. KERWIN Now there is a very strong movement in the market to cover mental health issues in exactly the same way that any physical health issues are covered. ATKINSON MIND's Sophie Corlett says they want to see all travel policies routinely including mental illness. CORLETT We'd hope to see insurers who offer what they call comprehensive insurance to actually include mental health so that people would have to opt out if they didn't want to get it. At the moment people don't even realise that they're not covered and that is a pretty poor state of affairs because you go out thinking that everything is going to be sorted and then it turns out that it's not. KERWIN We've made a point of talking to our members in the last couple of days about this very thing and it does seem as though MIND's call has been heard loud and clear and the move towards including mental health issues is well and truly underway. All our members want to listen to what their customers want and ensure that the policy gives people value for money. You know when we hear stories about claims going wrong of course it's devastating for the people concerned but it's also very bad news for the industry as well because it does affect the reputation and it discourages other people to take out insurance. And so there's no winners, it's bad for everyone. So we don't like to hear stories like this and all insurers want to have policies where they have satisfied customers who get their claim paid first time every time and that's why they're listening and that's why I think this review's underway. ACTUALITY CHATTING BETWEEN ROSALIND BUTT AND HER FATHER ROLAND ROLAND BUTT It was unimaginable in terms of how we - the number of people we had to call and to orchestrate and make sure that she got home and perhaps we might be better placed than some families to be able to organise and do this. ATKINSON What if you hadn't been able to raise the £36,000? ROLAND BUTT I'm not sure what we could do. ATKINSON Do you think you were naive in not reading the small print? ROLAND BUTT Possibly but then my daughter's 21, she organised the trip when she was at university and I had no reason to think that there would be a problem. The last thing you're going to be looking at is perhaps, as there's no family - no history of it, of a mental episode. So I'm not sure that probably people in my position would actually check for that. ATKINSON Do you think they need to really think about rewriting these policies? ROLAND BUTT I think they do because they are covering thousands of young people travelling all over the world and a lot of them are going on expeditions to remote parts of the world and they're expecting that when they purchase this insurance that they are covered for everything other than sort of pre-existing conditions. WORRICKER Roland Butt ending that report by Carolyn Atkinson. Well Roland is still trying to recoup his family's £36,000 spent on airlifting his daughter, Rosalind, out of rural China after she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. STA Travel who booked Rosalind's trip sent us a statement. STA TRAVEL STATEMENT STA Travel offers its customers industry standard travel insurance. STA Travel, through its insurers, will review any industry wide changes to travel insurance policies to ensure it's offering the most appropriate cover for travellers' needs. And if you have any experiences about travel insurance of course you can get in touch via our website. 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