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Worldcare Travel Insurance Explains Repatriation Procedure

Tuesday 23 June 2015, 4:08PM

By Beckie Wright

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Worldcare Travel Insurance have found that people often overlook the repatriation question, in the event that they fall ill or are injured while travelling, when considering the terms of their travel insurance cover.  Most travellers are concerned with the amount of cover that they have for medical, luggage and travel mishaps like missed or delayed flights. The professional team at Worldcare advise that it is important to check that insurance provides a repatriation benefit and also the amount available should a claim be made.

https://www.safetravel.govt.nz/health-and-travel  also recommends specifically checking that your insurance is comprehensive and has this cover.

If the injury or illness is severe, a doctor or nurse may be required to accompany the insured back to New Zealand and this can be extremely costly, especially when looking at the process in a bit more detail: initial hospital/ medical treatment costs; ambulances to airport; in flight medical care (+/- doctors) or air ambulance; transport to home/ New Zealand hospital or treatment facility.  If the insured requires any sort of life support or machinery, these costs can get right up above $800,000!

The Worldcare team also recommend that people make sure they declare pre-ex medical conditions to make sure they have the full cover available to them. Worldcare use an online medical assessment tool, Healix, so that applicants can avoid filling out pages of forms and they no longer need to visit the doctor. All they need to do is to follow the step-by-step guide and they will be automatically assessed there and then. Some pre-existing medical conditions are even covered for free.

The Healix assessment tool provides Worldcare customers and mature travellers in particular, with the means to accurately and efficiently underwrite the increased risk presented by customers with pre-existing medical conditions, at the point of sale. Designed to be fully integrated into existing online sales processes, or seamlessly incorporated into call centre sales processes, this new system provides a fully automated medical risk assessment and rating service which can be completed in just a few minutes.

For more information on Worldcare’s travel insurance please visit the website at http://www.worldcare.co.nz .