While travel insurance provides
cover against inconveniences such as loss or theft of personal
items, it is its role as portable medical insurance that is often
the most critical. And it is this role that is becoming ever-more
costly, reveals a study by UK bank Sainsbury’s.
Taken across the
world, the bank found that the average cost of treatment in a
foreign country is £2,040 ($3,200), an increase of 6.25% compared
to 12 months earlier. However, costs vary widely with the US
topping the list at an average hospitalisation cost of £6,000.
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Even countries which offer holidays
at bargain prices do not necessarily offer cheap hospital stays.
For example, hospitalisation in Thailand will set the traveller
back, on average, £2,750.
For a real financial nightmare,
nothing beats a medical repatriation. For example, a British
traveller suffering a heart attack in the US and then having to pay
for repatriation will face a total bill of about £50,000.
But even this pales into insignificance with the potential cost
of repatriation from many African countries. Jason Veitch, MD of
Travel Insurance Consultants, a unit of South African insurer
Santam, provided LII with an example of a client who fell
ill in Senegal and was transferred to the UK in an ambulance jet.
When he was well enough, he was flown back to South Africa with a
medical escort, said Veitch. The total bill came to over
ZAR5m ($720,000).
