Protecting Your Life Savings
The Age
Monday December 7, 1992
TRAVEL insurance may not save your life if you suffer a heart attack while skiing in Aspen, but it could save your life savings.
Australians are not covered by Medicare in most countries, including the United States. Even in the six countries that offer reciprocal health care _ Britain, Sweden, Malta, Italy, the Netherlends and New Zealand _ those falling ill without insurance could be up for thousands of dollars if they have to be evacuated home.
According to the Brisbane-based travel insurer Worldcare, a stroke in San Jose could end up costing you as much as $300,000. Falling off a motorbike in Bali and being left with a spinal injury could set you back in excess of $30,000.
Hospital fees in most Western countries are horrendously expensive.
Charges in the US range from $A700 to $A3000 a day. While health care costs are more affordable in Third World countries, travellers who fall seriously ill can be up for $50,000 in evacuation costs.
Worldcare's managing director, Dr Tom Biggs, says it is evacuation costs that most often ``break the bank" of Australian travellers.
Evacuation can involve chartering a plane or helicopter or arranging a stretcher on a commercial flight. Many patients require a nurse or doctor to accompany them on the trip home.
``When you get sick in Third World countries like Nepal and Burma, you really hope and want to be treated as though you are living in Springvale or Doncaster," Dr Biggs says. ``Even in Europe and the US, where there are a lot of resources, access to health care can be difficult and phenomenally expensive." As part of its insurance program, Worldcare offers 24-hour telephone access to Australian medical specialists based in the company's head office. Before founding Worldcare in 1983, Dr Biggs worked in Vanuata for five years as the sole medical practitioner for Port Vila. The experience taught him, he says, that Australians who get sick when abroad invariably seek out Australian medical advice, even if it is only to reassure them that there are adequate medical facilities available where they are.
According to statistics from the Department of Foreign Affairs, more than 375 Australian nationals died while overseas in 1990-91. Some 677 were treated in overseas hospitals and 174 required medical evacuation.
Notwithstanding these sobering facts, each year one-third of outbound Australians do not bother to take out travel insurance.
© 1992 The Age