CheaperTravelInsurance - www.cheaper.travelinsurance.co.uk

Bought Cheaper Travel Insurance for skiing holiday. Partner fell and broke her hip on 3rd day so ended up in French hospital and needed a hip screw. Emergency services in France were excellent.

Ist phone call to Cheaper Travel Insurance medical assistance division called MAPFRE was excellent. First call handler was great and reassuring but then it rapidly went downhill.

I have just listed some of the issues here

(1) Firstly please remember that travel insurance does not cover you for Private health care. They first wanted to know if she was in a Private or Public hospital. If she was in a private hospital they wanted me to move her to a public hospital as they would not cover any of her care.

(2) The operation was an emergency and needed to be done within 4 hours to reduce complications. It was 8pm at night. MAPFRE refused approval for the operation. They wanted a full medical report (via fax) from the treating clinician. Once they had the report, they would pass it to their medical assessment team who would not be available until the following morning. At 9pm, the Orthopaedic surgeon had to ring them up and shout at them stating the operation was an emergency and needed to be done asap. He also stated he had no access to a fax machine during the evening or at night. Thankfully she was in theatre 1 hour later.

(2) Her EHIC had expired so MAPFRE said it wasn't an issue. They would get an emergency EHIC on her behalf (cover 80% of all hospital cost from UK government). This was obtained the following day but never sent to hospital so they kept bothering her after the operation.

(3) They were supposed to call me each day for an update. This never happened and instead I had to call each day. Each time I called them, I ended up speaking to a different claims handler and it was very clear they had absolutely no idea about our case so I had to go over the same details each time. Needless to say this cost me a small fortune in mobile phone calls.

(4) They were due to fly us back on St Patrick's Day but they forgot we were still in a French hospital. MAPFRE is based in Ireland. Called again for an update and they had no idea we were still in France. So had to go through all the details again.

(5) The following day, same problems. After complaining they managed to sort out some flights for us but never offered us an ambulance transfer to the hospital. In frustration and to avoid any further delay I decided to take my partner to the airport 100 miles away in my hire car. Needless to say this was a rather painful journey for her.

(6) Eventually go back to the UK.

(7) It is now 9 months since the accident and I am still going through the claims process. I initially sent them my claim form and bills and heard nothing. So I called a few months later and they had not processed my claim. They then requested all sorts of further documentation including my credit card statements to prove I had paid those bill. Seems like they are simply using delay tactics and hoping I will just forget about it. Sent them all further documentation over 6 weeks ago and they have told me it will take 47 days to look at my claim again.

Unbelievably bad service. Please avoid at all cost. As you can imagine this has been a rather traumatic experience but by far the worst aspect has been Cheaper Travel Insurance & MAPFRE.

having taken insurance out with you, the first time i have had to use it i was left disapointed and angry,i was very suprised to find out that the excess of £250 was payable for each of the 3 people named on the policy,we had to fly home early from our holiday due to the death of my father so i needed to claim the money back i had to pay for the flights which was £813,so the maximum i could claim is £63,after talking to an advisor i asked for a claim form this has still not arrived more than a week later

Cheapertravelinsurance are cheap for a reason. ..this reason being they will never pay out . I accidentally severed a tendon on holiday in Greece whilst holiday my 4 month old son when a door blew shut onto the back of my hand. I had an operation to fix the tendon. With a cost of 300 euros. No problem I thought knowing I have travel insurance. When I got back home I notified them straight away and sent them ALL of the documentation they required to proceed with the claim I waited 3 weeks to hear from them. When I did it was a letter saying we are unable to complete your claim, no reson why just a two line letter.....ABSOLUTLY SHOCKING. never use them