While group travel insurance ensures your journey stays secure, accidents and illness can arise even when you are travelling. If God forbid, you are hospitalized after accident or illness; it would be difficult for you to recover without emotional support. Here, the group travel insurer will help you. Any of your family members can travel to be with you at the hospital, and the group travel insurer will cover their travelling expenses under compassionate visit.
Read More: How to claim the compassionate visit expense under a group travel insurance?
Being hospitalized away from home is a stressful situation for a patient. At the same time, your family members here in India may also be worried. Compassionate visit pays for the transportation expenses for a loved one to join a policyholder who is travelling alone and is expected to stay in the hospital for more than the days as specified in the document.
However, under compassionate visit expenses, the insurer will offer coverage only if=
- Closed family is travelling to be with you
- Hospitalization is more than seven days or as specified in the policy document
- Insured is alone at a hospital
In most of the cases, group travel insurance policy comes with a co-payment clause. It means, the policyholder shall bear a portion of the claim amount in respect of every claim.
Case: 1
L.J Manufacturers has its offices situated in different parts of the world. As overseas travelling is common in the business, the company has purchased a group travel insurance policy for its employees. Last year, one of its employees, Rajiv Shukla travelled to Australia on an official tour.
On one of the weekends, he planned to visit some popular places in Australia. When he was busy clicking pictures, he was hit by the car. Some passersby took him to a hospital where doctors admitted him. Some initial medical reports suggested deep injuries in his right leg and both arms. As he was covered under a group travel insurance policy offered by his employer, all the medical expenses were taken care by the insurer.
When in India, Rajiv’s wife came to know about the accident, she decided to travel to Australia to be at his side who was alone in the foreign land. Here group travel insurance policy came forward for her help.
Rajiv’s group travel insurance policy had a clause of compassionate visit according to which if the policyholder is hospitalized at a foreign location, his/her family member can travel to be with him/her and the insurer will cover their travel expenses. However, the number of stay in hospital should exceed the limit as specified by the insurer.
In Rajiv’s case, when his wife travelled to visit him at the hospital, the group travel insurance company covered her transportation expenses as he was alone in the hospital and was hospitalized for last 20 days. The number of days was more than the limit specified in the policy document, i.e., ten days.
It means group travel insurance policy helped Rajiv in the following ways=
- The policy covered medical expenses incurred on the treatment of Rajiv
- The policy reimbursed travel expenses incurred by his wife
Read More: How does a Group Travel Insurance help?
Case: 2
Rashmi Shukla was on an official trip to Malaysia when she was hit by a car while crossing the road. Some passersby called the police who took her to a hospital where she was operated upon. Rashmi was working in M.J Fashion House who was offering a group travel insurance policy to all its employees.
At the hospital, Rashmi was being recognized from documents available in her purse, and the hospital staff informed M.J Fashion House. The company informed the group travel insurer who asked its overseas branch to take care of the medical expenses. The insurer contacted the hospital and asked for a complete account of the accident and medical reports.
Here in India, Rashmi’s brother decided to travel to Malaysia to be at his sister’s side who was alone in the hospital. Though, group travel insurance policy had a compassionate visit clause, in this case, the insurer refused to cover travelling expenses of Rashmi’s brother. It was because Rashmi stayed in the hospital for three days only and during that time, her colleague was with her.
In this case, the group travel insurer only covered Rashmi’s medical expenses and refused to cover travel expenses of her brother under compassionate visit clause.
