A terrible experience
I booked a flight Hong Kong-London and back transiting Singapore. I put my trust in Blue Cross (Asia Pacific) in Hong Kong when I bought travel insurance from them prior to my journey.
On my return flight London-Singapore-Hong Kong, I had breathing difficulties and was taken to hospital on landing in Singapore with serious heart trouble. The Singapore hospital gave me wonderful care and saved my life. But this ran up huge bills, I submitted a claim to Blue Cross for HK$432,523(US$54,000), most of it to pay the Singapore hospital bill.
Blue Cross were disrespectful to me right from the start. Considering the seriousness and amount involved, for the next 3 months and despite a number of reminders they did not act. Only when I wrote a formal complaint to their CEO after 3 months of waiting, they finally replied.
Blue Cross refused to pay using pre-existing conditions as justification. They exploited one doctors comment that suited them but avoided addressing other doctors diagnosis, the main points in my claim where I explained very good reasons why I did not know that my several months of breathing difficulties was a heart condition.
After a solicitor’s letter, they elaborated slightly but even then my points were not well addressed. I emailed them, demanding especially to know why doctors diagnosing me with other ailments was not a good reason why I did not know I had heart trouble and what else could I have done other than consult doctors, and questioned if the doctors who advise Blue Cross would have done any better in diagnosing me with heart failure. All I got back was ‘no comment’.
This has left me owing a large amount of money to the Singapore hospital that saved my life because of this shameful insurance company refusing to pay. Perhaps in the future Singapore will let people arriving by plane needing urgent treatment die rather than risk not being paid.
The general feeling of everyone seems to be that the only thing I did wrong was that I should not have put my trust in the company that sold the cheapest travel insurance (Blue Cross).