‘I nearly died in Dubai but my travel insurer said I'm too old for £35k claim'

Telegraph

18-04-2025

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Dear Katie,
I'm a Brit living in Paris and my daughter lives in Dubai. In January my wife and I set off to visit her and celebrate our grandson's fourth birthday. We were having a lovely trip, but two weeks in I thought I had developed a urine infection.
I visited a doctor out there who assessed me and said my prostate was enlarged. He fitted me with a catheter then and there. However, there was no infection so I was allowed to leave. I paid for this out of my own pocket without involving my travel insurance, as the cost was minimal.
Two days later my wife found me unresponsive and incoherent on the floor of my daughter's house. She called an ambulance and contacted our insurance company, Mondial Care, which instructed her to take me to hospital.
They duly provided her with a claim number. We paid a deposit of around £7,000, never dreaming that the cost of the medical treatment would be this and more, as we understood I would only need to be kept in for 24 hours.
I was diagnosed with having dangerously low sodium levels, which led to pneumonia and sepsis, both life-threatening conditions.
I was taken to intensive care where I spent five nights, and after this I was transferred to a ward. However I deteriorated again and was soon back in intensive care, where I remained for another four days due to complications.
During this period we continued to update our insurance company and were under the impression, as was the hospital, that we were covered by health insurance. At no time were we and the hospital advised otherwise.
In total I spent nearly three weeks in hospital, finally leaving in mid-February. The final bill came to £35,000. Upon receiving this bill, Mondial Care informed me that it considered my medical condition to be 'pre-existing', adding that at the age of 83 it was not there to cover 'old people's health problems'. It said it was not covering my claim, meaning I would have to pay the entire bill myself.
My wife and I are absolutely distraught at this financial abandonment. We are OAPs who rely on our pensions and savings for income, and we have no way of paying such a huge sum. We are not allowed to leave Dubai until the bill is paid, so we are effectively trapped here living off our savings.
Dear JB,
You are still under medical observation following this recent episode of life-threatening illness while on holiday which, especially given your age, has left you feeling incredibly shaken and vulnerable. Yet despite this, the support which you expected from your travel insurer, Mondial Care, was suddenly pulled from under your feet, in what felt to you like an incredibly cold and uncaring way.
Your insurance policy states that you are covered for both accidental and unforeseen illnesses, and at 83, you are just within the bounds of the maximum age limit of the policy, which is 85.
Yet when your wife emailed Agis, which underwrites the policy, its response appeared to be talking about an entirely different policy from the one you thought you had bought.
The customer agent had the cheek to refer to you as 'very old', appearing to insinuate that you had bought the wrong insurance because your policy did not cover the medical conditions of 'very old' people.
The email read: 'What you are expecting from us is a service that would cost you in the UK through a private solution between £2,500 to £3,000 a month. Our customers easily understand that we are not in charge of the global medical condition of very old people. Nevertheless they can have the benefit of accidental cover.'
I have read your policy and it could not be clearer that it covers more than just accidental injury. Its terms state that it will pay medical expenses 'following an unpredictable illness, or an accident suffered abroad'. Now of course, there is a long list of exclusions and very few travel insurers are happy to cover serious pre-existing conditions such as cancer and heart problems. Those that do provide such policies are, naturally, very expensive due to the higher chance of claims.
However, when it comes to your case this is entirely irrelevant, as your illness was, to my mind, quite clearly an unpredictable one which should have been covered under your policy's terms and conditions. Your hospital doctors have been happy to clarify in writing that your pneumonia and sepsis were, in their professional opinion, not the result of any pre-existing condition.
You say you have been given the impression that Agis believes your pneumonia may have been related to your recently enlarged prostate and the fitting of your catheter, and that it thinks you knew about this issue before you travelled.
You vehemently deny this, not that it should matter because your hospital doctors saw it as in no way connected to your pneumonia or sepsis. However, when I asked Agis about why it had rejected the claim, it simply said the decision had been taken by its own team of 'highly qualified' specialists, and the specifics of this were not shared.
Another issue which I think has become a major source of tension between you and Mondial Care/Agis, has been the difference between the French and UK healthcare systems, and confusion over what this insurance is actually designed to do.
In France, where you now live, a social security system covers a large chunk of citizens' healthcare bills anywhere in the world, on top of which, most people buy insurance to cover the remaining chunk. However, since you are a Brit living in France and have paid National Insurance into the UK system instead, you are covered under the S1 scheme and receive free healthcare in France, but not outside the European Economic Area.
An Agis spokesman told me: 'We cannot, through travel insurance, replace a national social security organisation to which Mr B would have contributed throughout his life.'
Another email to you from Mondial Care suggests it thought the NHS should be paying for your treatment in Dubai, which clearly it would not.
The terms of your insurance policy do not state that you must be a member of the French social security system to qualify, only that it will bridge the gap between the total bill and any state funding, which for you will be zero.
Agis threatened me with legal action and advised me not to take your statements for granted, saying 'they do not reflect the reality emerging from our files'. However when I pressed it for what exactly you had misinformed it over, it did not elaborate.
I told it I was unhappy about the rude way it had spoken about you, and the fact that it had encouraged me to doubt you without backing this up with evidence.
I also told Agis that I expect reputable insurers to be transparent and willing to discuss the reasons behind their decisions. It replied saying that due to French laws it was unable to discuss your case with me any further, and that it would be liaising with you directly.
However, after requesting to view your complete health records I'm pleased to say it U-turned on its decision not to cover you, meaning you are no longer on the hook for this £35,000 bill. You're incredibly relieved by this decision, which you feel only came about due to my involvement.
Having paid half the bill yourself and allowing your son in law to put the rest on his credit card, you are in the process of finally leaving Dubai and flying back home to France. I've asked you to keep me posted with the payment of the claim and I wish you and your wife a safe trip home.