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Travel /medical insurance and repatriation fault
We had the most expensive premium travel insurance with Staysure, with unlimited medical cover and unlimited repatriation.
On 9 March 2026, my husband suffered a serious haemorrhagic stroke in Bali.
On 26 March, the Bali medical team who had stabilised him certified him fit to fly by air ambulance, specifically because of his medical condition, the altitude issue, the length of the journey and the need for a native-language environment.
At the same time, the insurer's medical team did not consider him fit to fly on that date.
Despite this, the following day we were moved by air ambulance from Bali to Bangkok. We were told Bangkok was a better-equipped hospital. But at that point, what my husband urgently needed was intensive and continuous rehabilitation, not another well-equipped hospital.
Instead, we spent around two weeks in Bangkok with virtually no meaningful rehabilitation. In the entire two weeks, he received only a very limited amount of physiotherapy. We were never given a proper explanation as to why.
I repeatedly raised the issues of altitude, the length of the journey and the need for an air ambulance for the journey home. However, an air ambulance was never seriously considered. Eventually, my husband was transported back to Europe on a commercial flight on a stretcher.
For someone who had recently suffered a major brain haemorrhage, had significant weakness on his right side and could not sit up or properly eat and drink by himself, spending around 14 hours on a commercial flight in that condition was extremely difficult and distressing.
Then came another major problem.
There was no properly arranged receiving hospital in Hungary. Instead of taking us to an Emergency Department, we were taken to an outpatient facility. The address appeared to have been selected at random, and when we arrived at around 2am, there was only a porter present. Fortunately, there were a few rooms on the upper floor, and my husband was allowed to stay there overnight. The following day, he was discharged and sent home without appropriate ongoing medical or rehabilitation support.
The patient transport staff and ambulance crew appeared to have no documentation recording a proper handover, because there had been no actual hospital admission or patient handover. This is the most serious problem: after such a severe illness and such a physically demanding journey, my husband was not received into an appropriate hospital or other properly arranged medical facility.
And throughout the entire process, the communication was terrible — from the beginning of the case to the very end. Not only between the insurer and us, but also between the insurer and the hospitals.
This poor communication had a real medical consequence: my husband's steroid treatment was started late because the insurer was late in providing the hospital with the proof of payment.
Throughout this whole process, we felt that cost-saving was being prioritised over my husband's medical needs and best interests, despite having paid for premium insurance with unlimited medical cover and unlimited repatriation.
Through their poor communication and handling of the case, the insurance company did not maximise my husband's chances of a full recovery — they minimised whatever chance of a full recovery he may have had.
This was not a holiday inconvenience or a minor insurance dispute. This was a seriously ill patient who was completely dependent on the insurer to coordinate safe medical care and repatriation.
And, in my view, they seriously compromised my husband's safety during the repatriation.
Despite my repeated and explicit concerns, the risks were not removed or minimised — we were simply lucky that nothing more serious happened. The fact that no catastrophic event occurred does not, in my opinion, mean that the decision was safe or that the risks were properly managed.
Our policy was taken out with Staysure, and we dealt with Great Lakes and ERGO as the underwriting team.
We are now asking the Financial Ombudsman Service to investigate whether the insurer acted fairly and reasonably.
I am sharing this because I would genuinely like to know whether anyone else has experienced something similar with Staysure, Great Lakes, ERGO, or their medical assistance/repatriation service.
Comments
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Just to clarify, you mention home being Hungary - where was your policy purchased ?
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I thought Staysure was for the UK based people is the OP Staysure the same company?
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They do offer insurance to ExPats in Spain, Portugal and France, and to ireland as well I think. Not aware of them covering Hungary but they certainly could!
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Its unclear how you got from Hungry to Home or if Hungry is home?
Unfortunately you are mistaken in thinking that limit level is a proxy or correlated to the quality of the policy or the breadth of the coverage. Go back a few years and Direct Line had unlimited cover on Home (for general, there were some inner limits) whereas Hiscox has a declared value, if however you read the policybooks you would find Hiscox was by far the superior cover despite having a lower limit.
Medical treatment and opinions vary by country, my aunt fell and hurt her arm, in the UK she would have had an x-ray and the broken wrist would have been dealt with, in the US she had a full body MRA and then the broken wrist was dealt with. A friend's wife had a breakdown whilst in north africa, there the doctors said he just needed to control her better, when they got back here she was prescribed anti-psychotics and hospitalised.
No one here has access to the medical information to say if the local doctors were being over cautious/trying to line their pockets or if the insurer's doctors were being penny pinching and prioritising cost over treatment. In some countries in the world there can be issues of no treatment before payment. When you add timezone differences, general good practice of 4 eyes checks etc unfortunately realistically it can add delay over being able to pay yourself there and then and subsequently reclaim it
The FOS will have access to all the details, though they wont opine on if the ultimate decisions were correct just that the insurer went through an appropriate process in coming to their decisions. The outcome does actually matter too, any award if the complaint is upheld will be based on what did happen not what could have happened.
Thankfully never needed to deal with a repatriation service, have had a small basic claim with Staysure and it was handled efficiently
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…an air ambulance was never seriously considered. Eventually, my husband was transported back to Europe on a commercial flight on a stretcher.
From my understanding - although I think there's someone around here more knowledgeable - commercial flights are to be expected for long haul repatriation. Air ambulances are small aircraft, Thailand to Hungary would take multiple hops.
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Most air ambulances are smaller aircraft but there are those running the likes of the Falcon 9000EX that could have made it to the UK in one stop but would more likely have been Central Asia or Middle East than Hungry but there are also the likes of with their Bombader Global Express that could do the UK in one in principle but 14 hour shift for the medical staff is long and so many would want to do a one stop anyway to be able to switch the medical staff
Generally air ambulances are for those that need ICU type care not those that dont. For someone to fly commercial airline it adds another set of doctors having reviewed the case, airlines have their own medical experts review the patents notes before they are willing to allow a medevac on their plane as the cost of an emergency landing somewhere other than the destination because someone has become ill on board is very high.
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The repatriation by air ambulance to a native language environment was the explicit and firm recommendation of the medical team in Bali; they strictly insisted on an air ambulance. I was simply standing there by my husband's side, with no idea what to do in a situation like that.
This was met with opposition from the insurance company's medical team. By default, the repatriation should have been to London. However, since his native language is Hungarian and he was suffering from aphasia, it was critical for him to receive help as early as possible in his native language environment.
The medical team informed me that the air ambulance was vital because, with a hemorrhagic stroke, cabin pressure and flight altitude are critical factors. This was an extremely time-sensitive case, and we could not afford to take risks if we wanted to secure the best chance for his condition and the start of intensive rehabilitation—an opportunity that the insurance company severely compromised.
Even when we ultimately traveled on a commercial flight, placing him on a stretcher was a terrible solution. He wasn't a spinal injury patient; he was unable to eat or drink for 14 hours, meaning he required a completely different transport protocol than a standard stretcher setup. I had zero prior experience with anything like this, which is precisely why I am sharing this post.
The repatriation destination country remained uncertain until almost the very last day, keeping us in constant limbo. But what was truly the most terrifying part was that the insurance company failed to coordinate our arrival with the receiving hospital. Nothing was arranged or properly communicated in advance. Instead, the medical escort picking us up at the airport was given a completely random address for a healthcare facility that didn't even have an ICU department—and where the staff had no prior knowledge of our arrival whatsoever.
As a result, there is no official document anywhere confirming that the repatriation was properly completed—no handover form from an ICU department proving they took custody of my husband. Such a document simply does not exist, because that proper medical handover never actually happened.
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It was never a question of whether we could fly non-stop from Bali to Budapest. The only real question was which mode of transport could get us from Bali to Budapest in the shortest time and in the safest possible way. That was the clear recommendation of the medical team in Bali. They declared my husband "fit to fly," but strictly specified fit to fly by air ambulance.
They explained to me that flight altitude and cabin pressure make a critical difference to the risks involved, as an air ambulance operates under entirely different parameters than a commercial airliner. Furthermore, an air ambulance moves from Point A to Point B in the absolute shortest total time—regardless of refueling stops—and can be dispatched immediately. In contrast, the insurance company spent two weeks arranging a commercial flight, exposing us to all its inherent risks, such as potential delays or cancellations. To make matters worse, all of this unfolded during the war involving Iran, a time when commercial flight schedules, routes, and departures throughout the region were completely uncertain and subject to constant disruption.
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On a standard medivac airplane and a commercial airplane the norm is for the atmosphere to be at around 6,000'. You can get medivac planes that have been altered to support sea level atmospheric pressure but that is then complex as it can reduce the altitude they can fly at which then reduces the range they can fly and makes routing more complex as normally private jets etc fly higher so arent competing for the same airspace. So it significantly limits your plane choice, shortens how far they can go and they cant simply fly where they want when.
At the time the Bali team said he needed and air ambulance he did go by air ambulance but the insurer disagreed that he was safe to go all the way to Hungry so moved him to Thailand instead. You dont say what the Thai teams view was two weeks later when a flight to Hungry was then arranged. It certainly possible for someone to go from needing an air ambulance to being able to be on a commercial flight with medical staff in the space of 2 weeks
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The Thai Medical Team also declared him fit to fly on March 29th, so technically two days later. But they didn't insist to air ambulance , they said a commercial flight is fine. And then nothing happened. So as soon as we arrived and got admitted to the hospital, we didn't even have to go to the ICU—maybe we were in the ICU for half an hour, they saw we had no business being there, and immediately moved us to a beautiful room where we then stayed for two weeks without anything happening. No speech therapy especially no intensive rehabilitation no any treatment or examination. Nothing happened in Bangkok what not could happen in the Bali hospital. We waisted two valuable weeks that influencing his recovery.
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