Does your private medical insurance provide comprehensive protection for injuries sustained in a terrorist attack?

When Gavin Broad, a British expatriate living and working in Thailand, took his wife to the hospital to give birth, he didn’t imagine that he would end up hospitalized in the bed next to her. Nor did he consider that his international private health insurance might not have covered him for the injuries he sustained in the terrorist bombing that followed.

Terrorism poses a real risk to us all in today’s world. Coverage of hideous terrorist attacks in the news brings home the increased dangers of international living for expatriates. Whilst the risk of getting caught up in these outrages in most countries remains mercifully low, expatriates must take care where ever they are the world.

Gavin Broad’s story begins with his wife giving birth to their son in Hat Yai’s Rajyindee Hospital in Thailand’s Songkhla province in September 2006. To celebrate the arrival of their newborn whilst his wife and son were still in hospital, Gavin went out for a meal at a local restaurant with a friend.

Whilst happily toasting the baby’s health, in a totally unexpected turn of events, they heard what sounded like two bomb blasts in the vicinity of the restaurant. When the two men rushed outside to see what was happening, another bomb exploded and they were caught by the hurtling shrapnel.

Gavin sustained a nasty injury to his face and took himself straight to hospital in a passing tuk-tuk. A piece of shrapnel the size of a thumb-nail had entered just below his left eye socket, and Gavin was immediately operated on. The offending object was so embedded in Gavin’s face, that the surgeon dare not remove it for fear of damaging nerves serving the eye and/or causing weakness in the face muscles resulting in a permanent and visible drooping of the face.

Gavin Broad said:
“Our injuries could have been so much worse had I not instinctively held my friend back from the crowd that was forming outside. As the crowd gathered to the sound of the first blasts, a secondary explosion targeted them to maximize the number of casualties. There were three lives lost and 80 people sustained various injuries.”

The piece of metal remains. Gavin gets on with life, but occasionally suffers violent body shakes partly through nerve damage, and partly through the psychological trauma.

Wherever you are, you can take a number of common sense precautions to minimise the risk of being caught up in terrorism. The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office offer advice for staying safe and healthy abroad on its web site www.fco.gov.uk.

Gavin was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but luckily he was insured by a Global Health plan which enabled him to receive the care he needed straight away without having to foot the bill first. 

Some innocent bystanders stuck in the middle of terrorist activity might not be so fortunate in finding good quality medical attention and financial aid. Don’t assume that your international private health insurance provides 100% cover in these situations. Many insurance providers limit the amount of private medical benefit they will provide their policy holders with if they are innocently caught up in a terrorist attack. Some may not provide protection at all.

William Russell’s Global Health plans provide comprehensive protection for the benefits covered under your plan, as long as you are not in the war zones listed on the Foreign Office ‘don’t go to’ list, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, or participate in terrorist activity.

International private health insurance has its place to cover medical treatment as a result of accident or illness, but with the world becoming a more dangerous place day by day, make sure that it also provides you with full benefit for the threat that terrorist activity could pose to your well-being.

Gavin ends:
“I am very grateful to William Russell… you never know how good an insurance plan is until you need it. I claimed for over US$2,000 worth of medical treatment, which would have represented a severe drain on resources if I’d had to pay, especially with a wife and a newborn child to provide for.”

If you would like to be insured by an award-winning provider who takes care of you whatever situation you inadvertently find yourself in, contact William Russell now. www.william-russell.com/