By Julie Power
It was the last ride of a two-week surfing camp on a remote island in Indonesia when Australian surfer Brett Ryan caught a wave that smashed him head-first into a coral reef.
“I almost scalped myself,” said Ryan of Waverley in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. The coral sliced off a piece of his scalp about the size of a bread and butter plate, leaving him with a scar on the back of his head shaped like a question mark.
Surfer Brett Ryan rides a wave.
Bleeding profusely and at serious risk of infection on remote Telo island in western Indonesia, two plane flights and a boat ride away from a doctor or a hospital, his travel insurance’s medical team saved his life. It also covered more than $100,000 in costs, including a medical evacuation on a Learjet.
Yet 93 per cent of travellers with travel insurance are unsure about what exclusions will void a policy or leave them underinsured or without coverage, finds a new survey of 1007 Australians commissioned by the Insurance Council of Australia with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Smart Traveller.
Insurance Council chief executive Andrew Hall said the research was commissioned after disputes over coverage increased when travel resumed after COVID.
The survey found many travellers ignored the exclusions on drinking alcohol, with nearly one in five drinking more than the amount that could void their coverage.
Brett Ryan’s injuries left him at serious risk of infection.
Policies vary, as do exclusions across insurance providers. Some will cover accidents or losses that happen when the policyholder has a blood alcohol content up to 0.19 per cent, which is about four times the legal limit of 0.05 per cent to drive in Australia.
Hall said there had been cases where people had been badly injured while under the influence and could not get access to coverage, including for a medical evacuation to a hospital.
“They’re unaware that in their policy, medical treatment, for example, becomes an exclusion when you go over a certain limit with your blood alcohol,” he said.
Though the blood alcohol limits could be high, some people may drink more than they realised in countries like the United States, where bartenders “free pour” and don’t use standard measures.
Common reasons why your travel insurance won’t pay
Many of these disputes centred on:
- Alcohol consumption, which can exclude medical treatment for an accident.
- Unattended luggage; it has to be kept in the line of sight and can’t be left unattended in a vehicle overnight. The survey found 84 per cent of respondents were unaware that if their bags were lost or stolen because of “inattention” they wouldn’t be covered.
- Luggage lost by airlines, which is covered by the airline and not the insurance policy.
- Activities such as surfing, adventure sports or travelling by motorbike. Hall discovered his credit card’s travel insurance didn’t include a cruise so he bought additional coverage.
Travel insurance was as necessary as carrying a passport overseas, said Hall. Without it, many Australians find themselves stuck with big bills or poor health care.
Ryan – who likes to travel and try new things – had checked that the policy attached to his credit card had covered medical evacuation, which was required by the surf camp operator.
He has a “reputation as last ride Ryan”. He has broken bones on the last snowboard ride of a trip, and on the last ride on a mountain biking adventure.
“I always check the fine print and I ring them each time. Always. We are going to Sri Lanka in August and I have already rang Amex [which provides free travel insurance to some cardholders].
“And with my mates, I always drum into them that travel insurance is an absolute essential.”
Brett Ryan has a broken sternum from a mountain biking accident on the last day of his Tasmania trip.Credit: Janie Barrett
After he was transported from the beach on the back of a bike to see a nurse who gave him 25 stitches with no painkiller, he returned to the surf camp. The next morning a plane with two doctors had landed on the small airstrip. It transported him to Medang’s larger airport, where a Learjet was waiting to take him to hospital in Jakarta, where he spent a week. His insurers organised a flight home.
The survey by Quantum Market Research found one in eight people were uninsured on their last trip. Many were young, under 30, or from low-income households, or had a culturally diverse background.
Many young people who travelled assumed that Australia’s Medicare system worked elsewhere, and that other countries had free health care, Hall said.
“It’s probably that Australians have been spoiled in many regards with healthcare. They don’t realise that in other similar economies, like the United States, Japan, etc, it isn’t free. You can pay a lot for it, and healthcare facilities can be pretty basic.”
Hall said it was best to tell the insurer what you planned to do, and consider transport options. For example, many young people didn’t think they would hire a motorbike or scooter in Bali, yet it was a popular way to get around on the equivalent of Uber.
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