A member of our tour group fell ill. We left him behind

“Where are Adrian and Kate?”

It’s well into breakfast time at our hotel in Morocco’s Essaouira and two members of our tour group haven’t appeared. We’re on our second coffees when Kate enters, with a tale of woe about partner Adrian (not their real names) who took sick during the night with kidney stones.

In the early hours of the morning, and in considerable pain, he was put onto the porter’s cart and taken to a private clinic, just a five-minute walk from the hotel. He’s in good hands, Kate tells us, he’ll be taken for a CT scan this morning and his treatment is being supervised by a urologist. He’ll probably spend a few days in the clinic, in a private room with a view of the sea.

Essaouira, Morocco, where “Adrian” stayed on to receive medical attention before catching up to the group in Skoura. Credit: Getty Images

It’s a massive relief, but tomorrow our group will be moving on. The tour leaders spring into action. One offers to stay behind. It’s not necessary, and Kate is firm about this. A chat with the hotel’s front desk confirms Kate can stay for the next few days. After Adrian’s treatment, and when he’s sufficiently recovered, the leaders will organise the next steps, ideally reuniting them with the group. Five days later Adrian is well enough to move on. Car transport is organised, they spend a night in Marrakesh and are met with cheers when they rejoin the group in Skoura, an oasis town on the south side of the Atlas Mountains.

What happens if you fall sick on an escorted group tour, or suffer an accident and you’re too unwell to continue? Is that experience in Morocco typical, or an exception? It would be a heartless and negligent tour leader who would leave an unwell or injured traveller behind without proper care and it’s hard to find examples where it happens.

In April 2024, Bly Carpenter was on a World Expeditions hiking tour that had just landed in Namche Bazaar, the jump-off point for high-altitude treks in the Everest region, when she was struck by altitude sickness.

“We’d just gone out for a coffee when suddenly it struck me. My chest tightened, I felt weak, I could hardly breathe,” Carpenter says.

When her group moved on, she had to stay behind in their hotel, while a guide was appointed to stay on and supervise her treatment. “At one stage he sat by my bed for six hours to make sure I was still breathing because I was on heavy-duty pain medication.”

Carpenter works for travel company World Expeditions but there’s no reason to believe the treatment she received was unusual. Several years ago, on an island stop during a cruise in Croatia, my fellow traveller slipped on wet tiles in a spa bathroom, broke both wrists and suffered facial injuries. The crew put her into a speedboat and one stayed with her at a hospital in Split while she was treated and brought her back to rejoin the cruise when she recovered.

Another case where you might experience an interruption to your escorted tour is missing the start of the tour, and given the current state of disruptions to air travel, that’s not unusual.

World Expeditions operations manager Sarah Higgins says in the event of late arrival of travellers, the key objective is to ensure their seamless integration into the trip.

“This may involve arranging vehicles, additional staff, internal flights or alternative trekking routes to connect with the main group,” Higgins says.

Travellers who miss the start of their tour and those who incur unexpected costs due to sickness or injury during their tour might be eligible to make a claim against their travel insurance policy.

Group tours are particularly appealing to senior travellers, and finding travel insurance at reasonable cost for seniors can be tough. One option might be the travel insurance that is sometimes included when you pay for your travels using a credit card.

It’s free, provided you comply with the conditions, which require you to charge a specific minimum cost of your travels to your credit card. That’s not a particularly high bar. A return airfare is often sufficient, or payment for your tour costs. While this free travel insurance applies only to cards with an annual fee, that fee might be less than the cost of even an inexpensive standalone travel insurance policy.

The age limits are often generous, making credit card travel insurance a valuable option for senior travellers, who often face horrendous costs for a standalone policy.

Some travellers question whether free credit card travel insurance is trustworthy, but that’s been my experience when my wife’s bag was delayed by Italy’s ITA Airways for several weeks, requiring a shopping expedition to replace the lost items.

Both the airline and Cover-More, our travel insurer, declined compensation because the date for submission of the claim had passed. Since we’d booked our air tickets using an American Express credit card, we made a claim with Chubb Insurance Australia, the underwriter for American Express Travel Insurance. The claim was submitted on January 31, 2025. On March 7, it was paid in full.