American Express Travel Insurance Review

Overall Rating

I can believe i am actually going to write positive things about this insurance because for a long time i had so many resentful and angry feelings towards them and every day there was a new issue/complaint i had with them.

I fell off a horse in mongolia in the middle of nowhere and broke my collar bone badly. Amex (although really its axa assistance not amex) paid for accomodation for myself and my partner in mongolia for a week after the accident, send a local mongolian guy with great english to take me to hospitals and get me drugs. They paid for both of us to fly to south korea with a french doctor ( who was flown in from singapore) as an excort as mongolian hospitals are basic and it was deemed too risky for me to fly back to the uk. I had an opperation in a good hospital with an english speaking surgeon and my partner was put up in a nearby hotel. After 4 days in hospital (for which i recieved £100 hospital benefit)i joined my partner at the hotel for 10 days of post opp recovery with a local axa guy to pick us up and take us to doctors follow up appointments. The insurance paid for everything except food though we got breakfast and had a kitchen in our hotel suite. Because we didnt have a return ticket already booked we had to pay our flights back to the UK.

we had a couple gap policy 12 months for about £460
On the face of it it worked out great, they forked out, i got good care and treatment and only had a £200 excess (because it was horseriding). However dealing with them was a nightmare and it took a week before they got me out of mongolia. I was dealing with the Australia office and some of the staff were really bad, they wouldnt answer questions, got defensive and irritated with me. One low point was a well meaning but very irratating women who told me 'the whole office was rooting for me and she Really knew how i felt!' but who at the same time wouldnt explain to me a simple clause in our policy. Very frustrating. I could go on for a long time about how bad they were dealing with us and getting things organised. However...

I would reccomend amex purely because i got good medical care But do be warned that you might think you know your policy from reading the document but you dont. Things do not run smoothly in a medical emergency and it is very frustrating when you are in alot of pain and in a country without good health facilities. I am inclined to think that all insurance companies will be bad to deal with so amex is possibly better than some. I have not decided if i want to go with them again though...