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Unfortunately accidents occur on holiday all the time. Handing accidents abroad is a fantastic way to ruin a vacation. Whether an accident injury happens on a skiing holiday or a trip to the beach, there are various things you should always do before and after your accident. These tips for dealing with accidents abroad should prepare you should an unforeseen incident occur.
Before the Accident
To put yourself in the best position prior to any accident occurring you need to ensure you’re covered for the cost of any medical treatment.
Appropriate insurance
Wherever you’re traveling, it’s vital that you get travel insurance that covers you for accidents abroad, including medical costs in the occurrence of any accident or injury. For example, for those enjoying a winter sports holiday, specialist insurance is needed to cover you whilst on the slopes whereas if you’re off on a backpacking holiday you’ll need cover for all those extreme sports you’ll be undertaking. But it’s not just for a specialist holiday you need insurance, you should always take out cover before you travel anywhere. If you have health insurance in place, this should cover you for all your medical costs.
European Health Insurance Card (EHIC)
If you’re traveling within the EU and suffer an accident abroad, you’re eligible for healthcare at a reduced cost or even free, dependent on your holding a valid EHIC. However, this may not cover you for all your health care while abroad, particularly if the accident is serious and you have suffered severe injuries. It’s therefore important to still take out private health cover.
After the Accident
If you’ve been involved in an accident abroad you may have to initially cover the cost of any medical treatment and then claim it back further down the line. It’s important to check the level of cover provided by your insurance to make sure you know exactly what you’re entitled to and report the accident to the insurers straight away. If you’re going to be spending a long time in hospital it’s important to make enquiries about repatriation as well.
If you have an accident abroad, make sure you do the following:
- Report the incident to your holiday rep or someone in authority
- Make sure the details are recorded in an accident book
- Note the details of any witnesses
- Put your camera phone to good use and take photos of the scene of the incident and any damage
- Keep records of all the dates you visit the doctors or any other form of medial centre
- Note any additional expenses that may have occurred and keep all receipts
Depending on the nature of the accident abroad and whether or not someone else was to blame, you may be able to make a claim for personal injury compensation – usually against the tour operator who organized the holiday. If you feel this might be the case, get in touch with personal injury solicitors who could potentially use the above information to build your case.
Photo courtesy of: Dazmac
Anytime I’ve ever travelled and I’ve been to many places I’ve taken out private travel insurance to be safe. It’s the best way to go in my opinion and for peace of mind.
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Some good advice there John. One thing I would point out regarding blame, it’s a good idea to make sure your insurance also has some public liability cover in case an accident is your fault. You don;t want to wind up being sued to the 9′s when you get home.
Case in point, I was involved in a motor accident in Greece where I was driving an MPV and we crashed with a guy on a moped. I hadn’t seen him, and he was speeding. I was fortunate in that the other guy wasn’t Greek either so the local authorities decided it was a 50/50 blame split and left it at that. Things may have been different if he’d been a local though. I got the distinct impression the police weren’t interested because we weren’t natives. I was “asked” to sign a witness report which was entirely incomprehensible being in Greek. I informed my insurers just in case, (we had £2m liability cover), and the hire car was insured of course, so we were OK, but luckily we’ve never heard back about it.
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