Dear Katie,
Last October, my husband and I went on a two week cruise from Seville to Tenerife. Halfway through the cruise, my husband became very sick and the ship’s doctor diagnosed jaundice and other complications.
When we reached Funchal, Madeira, we had to disembark the ship and my husband was hospitalised and had a stent installed.
We notified our travel insurer, Co-op Insurance, with which we had platinum level cover, and after 10 days in hospital his surgeons said he was able to return to London.
Although we requested that Co-op Insurance pay the hospital bill and to book our flight home, it gave us no indication of when this would happen, so we went ahead and booked the flight ourselves.
Now, over seven months later, we have not received any compensation or assistance from Co-op Insurance whatsoever. In spite of numerous phone calls and emails to Co-op Insurance, we have just been shunted from one department to the other.
Whenever we have chased, twice we have had to resubmit our claim forms with all the receipts attached (which each was a lengthy, time-consuming process involving many pages of information), as Co-op Insurance had seemingly “lost” them.
Since our return, my husband has been treated by the NHS for obstructive jaundice complicated by pancreatic cancer. We feel that Co-op has treated us, for many years’ loyal elderly customers, with disrespect in our time of greatest need and vulnerability. We have wracked up a bill of over £10,000, which we would like paid.
Regards,
– BH