Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> Heading: Understand Insurance >> Paula: My name’s Paula Ganly and I’m
with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
My role here is the Assistant Secretary of the Consulate Policy Branch. In this area,
we look after the Smartraveller campaign and part of our message is that Australian travellers
need to take out insurance before they head off overseas.
Now I have been with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for over 30 years and a
lot of my time has been spent in the overseas environment working in the area of consulate.
The statistics that we have are that about eight million trips are taken each year by
Australians overseas. In this situation, about 20,000 Australians come to our attention because
they need assistance and about fourteen hundred of these are hospitalisations.
[1st Minute] Paula: What Australian travellers need to
remember when they go overseas is that if they incur any medical costs they are personally
liable for these. The Australian Government can’t pay these costs on your behalf. Therefore
it is vital that you take out travel insurance before you leave Australia.
Travel insurance is as essential as your passport for travelling overseas. So if you can’t
afford the travel insurance, you can’t afford the travel.
Working as a consular officer overseas you do see some dreadful things. Sadly a lot of
Australians travelling overseas do find themselves in difficulty, some issues are quite easy
to resolve but some take time. I’ve dealt with a lot of families in these
situations and some of them are quite tragic stories where families that were in retirement,
quite comfortable back in Australia, have found that they have to mortgage their homes
to pay some hospital bills when their children have encountered difficulties overseas and
sadly have not had insurance in place to cover them.
[2nd Minute] Paula: One of the messages we do like to get
out to travellers is that if they are not prepared to take out travel insurance for
themselves, then they should do it for their families.
It’s important when you are travelling overseas that the travel insurance policy you take
out is the right one for you. You might have a pre-existing medical complaint that you
need to declare or you might be heading overseas to take part in bungee jumping or white water
rafting. So, you need to read the fine print carefully
and make sure that the policy you take out fits your personal situation so that you don’t
find any unnecessary surprises when you put in a claim.
The Australian Government has consular employees at 91 missions overseas, in over 77 countries.
The staff are able to provide assistance in helping people find medical support and find
hospitals. They can assist you in an accident, they will visit you in hospital and they’ll
certainly provide guidance.
[3rd Minute] Paula: But there are a lot of things they
are unable to do. They can’t pay your medical bills and they can’t pay for medical evacuations.
This is why we strongly advise that people travelling overseas take out travel insurance.
>> Heading: Paula’s Insurance Tips Paula: When you’re heading overseas some
general good advice is: Visit the Smartraveller.gov.au website before
you head overseas. Register on that site so we know how to contact you in the event of
an emergency. A subscribe to the travel advisory so you get any updates.
You also need to make sure you take out travel insurance before you head overseas. You need
to make sure you read the fine print of the travel insurance policy to make sure it covers
your needs. [4th Minute]
If you have a pre-existing medical complaint, make sure that you declare that on your travel
insurance policy If you are going to be doing any extreme sport
overseas make sure that your travel insurance policy covers those events.