Anyone have a contact number for 1Cover travel insurance??

Forums › Travel (planes, train, cruise) › Anyone have a contact number for 1Cover travel insurance??

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duckDecoy

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#3389414 3-Jul-2025 11:38

qwertee:

@duckDecoy

Thanks for the post.

This is timely as I am looking at travel insurance at the moment.
Have been with Southern Cross for my past travels but never needed to claim.
I was looking AA, SC and also Tower.

Now I know one to avoid definitely.

What I want to point out is that I don't know how common it is for a travel insurance claim to be

Paid by the customer and then reimbursed when you get home (we had to pay 2kUSD to walk out the door of one place and came terrifying close to having to pay 10s of thousands to leave the other facility)
Not just dealt with between the health provider and the insurance company without the customer having to deal with tracking down receipts etc.

If both of the above are typical then there should be no shade on 1Cover for these aspects. But if other companies dont to that then i'd be considering them next time.

nova

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#3389432 3-Jul-2025 12:03

duckDecoy:

What I want to point out is that I don't know how common it is for a travel insurance claim to be

Paid by the customer and then reimbursed when you get home (we had to pay 2kUSD to walk out the door of one place and came terrifying close to having to pay 10s of thousands to leave the other facility)
Not just dealt with between the health provider and the insurance company without the customer having to deal with tracking down receipts etc.

If both of the above are typical then there should be no shade on 1Cover for these aspects. But if other companies dont to that then i'd be considering them next time.

After ringing my travel insurer first, I have taken someone to two different hospitals in the USA, and didn't have to pay at the time. But this is very much a function of the hospital, and not the travel insurance provider. For the second point, you are likely going to need to handle the paperwork, and it may come in sporadically, as the doctor will bill separately to the hospital etc. Travel insurance should be able to pay directly, but it wasn't a very automated process when I did it, I had to forward the bills to them. One was through ASB credit card insurance, at the time through Southern Cross, and the other with Kiwibank credit card insurance through Tower. Both were excellent to deal with, and I have found credit card insurance to be well worth the small amount of extra paperwork you have to do when making a claim. You do need to read the terms and conditions carefully, but the policies are pretty similar to ones that you have to pay for.

duckDecoy

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#3394146 15-Jul-2025 10:32

After another 10 days of radio silence we get an email back saying they will pay one of the providers and we just need to pay the excess into their bank first. No mention of how much the excess is in the email though which isn't helpful (we happen to know its $200 so will make the payment).

For the other provider they are still asking us to provide a receipt or similar to show the amount we paid at the time of treatment. The medical provider didn't give us an individual receipt for the payment portion but their invoice states how much is owed and clearly shows HOW MUCH HAS ALREADY BEEN PAID. Plus we sent in copies of our bank statement. We have pointed this out to them multiple times but it appears comprehension is optional. This is starting to feel like incompetence...

Eva888

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#3394152 15-Jul-2025 10:51

I think it’s planned incompetence designed to wear you down long enough that you throw it in the too hard bin.

johno1234

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#3398684 31-Jul-2025 12:17

Reminds me of an incident way back in 1990! Spending a season in North America skiing and had travel insurance through Student Travel. I can't remember if it was Southern Cross. Had a skiing accident that required a visit to the local hospital for some x rays, pain pills and a sling which came to about $2k. Gave the hospital my policy details and they said "that's fine" and sent me off without charging me. About 6 months later I get a snail mail letter from the hospital saying the bill hadn't been paid! I chased up the insurance company (now thinking it was SX) and it was paid quite quickly.

Looking back on it now it would be quite a grey area as to whether I would be covered as I was in the process of getting hired by the ski area as an employee when the accident happened.

eracode

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#3398686 31-Jul-2025 12:28

@duckDecoy Sounds like you still haven’t had any resolution. Why don’t you go to the Insurance Imbudsman?

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duckDecoy

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#3399855 4-Aug-2025 12:43

Last week (31st July) we received confirmation that they are paying both bills, and paying us the 4000 we had to stump up to the first hospital. Finally.

Given we have had no further requests for information or similar there appears to have been nothing that was holding them up, other than them taking their sweet time.

duckDecoy

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#3411090 4-Sep-2025 14:28

duckDecoy:

Last week (31st July) we received confirmation that they are paying both bills, and paying us the 4000 we had to stump up to the first hospital. Finally.

Given we have had no further requests for information or similar there appears to have been nothing that was holding them up, other than them taking their sweet time.

How silly of me to think this was over. One month later (4th September) we again get contacted from the USA hospital asking why they still haven't been paid. Here we go again.

duckDecoy

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#3415444 16-Sep-2025 18:34

Upate: the hospital has contacted us, insurance has paid them 6k from a 13k bill. They're wanting to know where the rest is.

duckDecoy

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#3445271 18-Dec-2025 12:36

We received a confirmation email on the 16th Dec that our hospital bill to the final US hospital was finalised and our case has been closed.

That's a relief.

Maybe this is the regular time it takes to process medical insurance claims, although I am not sure it is given the facilities were reaching out to us asking where the heck their cash was.

Batman

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#3445277 18-Dec-2025 13:05

thanks, I think I will avoid this insurer ...

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