{"id":18931,"date":"2024-11-26T06:26:31","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T06:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=18931"},"modified":"2024-11-26T06:26:31","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T06:26:31","slug":"woman-faced-travel-insurance-refusal-after-us-car-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=18931","title":{"rendered":"Woman faced travel insurance refusal after US car accident"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The family of a woman who suffered a severe brain injury while on holiday say they were faced with having to accept her return to the UK against medical advice or her travel insurance policy would be cancelled.<\/p>\n

Jane Rubens was involved in an accident in the United States earlier this month and remains in a coma.<\/p>\n

Her insurance company, AXA Partners, initially told the family Mrs Rubens would need to be repatriated on Monday despite several medics advising against the move, her family told the BBC.<\/p>\n

Following a social media outcry<\/a>, the insurers backed down, saying: \u201cThe welfare of Ms Rubens and her family remains our priority.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe were already having the worst time,\u201d her daughter Cat, 34, who is a lawyer, told the BBC. \u201cMum may not survive this, we just don\u2019t know. And then to have to deal with all this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs Rubens was on holiday visiting family in Missouri when she was hit by an SUV in St Louis on 1 November. She sustained severe brain injuries and multiple haemorrhages. <\/p>\n

Since then she has been a patient at St Louis University Hospital, where she has undergone five different operations including a cranioplasty where part of her skull was removed. The most recent surgery was on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Prior to travelling, her family say, the 73-year-old from Edinburgh took out a travel insurance policy with AXA Partners, which covered medical expenses for up to \u00a315m ($19m).<\/p>\n

On Friday the insurance company contacted her two children Cat and Andrew, who are by her bedside, to say they intended to require her repatriation to the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh this week. <\/p>\n

On Saturday, the family sent a letter to AXA Partners outlining the medical advice they had received, not just from her doctors in Missouri but also from NHS specialists to whom they had spoken, as well as the brain injuries charity Headway. All agreed that from a neurological stand-point, she needed several more weeks in the United States.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the family say, they woke up to an email from the insurers saying that \u201cbased on all the medical information which has been provided, it has been confirmed that your mother, Jane Rubens, is Fit to Fly via an Air Ambulance, with appropriate medical escorts with immediate effect. We have availability to proceed with the repatriation on 25\/11\/2024. If you do not accept our decisions and do not want to be repatriated, then we will not provide any cover.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Cat Rubens made a call to the insurers later that day she says she was told:<\/p>\n