I thought that I would make you all aware at how badly holiday safe have dealt with a friend of mine whilst we have been abroad. 4 of us went to Almeria with FE for 4 days on track. Unfortunately a friend of mine had an accident on the first day which resulted in a broken ankle and a broken foot on separate legs. Holiday safe have been absolutely useless in sorting anything out. They do not cover private medical hospitals whilst abroad so the hospital that the track initially took my friend to was not covered by their policy despite it being the closest hospital to the track side. This cost my friend 185 EURO of which he had to pay out of his own pocket. He was then transferred to a hospital in Almeria city which I can only say was the poorest hospital I have ever had the unfortunate event of being in. Initially it was thought that he had only broken his ankle of which they put a cast on and said that they wanted to operate (this seems to be the norm in Spain when insurance companies are involved) he declined the operation and just wanted the repatriation back to the UK so that he could be assessed by someone in the UK. He was left for 3 days in a hospital bed with doctors and nurses that do not speak a word of English being forced to draw diagrams and use google translate to say that all he wanted was to go home. The hospital was not going to let him leave until they had a certificate from Holiday Safe's 'Doctor' to say that he was fit to fly which had taken an age to obtain. After the third day of a language barrier and with my very limited spanish I went down there to get him out come what may. I showed them the copy of the fit to fly certificate which was received after the 3 days of being confined to a hospital bed and translated it myself (no help with translation from Holiday Safe at ANY point in the days leading up to this) put him in a wheelchair and took him back to the hotel where we had to book a Taxi & pay for it ourselves to get him to the airport to fly back to the UK to a private hospital so that he could have the operation to put his ankle and foot back together. I will now be avoiding holiday safe like the bubonic plague and will be getting myself a policy with 4counties. For those of you that have track bikes and are insured with holiday safe you are NOT covered if your bike does not have an MOT. Luckily my friend did but it would have been a whole lot worse if it had expired. As with all things in life you get what you pay for and Holiday Safe are cheap for a reason. To put this into perspective someone else at the track broke a collar bone in 2 places and had it operated on, plated and discharged in 24 hours. If you value your health and the quality of your healthcare invest in a professional insurance company. I hope that this information helps show the downfalls before it is too late.
Sorry to hear that James Was it you on the red and white 675 opposite us in the garage ? Saw you mate in the chair on the last day. It was a right old crash fest wasn't it !!! I wondered if the the guy on the Red Daytona that crashed on the last day was on here too ?
yes, that was me on the red and white daytona. I've done a lot of events with FE and normally it's a red flat or 2 over the whole event. There was easily 10+ this time. Loaded the track with too many people. Nice to have met you btw. Shame about my mate but he will live and learn to be a bit easier with the throttle next time.
Yeah nice to meet you too. Last Almeria I did with FE I am not sure we had any reds at all. It was a lot quieter though. I still enjoyed it though and I am sure I will be back there in the not to distant future. I am very tempted by one of those HM dashes though. People have said you could only download the last session from the dash to me so I was put off. I can't be arsed to get the laptop out after each session. So you saying that you can do it all at the end might swing it for me.
Sorry to hear of your friends misfortune. Hope he fully recovers. I've bought Holidaysafe cover before but will be looking at 4 Counties again for my next trip abroad I think.
Sorry to here this about your mate, I remember hearing a story like this before my last trip abroad. for the sake of an extra £30 odd quid, its a no brainer on what insurance to get for euro trips (4C and a few others all around the same price, Holidaysafe looks like a great deal until you read things like this. I must admit I have use this company in the past... just glad nothing happened But since then paid a little more for piece of mind.
Good to meet you too and again, it was a shame about your friend and sorry to hear you had issues with the insurance. I was the guy next to Bazzer in your pit on the 675. Did you hear about any of the other crashers? I know there were all together too many slings/bandages/wheelchairs about for my liking! Any news on the guys with the red Daytona?
I heard (think I've got it right). Red Daytona guy was wiped out by a lunge from another rider, ended up with a broken collar bone. I think it was him.
Dear James.l, I am very sorry to interrupt your thread and contact you in this way, but I just wanted to take this opportunity to sincerely apologise that your friend was dissatisfied by the assistance he received from our appointed Emergency Assistance Service (EAF). My name is Amber Howard and I am the Brand Manager for Holidaysafe. I can assure you, the experience you have recounted is not the high level of service we strive to provide at Holidaysafe. In fact, in our Motorcycle policy wordings we have added two pages detailing the ways we can help if you are injured in a track event, and we do specifically say; "We understand that should you have an accident whilst participating in a track or race day you will be taken to the nearest appropriate medical facility, which could be public or private. For more serious injuries which will require you to be admitted to hospital, you or the medical facility must contact the 24 hour emergency assistance service as soon as possible." To this end I would like to investigate your friend's case as a matter of urgency. To allow me to do this, would you please ask your friend to email me his details to Holidaysafe@infinityinsurance.co.uk. I can then track down his policy information and start my investigations with EAF. I look forward to hearing from your friend, and I hope he is making a speedy recovery. If he has any questions or queries about making a claim, please do not hesitate to contact me directly. Kind regards, Amber.
Dear Amber, He was admitted to a private hospital first due to the close proximity to the circuit and after speaking to your Emergency team (of which it was the same person every time) he was forced to move to a general hospital in Almeria city at a cost to him of €185.00. All four of us were insured via HolidaySafe on our trip and we were all disappointed with the way that everything was dealt with that we are all going to move to 4Counties. James
Dear James.l, Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to my post. I have tracked down your friend's details, and I have passed them onto my Managing Director, who will be contacting the Manager of EAF today. As I mentioned in my previous post, we do cover track day riders to attend the nearest and most appropriate facility (whether public or private), so we need to investigate what has happened here. I completely understand your disappointment, and once again please pass my sincere apologies onto your friend. Rest assured we will be addressing this as a matter of urgency. Just to address your other complaint, you do not need an MOT for your track bike to be covered by our policy, as we realise this may not always be applicable to track bikes. In this case, we would just ask you to ensure that your bike passes the track side scrutiny - our policy wording states “Cover is provided if you can produce a valid V5, V5C and MOT (if applicable) and your motorcycle is well maintained / track prepared and passes trackside scrutiny.” If you have any further questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact me. Kind regards, Amber.
That would be fine, we completely appreciate that an MOT and V5 may not be applicable for track bikes, so as long as the bike passed the track side scrutiny you would be covered. As I'm sure you can appreciate, our Motorcycle policies cover touring and off roading as well as track events, so we need to ensure the information in our policy wording addresses all groups (hence the MOT and V5 reference for road bikes).
No trackday company with scrutinise 100+ bikes before allowing them onto track which means that any trackbike insured with you needs an MOT & V5?
As I mentioned above, the MOT and V5 section would only apply to people who have perhaps ridden their bike to the track. We appreciate a specialist track bike won't have an MOT or perhaps a V5. Basically, if there is track side scrutiny the bike needs to have passed and been allowed on the track. If there is no track side scrutiny, as long as the bike was track prepared (as copied from the policy wording above) and hadn't been picked out as one which the organisers didn't want on the track, you would be covered.
Fair play to you Amber for coming on here to address this. I do recall that you (or someone from Holidaysafe) came on to Trackdayriders to address some issues and concerns that we all had some time ago. It's a little late in this instance but I do hope it can be resolved and you can learn from this and improve your services.
Thats a shame someone else was involved in that accident. I was convinced that he'd locked up the front and gone down so I stand corrected. As always, hope theres a speedy recovery to be had for all.
This is not the first time amber has come on here to sort out a problem with holidaysafe. I booked with them this summer as a direct result of her coming on here to sort out problems.
