Rubenerd

This is something different to what I usually discuss here, but I thought it was worth a mention.

For over 12 years my mum underwent courses of chemotherapy and radiation treatment for her malignant cancer in Brisbane, Australia; Singapore; and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

During that time we were with several different insurance companies and health funds, nearly all of which went out of their way to make our lives miserable, confusing and difficult with their road blocks and legal challenges either to the medications themselves or the the ways they were being administered. Ironic considering how insurance companies come down like a ton of bricks on people like you and me if we're late with a premium payment.

Anyway I've noticed people tend to share more negative experiences than positive ones, so since this weblog started I've endeavoured to help tip the balance. When a company treats me right, I like to tell people.

Of all the insurance companies we dealt with, the one that stood out for us was Bupa International who we were with for the duration of her treatment in Singapore.

From their Wikipedia page:

Bupa is a large British healthcare organisation […] a private company limited by guarantee; it has no shareholders, and any profits (after tax) are reinvested in the business.

At times they questioned the medication my mum was being prescribed, but upon receiving an explanation from my mum's acting oncologist they were nearly always prompt with payments. By insurance company standards, you can appreciate how unusual that is.

More importantly however was they displayed a level of flexibility that other insurance companies didn't, particularly with more unconventional treatments that others either blanketly refused or threw up so many legal challenges that often we'd have to pay tens of thousands out of our pockets and would only be refunded months after the fact. Suffice to say, my mum had exhausted so many treatments in the first eight years that she was on experimental treatments for the last few. The point is, they accommodated when others rarely did.

This of course is an entirely anecdotal post. It should be read as-is without warranties or guarantees. Nothing I wrote should be taken as legal or financial advice. You would be foolish at best and criminally negligent at worst to purchase a service as vital to yourself and your family as health insurance based on what some jabroni babbles on about on his weblog. I absolve myself of all liability, and by reading any of this post you agree to this. You get the idea.

What I can say is Bupa International were the only company we dealt with that treated my mum with respect and took one of the scary variables out of her treatment.

I bring all this up because I'm currently in legal wrangling with some other [areshat] insurance companies and felt compelled to highlight a mob that did a great job. And no, I was not paid for this post.