Thanks for this review. It's interesting for us to read up on other insurers. One point though in this about True Traveller is just a tiny bit misleading, and that's the comment that "Does not cover private medical treatment unless no public treatment is available. Personally, I was really happy that my insurance covered private hospital stays when I got hospitalized in India a few years ago. Just saying."
We actually say in our FAQ's "This policy covers accident and emergency expenses only and is not a private health insurance policy. This means that you are covered if there is a sudden and unexpected accident or if you become ill during a trip. We will pay for private treatment, but only if there is no appropriate reciprocal health agreement in existence and no public medical service available. Likewise we would not expect you to be treated in a medical facility if it does not have the equivalent care that we would expect ourselves under European standards. However, if you have been taken to a private hospital and there is a public service in the area that we can move you too safely, then we reserve the right to organise a transfer where is it medically appropriate."
The reason for this is that in most of Europe, Australia and New Zealand, public hospitals are very good, and quite often there's a reciprocal health agreement, so to keep costs and premiums down, we do reserve the right to move an insured person to such a facility. In all honesty, it doesn't happen that often anyway, but there's zero chance that you will be moved to a public hospital if our Medical Assistance Service physicians (who are totally independent and separate from us) do not recommend it, and it just wouldn't happen in Africa, South America or Asia anyway. In addition, in countries like Cambodia and Laos, where the medical facilities aren't that great, we would just medevac an insured person to Bangkok if they were very ill or badly injured. We have a little joke internally that the Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok should have a ward called "True Traveller" as we always seem to have someone there.