Containing the cost of corporate travel insurance claims from Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Two female volunteers, working in Central America, were injured while jumping from the Montezuma Waterfalls on Costa Rica’s remote Nicoya Peninsula. After initial support from a local search and rescue crew, the pair’s ongoing care was managed by Charles Taylor Assistance.

They were soon evacuated from a local medical facility to a hospital that better met their needs in Costa Rica’s capital. Charles Taylor Assistance was keen to minimise costs for its insurer client and ensured that all bills relating to the two corporate travel insurance claims were scrutinised by its in-house medical and cost containment teams.

Being familiar with costs in this part of the world, with the extent of the injuries sustained by the two volunteers and with the standard rescue protocol, they suspected that the search and rescue elements of the bills were inflated.

After questioning the policyholders via email, (overcoming the Montezuma Waterfalls restrictions of their remote location), they established that the search and rescue crew had charged for considerably more support than they had actually supplied.

Charles Taylor Assistance's rapid response, combined with its ability to admit the patients to a hospital within its extensive global network (with which preferential rates had already been agreed) and to negotiate a rapid payment discount, thereby reduced the insurer’s costs by about 25%. A similar percentage had already been saved by our use of bespoke evacuation methods for both patients.

At the same time, both policyholders made an excellent recovery and were discharged from hospital after an overnight stay and successful treatment overseen by us.