HBF Travel Insurance

HBF Travel Insurance - What a waste of money - Want to refund $70- on a $330- claim – We have been members of HBF Health insurance for over 10 years. It was the 1st time we used them for travel insurance and my case got broken whilst on a tour of Europe. The Tour Company we were with suggested i catch a taxi in Germany to a Travel Accessories place and buy a new one, keep all the receipts and the Tour Company even gave me a… Read more

certificate to lodge with my Insurance [HBF Travel] for some $330.00. When we got back, i contacted claims, they gave me the run around, calculating 2 years of depreciation and coming up with some pidly amount of $70.00. I though i was 100% covered in their policy, i never expected to have to bargain with them. I followed up today where is my 'church money' refund, to be told, my case is closed, i will have to open a new one! Seriously, i'd rather pay more for Travel Insurance with another company and get what i believe i'm entitled to, the out of pocket expense, not a hand out. HBF, you're a disgrace and i'm not bragging about your services, they are too expensive and you get nothing in return. We'll be looking for a New provider, very soon.

Thank you for the prompt refund – I have travelled a number of times overseas and each time I have taken out HBF Travel insurance. This has been the first year I have needed to claim on the insurance. Having taken out the Travel insurance before COVID19 was declared a pandemic, we were covered by the travel insurance. Our tour provider could not refund us the full amount of our… Read more ·  1

cancelled tour because of COVID19 but the HBF travel insurance team where very helpful in guiding us through our claim of the difference in the amount. After submitting the claim and after a phone call to finalise details we had our claim amount in our bank within a couple of days. Thank you HBF. Jenn

Great service – I was on a motorcycle trip through South America in 2015 and crashed in the desert in 2015 and broke my pelvis. Upon advising HBF insurance they swung into action and organised to fly me out by air ambulance from Bolivia to Chile where I was bolted back together. They were in touch constantly with my wife regarding my care and even offered to put… Read more

her up in a hotel rather than stay with me in my hospital room. The organised business class travel back to Perth with a nurse escort for my wife and l. On top of that my HBF health insurance covered a hip replacement a year later due to the injury. I found there service to be fantastic, good value. The claim process was efficient and timely. We always use HBF travel insurance being easy to put in place.

Left alone when truely needed what I paid for – After 6 years on HBF private health, paying $86 a month for up to 6 years and only using it once for a dental checkup, I naturally went for HBF Travel insurance for the 6 months of the years I would travel. In Sep 2017 I fell down a mountain and open fractured my toe. As I paid for my insurance while in the airport in Indonesia, I was left,… Read more

Lying in a hospital . . . . dripping from my almost ripped off toe. For 8 hours I argued that I was a valued customer for 6 years with no claim and yet they would leave my High and dry when I needed it most.

I came back to Australia and cancelled all of my insurance with HBF.

If you leave your customer when you are needed the most that is a bad business move.

HBF, lift your game.

Not worth the trouble! – When I set off for a year of study in Israel I went with HBF as they give a generous discount for existing members. I have always found their regular health/car insurance to be excellent, but their travel insurance (outsourced to CGU insurance) has been a complete disaster. About 4 months ago I had to go to hospital with a severe… Read more

gastrointestinal illness (turned out to be giardia). When I ordered the insurance I was told that they can arrange payment in situations like this over up front over the phone so I'm not out of pocket, but when I actually got to the hospital they said that they wouldn't pay for anything without getting the official report from the doctor first. As the hospital wouldn't admit me without proof of payment first, I had to give my own credit card and pay with that, then get reimbursed by the insurer. I do understand this, mind you - they need to wait to see if it's something I'm actually covered for before they blindly hand over money. My problem was just that this is not what they told me when I bought the product, and I'm just thankful that I had the money to pay for the treatment in advance or I would have been in a lot of trouble.

The real problem came with getting the money back. Initially the claims team were very helpful, they replied to all my e-mails more or less instantly, told me exactly what documents I needed to give them, and even told me that I didn't need to get the doctors report translated from Hebrew, that they could arrange that for me. So far, so good. The problem came when I tried to actually get them to give me my money back. 3 months with no word before I figure something fishy is going on, so I e-mail them. And e-mail them. and e-mail them again. No response. About 15 or 20 e-mails later I get frustrated and say that if I don't hear from them soon (at least with an explanation of why its taking so long) I will be contacting the Financial Ombudsman Service. The next day I get an e-mail asking for one final document from me, and then a few days after that to say that my claim has been processed and paid. So, what could have been a week or so long process ended up taking over 4 months.

100% guaranteed I will never be buying travel insurance through HBF again, and I was very close to just cancelling all my insurance with them altogether.

Don't Waste Your Money – Do not deal with hbf travel insurance complete waste of money. I recently had a dental emergency while in London costing over 1000.00AUD. When i tried to claim i was told that it was not covered because it was not a specific event. HBF claim it was tooth maintenance. An emergency root canal is not tooth maintenance. Well i don't know what would… Read more

qualify as a specific event but i would have thought that an emergency root canal would be covered. Way to go HBF you just lost all our insurance business and i will be telling all my friends.

Wonderful customer service – We had a medical emergency with our son the day before we were due to depart for our holiday, and couldn't travel. The claiming process was more straight forward than I was expecting and HBF did not make it too difficult to substantiate my claim. The claims consultant responded to my emails in a timely manner and the claim was also approved… Read more

promptly. The customer service received from HBF has made this stressful time a little easier. I cannot say the same for my airline, whose customer service in trying to get an insurance letter has been nothing short of a debacle. I would recommend HBF travel insurance.

Terrible for 79 year old travellers – I agree completely with the Ralph[Not competitive]. As a 79 year old member I expected better service from HBF in travel insurance.I suggest that HBF changes their insurer and finds one more sympathetic to the needs of older members. Evan  Show details

Not competitive – HBF insurance is very, very expensive for aged customers even if they have membership. Further, their cover levels are less generous than other well known and reliable companies..... Check it out and get the quotes before you commit to HBF. Seeing the lack of competitiveness in this area I am now tempted to check out my Health Insurance! Am I paying too much compared to the market price? I now think I might be!  Show details

No help at all – My wife is in a Dubai hospital by herself with my almost 2year old daughter, I am offshore on a ship. My daughter had a fit on a plane right at boarding time. If not stressful enough when she called HBF to sought the insurance not only was the operator not helpful but piled on things that is impossible to obtain from where we are. Will be cancelling all dealing with HBF.  Show details

Very bad claims support team – Hi, I have taken travel insurance from hbf and when I wanted to claim, the claim team member did not even ask me if I am ok to talk and just saying as per policy x, this is a exclusion and forward me to underwriting team for refund if possible. I asked to call me back in 30 min as I am heading to a meeting and I need to talk further on this. She… Read more

said ok.

I did not receive any call so I called back and asked about my claim and surprisingly the member told your claim is rejected and need a formal process to challenge their decision . I told her like without getting full details how can one reject claim. She admitted and said she will forward the email to call me back at 11.30am but I did not get call again.

Very bad experience

Lost travel documentation sent May 24th for reimbursement of trip cancelled – HBF promise so much yet service is bad Not only did I have my original claim refused despite documentation saying I did not have a hip injury. When this was rectified I was informed by phone April 19th 2016 that my travel application had been accepted to be informed the next day by email that it had not. I again spent time on the phone querying… Read more

this and was advised that it had been a typing mistake Now today June 20th I am informed that all documentation pertaining to monies outlaid(posted May 24th 2016) has been lost and that they can't proceed.All required documentation had been posted as previously stated May 24th ( i was waiting for final payment from Expedia of which HBF were aware)

Today I phoned to inquire about refund and was informed that an email had been sent to me June 16th but had bounced back to me as my Mail box was full

I have been away hence not accessed my emails however the representative did not trouble to phone or text me to inform me of this matter asking me to contact them

I wonder how long they would have let this matter slide unless I hadn't phoned them to day

What I want to know is where is my Documentation and how has it been misplaced

I am very angry and will not be taking any further travel insurance out with them

Worst experience of my life – My daughter got Denghi Fever while volunteering in Bali. She was admitted to hospital and given advice to fly home before she deteriorated. She flew home under advice from doctors but HBF say, that because she didn't get their permission she is not able to claim this fare or a refund for her return airfare she had previously paid for. I don't… Read more

think anyone would get paid out if they are refusing in this cut and dry claim. Check reviews before you take out travel insurance.

What's the point of the insurance? – Disappointed. Flight suddenly got delayed which caused a 16 hour delay for an urgent commitment back home. Tried to claim for this as this area before booking a brand new flight as it is stated as 'unlimited claim' in the policy information for flight delays. After making a very costly overseas call, found out in actual fact that it is NOT covered by hbf and they would not compensate at all.  Show details

Hassle – Got a travel insurance to go to Venezuela, and had pain in my tummy, when to a GP who asked me to go to ehy gynecologist, when to see him, he did some test, founding a big cyst in my left ovary. Came back to Australia, tried to claim, and hbf said it was a pre-existent condition and did not pay anything from my test and consultation overseas.… Read more

This pre-existent condition I didn't know about it, and I had never been treated in my life, they asked for my whole medical history because they wanted to know even if I had a flu or not, just crazy, I didn't have time for this hassle. Now I will get an laparoscopy here. Don't get HBF travel insurance, go with another company. Too much hassle for nothing.

All they don't pay and it is a hassle for nothing.

Disgusted! – I am writing to you in the hope you can bring some attention to this story. I live in Turkey and my friend [name removed] also lives here. recently her elderly father [name removed] flew from Perth to Turkey to visit her. Unfortunately on his third day here he suffered a severe stroke leaving him paralysed on his left side and requiring constant… Read more

nursing care. [name removed] has had Health Insurance with HBF for 43 years and has always taken out his travel insurance with them. he gave them total disclosure of his medical condition whish required medication and had a heart operation a few years ago covered by this company. They were fully aware of his previous conditions and assured him he was fully covered. After suffering his stroke his family were initially told that HBF would take care of all his requirements including bringing him home safely back to Australia so he could receive the medical care and rehabilitation he so desperately needs.

After 11 days they have now told the family that he is not covered, they have told them and I quote ' we are sympathetic and can offer you all the non financial support you need.' Not only that but they have also offered to assist with flying him home for 46 000 australian dollars. I think you can agree that this is an absolute outrage and the family are now left having to care for him at home ( in Turkey) without physio or any kind of rehab and stresisng over tyreing to figure out how they will get him home and how they will pay for the substantially large hospital and transport bills. I would appreciate it if you could bring some kind of attention to this as it really is totally unacceptable to leave an elderly and serşously ill stroke victim stranded in a foreign country without the rehab he needs, after 43 years of loyal patronage. Thank you for reading and I and [name removed]'s family appreciate anything you can do.

They refuse to pay up!

Terrible – We paid for top cover with HBF, a company our family have been with forever. Gary broke his ankle overseas and this company would not even help us out with a essential item like a wheelchair. First excuse was they needed a hospital report, we gave them that then they wanted a specialist Medical report (2 weeks after the accident). They got that… Read more

then refused to accept the specialist report so demanded we see their own doctor. 18 days after the accident and they are still making excuses why not to help us. We would hate it to be our kids or their friends. Nothing. We would strongly advice everyone not to use this uncaring and unprofessional company. HBF did everything in their power not to assist us when Gary badly broke his ankle overseas which required pins and a plate.

Awful Service – I visited HBF Bunbury to get a quote for travel insurance to go to Europe later in the year. after the only available customer assistant attempted to waste time and looking around to see if any other assistants had become available sighed and called me to her desk. After I waited about 7 ,minutes for her to type stuff into the computer she brought… Read more

out a pamphlet, wrote 2 prices on it and just said "you can pay that much or that much". When I questioned what the 2 prices were for she said "it's all written there". I then attempted to present her with a scenario and asked if it would be covered to which she sighed again and said "it's written there" stupid me then asked her about a price for my parents (who are also already HBF customers) where she replied "their price will be different" with no attempt to actually give me a quote. I said thank you and left, I then walked over to a bin and threw the pamphlet into it. I will never get travel insurance with HBF and now question if I even want health insurance with these people. God help anyone in another country in trouble that calls this girl to claim insurance! If I could give less than 1 star I would. the chair I sat in before this happened was comfortable... Terrible service, price was high.

Terrible – Asked for quotations for yearly travel insurance. Came out as the most expensive compared to other quotations from other companies. Give discount if you already taken other insurance from them. Can deal with customer service at branches so don't have to deal with faceless person on the phone. Very expensive, even after discount. Show details

Good – I would go with HBF again. After trying 5-6 different insurance companies they are the only one who would approve cover for my sons stable heart & kidney conditions. We paid extra premium of course, but didnt want to risk not having the insurance. approved for pre-existing medical contions cost almost $500 for travel insurance to fiji for only 7 nights Show details ·  1