My Travel Insurance Nightmare with Rosgosstrakh

Wishing you good health! As a seasoned traveler, I always make sure to get travel insurance before embarking on a long trip. This year, I decided to try out Rosgosstrakh, a Russian insurance company, despite not having used them before. I wanted to give them a chance to prove themselves.

When you buy a comprehensive tour package, insurance is usually included, but the conditions are rarely great, and it often comes with a deductible. A deductible is the amount you'll pay yourself, no matter what. For example, if the deductible is $30, you'll have to pay that amount. Most of the time, this amount is unconditional, which is super beneficial for the insurance company. They might not have to pay anything to you at all. Let's say you get sick and visit a doctor, and the doctor's visit costs $15 and the medication is $15. You'll have to pay $30 yourself, and the insurance company won't lift a finger. Or, if the doctor's visit costs $20 and the medication is $20, you'll pay $30, and the insurance company will pay $10. It's the same with every case.

I'm not a fan of this kind of insurance, and I never choose it. If the tour already comes with insurance that includes a deductible, I get an additional policy that covers the entire trip, including hotel time, without a deductible. That's exactly what I did this time: my insurance was valid for over a month and covered a family of five.

Policy issuance and validity period:

Getting the policy with Rosgosstrakh was a breeze for me. I found a 15% discount promo code, which I was stoked about, and issued the policy. They called me right away to clarify all the details I put in the policy and gave me time to correct them. They even sent a sample policy (clearly marked as a sample) to my email for data verification. Then, they kindly sent me a link to pay the insurance premium, which was super easy to do through the link they provided. That was convenient.

The electronic policy arrived in my email right after payment. Plus, there's a cool feature: if we arrive in the destination country later than planned, the policy validity period is automatically extended by two weeks. It's a nice touch in case of flight cancellations or other unexpected situations.

Policy cost:

One thing that caught my eye was the premium we had to pay for the insurance policy. The cost varied a lot depending on the age of the travelers, and it was way higher for kids under 1.5 years old. We had a kid with us who was 1.5 years old, and their insurance cost was the highest. We paid over 16,000 rubles for a policy that covered five people, and that was with a discount code. When we bought the policy, we went with the standard one. However, if you're planning to do any high-risk activities, you'll need to get a different policy, which costs a lot more.

The standard procedure for handling a claim:

When you make a claim, you need to contact the insurance company ASAP. They'll find a medical institution that can help you, send a transport to pick you up, and arrange for a transfer to the medical facility. You won't have to pay for any of these services, but if you're prescribed medication, you'll need to buy it and then submit the receipt to the insurance company for reimbursement. This is the standard procedure, but things didn't go smoothly with Rosgosstrakh...

The incident:

We were having a relaxing holiday at the Aperion Beach Hotel in Turkey when the incident happened. We had a traumatic situation with one of our kids, and it happened suddenly and unexpectedly. As a standard procedure, the insurance policy usually includes a phone number for emergency assistance in the country you're visiting. In our case, the number was listed, but it wasn't working. We tried calling it three times, but all we got were short beeps. I then sent a message to the WhatsApp number listed on the policy, but nobody replied.

To be honest, this started to cause some stress: we couldn't get in touch with the insurance company for over 30 minutes, and if we'd been in an emergency situation, it would have been disastrous! We had to switch to a Russian SIM card (which we didn't want to do) and call the Moscow number to reach the insurance company's international call center. We asked them to call us back on the Turkish number, and the specialist even offered to do so. However, later on, we were left hanging on the line for up to 5 minutes. We sent in our claim, and they promised to help us within an hour. But before that, we received an SMS asking for a copy of our passport with a border crossing stamp. They sent it via SMS to our phone.

!!!As it turns out, the insurance company always asks for these documents in case you left without insurance and only got it after the incident occurred!!! We immediately sent over the copy of our passport with the stamp via messenger and waited. By the way, the messenger has a warning that all chat information is deleted after 90 days. Maybe that's done on purpose to avoid any court disputes. So, I'd recommend taking screenshots just in case.

Transfer:

After an hour, we sent another message in the messenger, asking how long we'd have to wait, and you know what? Nobody replied! Two hours later, we had to switch to a Russian SIM card and call the Russian hotline because nobody was responding to our messages. The manager on the phone had some sort of a whiny voice and told us they'd send us a hospital address via SMS. What about the transfer?! I asked. Sorry, we can't provide it. But we paid for it! Isn't it included in the insurance cost? Sorry, we can't provide it. Our conversation was so frustrating that my husband asked to be connected to someone who could explain why we weren't getting the transfer we paid for. We waited another 15 minutes, but nothing happened. So, we decided to stop the car and head to the hospital.

On the way, they called us and said they'd pay for the transfer via check. But the question remained: where can we get the check from the taxi driver? The manager kept repeating, 'Just take the check from the taxi driver,' but I didn't hear anything about there being no taxi drivers who could give us the check. It was such a weird situation: the insurance company was willing to forgive themselves for not arranging our transfer, but they wouldn't forgive us for not having the check from the taxi driver, despite us having to use the service.

After all the pointless conversations, we decided to move on, mentally giving the insurance company a big thumbs down.

Hospital location:

We ended up at the private hospital Acibadem, which is pretty pricey and prestigious. It looks super modern: each section of the hospital closes off automatically with a non-transparent panel that opens with a healthcare worker's touch – it's well-equipped and offers a wide range of medical services. We were taken to an 'emergency room' type area where they provided a bed equipped with medical gear that closed off from all sides. We didn't need any of that equipment though – we used the space as a viewing room instead.

Truth be told, it was a lot less hassle than the insurance company made it out to be just to send us there! We then got a call from the insurance company asking if we received any help and if we bought any medication (that's standard procedure too), and that was the last we heard from them.

Afterword.

I'd already written this review and had only a few days left of our vacation when we got a call from the hospital where we received services under our policy. They politely asked if we had any contact information for our insurance company because they weren't able to reach out to them – and they weren't paying our bills either. I decided to message them (although I didn't have to) to ask if they could contact the hospital themselves so they wouldn't keep calling us.

Naturally, no one bothered to respond. We'd almost forgotten about it when they called us again. This time, it was from the hospital. The manager's voice was almost hysterical, complaining that no one was responding to them, that we weren't paying for services, and if things kept going this way, they'd send us a bill for services.

We politely sent the manager a response, telling him it wasn't our problem and that he shouldn't be dumping this on us. We'd already written to the insurance company again. The issue was that the hospital was trying to contact the insurance company, but the insurance company wasn't responding - not even a yes or no. At least, that's what the manager said. It was all pretty unprofessional and not how you'd expect adults to run a business.

This experience completely changed my attitude towards this company. I've dropped my rating from three to one star because of the way they do business, their attitude towards partners, work, and tourists in general - it's at the lowest level.

In case there are any additional situations, I'll update this review. For now, this is the worst insurance service we've ever encountered in our lives.

Summing it up, I can highlight the positives of the insurance company:

easy to get a policy;easy to pay;there are discounts (coupons) for insurance.And the negatives:

the policy lists non-working phone numbers;the messengers listed in the policy don't respond;they don't provide transfers;long wait for help;unprofessional call-center staff;unprofessional relationships with foreign partners.Despite the fact that we received medical help at a relatively high level, communication with the insurance company was negative. Some of the paid services were not provided, and assistance was delayed. I think we'll use the services of another insurance company next time. I wouldn't recommend Rosgosstrakh.

Wishing you all peace and good fortune ⚘, and of course, good health too.