What if I have a few drinks, then got hurt - am I still covered?

If you’ve had a few glasses of wine with dinner, or a cocktail by the pool during happy hour before you tripped and sprained your ankle – yes. That’s a reasonable thing for people to do on holiday – have a few glasses of wine at happy hour or with dinner.

Why circumstances matter.

One of the reasons we ask for the time the accident occurred is that, for an event at 4pm in the afternoon, after a few margaritas by the pool, and you trip and fall, we’ll probably cover that. However, if that same event occurred at 2 in the morning, we’ll ask a lot more questions, particularly about how much you’ve had to drink.

Believe us when we say we’ve heard all the stories: “I promise you I only had two beers.” Yeah, right…the event occurred at 3 in the morning and the CCTV tapes showed him at the bar for the prior 5 hours! (Not surprisingly, that wasn’t covered). Generally nothing good happens after midnight – at least as far as claims and accidents go! Insisting you’ve only had two beers doesn’t hold up when a blood test shows you’re 3 times the legal limit for driving.

So, if you were on a pub crawl and decided it would be hilarious to dive off the roof into the pool – in pitch black at two in the morning – then no, you’re not covered.

Generally, you won’t be covered if you’ve had enough drinks to be considered legally drunk, or if you’re doing something most people would consider to be a bit foolish. Obviously any illegal or clearly dangerous behaviour would not be covered either, no matter if you were drunk or not.

We want you to enjoy your time on holiday, we’re not your parents, so make sure you take care of yourself. Sorry to sound a bit like your mum, but we have seen ghastly accidents that resulted in medical expenses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars! One hospital bill in the USA was two million U.S. dollars!