Why choose Holiday Rescue?
What's different?

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

We do things differently, to make it better for you.

From the beginning, we’ve been obsessed with revolutionising travel insurance and that’s where the concept of holiday insurance and Holiday Rescue was born. Focussing on the whole holiday rather than the travel component of getting there and back, and how we’d like to be treated if we bought insurance instead of blindly following the same insurance practices everyone else does. We go to great lengths to not use insurance industry jargon, to be clear, and to provide our customers with certainty.  If there is any ‘fine print,’ we will explain it so that it can be easily understood.

First-rate emergency assistance & rescue services.

Another key point of difference is in our choice of international medical and rescue services. If you, your family or fellow traveller are critically injured in an accident or suddenly seriously ill, the timing and quality of care and advice is vital.

That’s why we have a trained registered nurse available to speak with, or help with medical advice, in our team that deal with our emergency calls 24/7. It’s helpful to have that level of medical competency and understanding in a medical emergency, and reassuring for parents if you have a little one that’s suddenly ill while you’re away.

If you have a wi-fi or mobile phone connection, we can arrange for an online ‘telemedicine’ medical consultation with a doctor in 30 minutes. And if you need a consult with a specialist, we can arrange that online too.

In critical cases when you need to be evacuated to another hospital, or back to Australia for urgent care, we work with trusted suppliers of air ambulances and trained aviation repatriation specialists to escort you, to ensure a consistently high standard of care.

Even in the unfortunate but less urgent situation of a broken leg overseas (provided the circumstances of how you broke your leg are covered), we’ll ensure you get a more comfortable flight home, in a seat with the legroom and support you need.

 

Would you be happy to entrust your critically ill child to be brought home by the company with the cheapest quote?

Neither would we. However, the standard insurance industry approach is to insist on ‘three quotes’ every time someone requires an emergency evacuation. It saves a few bucks, but definitely wastes precious time, and there’s no promise of the level of care they’ll offer – or even if the medical professionals will be able to speak your child’s language.

There’s no loyalty, no transparency, and not much of a relationship between the insurance company and whoever they use for emergency assistance and the provider of the plane or the staff.

 

Would you trust the New Zealand Air Ambulance Service to bring your critically ill child home?

We do. We have vetted and chosen to work with a few select, highly professional trusted repatriation and assistance companies. So if you need an emergency evacuation, there’s no delays, no mucking around with cheaper quotes, or trialing of ‘new operators’. We call the people we trust that are closest to you, to get you home. Fast.

For example, in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia region, we work closely with the New Zealand Air Ambulance Service. They know us, and we know them. This approach is unique in the industry. Throughout the South Pacific, NZAAS knows the capabilities of the hospitals and clinics, and the names of the doctors and nurses, to make sure the appropriate level of care is delivered to you when the need arises.

 

What if there was a company who made it so painless and easy to claim, that you could have your claim resolved within 2 business days or less?

That’s what we aim for with every claim we receive, it’s also why we called them express claims. You can submit your claim and the documents online all at the same time. No need to copy and post all of your original documents in either.

Many insurers build delays into their claims process with communication “steps”; by slowing down each response, they can rely on a good percentage of customers giving up on their claim. This saves them money, but it’s not what we consider to be fair behaviour. It’s so ingrained in the insurance industry that there’s a name for it, “claims fatigue”.

This is our culture.

We believe in treating people like people, not numbers or problems to be avoided. We’ve got your back, because we’ve been “there” too, and know it makes all the difference in the world at that moment, to have someone you can call on. Someone who cares, is empowered to take action to help you, and can offer guidance for what’s best for you to do next.

We also believe that if we genuinely look after you when you need it, you might just tell someone else about us – and that’s how the best companies grow. We trust that our approach, attitude and service make the difference that really matters.

We might sound different, that’s because we’re on a mission to do travel insurance right.

We sound “different” because we all choose to be here, and with over 40 years of senior experience combined in this industry, we’ve learned a lot. Creating and running Holiday Rescue is a labour of love because we finally have the opportunity to manage travel insurance the way we think – and feel – it should be done.

We specialise in holiday insurance only. We’re not part of a corporate juggernaut or an offshoot of another brand under a different label. We have a core team of five people, who are all passionate about looking after people, supported by a global network of claims assistance specialists, air ambulance operators and emergency travel medicine experts. We only work with the best because we don’t want to compromise the service you receive. And we’re involved with everything from writing this, to making changes to our website, creating the automated emails with your policy details, answering your queries, reviewing any claims that are not immediately approved, taking all your feedback – and on the end of the phone at 3am when our emergency assistance team call to let us know they have to confirm an air ambulance to get you where you can receive the medical treatment you urgently need.

So when it came to writing our policy wording, our goal was to eliminate industry jargon and all those legal phrases and words that most of us shouldn’t have to make such an effort to understand, wherever possible. It’s not perfect, but you can be assured we’re not going to abandon our initial ideals. In fact, whenever we make a change to our policies, our aim is to also improve the policy wording.

Obviously we like selling policies too, but that’s not the reason behind why we choose to be in the travel insurance industry – but then that’s just us.

 

Q. What if I have an emergency?

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