That’s how it started. A WhatsApp message from a woman I’d never spoken with before.
She owns a flat in London and a house in Tenerife, where she spends a significant amount of time each year (specifically the whole summer and sometimes beyond). She’s got PMI policy which she took out a few years ago through a large brokerage she found online. The task was dead simple: she has changed her UK bank account and needed to update the payment details for her monthly instalments. Should have been a two-minute job. And yet, by the time she messaged me, two payments had already been missed. She was getting understandably nervous - one more, and the policy would be cancelled.
She tried calling the insurer. No luck.
Why? (and no, I’m not being sarcastic here) — because she genuinely didn’t know that when calling to a UK number from her local phone in Tenerife, you have to replace the first “0” with “+44”. For someone who was born in the UK or lived here for significant amount of time – that’s a common knowledge. But she wasn’t. So she kept calling on the number she had on her paperwork and obviously, nothing worked.
Then she tried reaching her broker.
Now, her English isn’t perfect, hence she decided to give it a go through their online portal (portal was way too complicated for her and off course nothing happened), so she sent them few emails. Each time she got a reply from a different person and each one of them tried to just redirect her back to the same portal. No solution. No action.
Two weeks went by. Still no progress.
She’s quietly panicking as she knows she needs the policy, the payments aren’t going through, she won’t be back in the UK until September, she can’t reach the insurer, and her broker feels scattered across emails, bots, and auto-responders.
Eventually, she called a friend (that friend happens to be one of my clients). Ten minutes later, we’re on the phone. I’ve ask what’s happened, she explains everything, and I smile and say:
“You just need to replace the ‘0’ with ‘+44’ — and the call to your insurer should go through.” She went quiet and then said:
“Oh my God… seriously? Why has no one explained this to me?”
And then it got even more interesting.
We started talking about her policy. Turns out — she has never used it. She took it out “just in case something serious happened” — but all the usual stuff? She’s been paying for it out of pocket. Annual health check, one or two consultations, some bloods, maybe an MRI if needed — nothing major, nothing was diagnosed. But when we added it up? She’s been spending around £3k a year on private healthcare, all while still paying for a UK-based insurance policy she’s never touched. We then did the maths, and it turns out that her domestic policy + out-of-pocket expenses come to more than the cost of a proper international policy that would’ve covered it all from the start.
What will she decide in the end? Well, it’s too early to say. I don’t push people to buy policies from me here and then. But something tells me I’ll be welcoming a new client in the very near future.
So — if you’ve taken out a policy directly, or through a broker that disappeared right after you’ve signed up, then don’t hesitate to get in touch. Let’s check what you’ve actually got and see if it fits your life. And most importantly — if it’s even worth you have it.
Take care — and speak soon.
She owns a flat in London and a house in Tenerife, where she spends a significant amount of time each year (specifically the whole summer and sometimes beyond). She’s got PMI policy which she took out a few years ago through a large brokerage she found online. The task was dead simple: she has changed her UK bank account and needed to update the payment details for her monthly instalments. Should have been a two-minute job. And yet, by the time she messaged me, two payments had already been missed. She was getting understandably nervous - one more, and the policy would be cancelled.
She tried calling the insurer. No luck.
Why? (and no, I’m not being sarcastic here) — because she genuinely didn’t know that when calling to a UK number from her local phone in Tenerife, you have to replace the first “0” with “+44”. For someone who was born in the UK or lived here for significant amount of time – that’s a common knowledge. But she wasn’t. So she kept calling on the number she had on her paperwork and obviously, nothing worked.
Then she tried reaching her broker.
Now, her English isn’t perfect, hence she decided to give it a go through their online portal (portal was way too complicated for her and off course nothing happened), so she sent them few emails. Each time she got a reply from a different person and each one of them tried to just redirect her back to the same portal. No solution. No action.
Two weeks went by. Still no progress.
She’s quietly panicking as she knows she needs the policy, the payments aren’t going through, she won’t be back in the UK until September, she can’t reach the insurer, and her broker feels scattered across emails, bots, and auto-responders.
Eventually, she called a friend (that friend happens to be one of my clients). Ten minutes later, we’re on the phone. I’ve ask what’s happened, she explains everything, and I smile and say:
“You just need to replace the ‘0’ with ‘+44’ — and the call to your insurer should go through.” She went quiet and then said:
“Oh my God… seriously? Why has no one explained this to me?”
And then it got even more interesting.
We started talking about her policy. Turns out — she has never used it. She took it out “just in case something serious happened” — but all the usual stuff? She’s been paying for it out of pocket. Annual health check, one or two consultations, some bloods, maybe an MRI if needed — nothing major, nothing was diagnosed. But when we added it up? She’s been spending around £3k a year on private healthcare, all while still paying for a UK-based insurance policy she’s never touched. We then did the maths, and it turns out that her domestic policy + out-of-pocket expenses come to more than the cost of a proper international policy that would’ve covered it all from the start.
What will she decide in the end? Well, it’s too early to say. I don’t push people to buy policies from me here and then. But something tells me I’ll be welcoming a new client in the very near future.
So — if you’ve taken out a policy directly, or through a broker that disappeared right after you’ve signed up, then don’t hesitate to get in touch. Let’s check what you’ve actually got and see if it fits your life. And most importantly — if it’s even worth you have it.
Take care — and speak soon.