
Sunday 26th of November 2017 10:38:37 PM
We purchased the Annual Basic Plan at a cost of around $250. During our recent trip to Tahiti, we were forced to use the plan due to my wife's severe sciatica which rendered her incapable of movement or self-care. On the positive side, the Plan is cheap. On the negative side, the assistance we received was consistently late, ineffective, and poorly delivered. To start, it was impossible to reach Allianz by telephone from our cruise ship... We were kept on an endless hold. Next, it took Allianz two days to get things moving, all the while my wife was in pain in a primitive clinic on a remote island. Throughout the process, it was like dealing with the worst government bureaucracy. The medical department did not talk to the customer service department which meant that the customer service department was consistently 12-24 hours behind things. In the end, I just started calling the medical department directly with the doctor in charge (but this was only workable because the doctor was willing to spend the time...most won't). I learned from the local hospital much more than I ever did from Allianz's customer service. For instance, we were kept on hold about a medical evacuation to the main island until about an hour before the evacuation, even though it was clear that the local provider was fully aware of the time.Each time I called Allianz, I had to speak to a different person and inevitably they had no idea what was actually happening. Their case notes seemed to be completely disorganized. The execution in terms of arranging transport was poor due partly I think to internal bureaucracy and partly to the fact that they just want to save money. Multiple times I had to intervene with the travel arrangements to fix errors that Allianz had made. For instance, my wife was only able to travel with a reclining seat to prevent her bone spur from impinging on her nerve. This was made clear to Allianz multiple times. Then on our flight from LAX to Houston, we were initially in non-reclining business class seats. This just shows a lack of attention and care for customers in distress.Be aware that the Basic Plan only covers the cost of evacuation by commercial aircraft in a normal business class seat. Even though Allianz and other insurers advertise coverages of $100,000 or above for this feature, it does not include any kind of air ambulance or stretcher flight. I think it's misleading to advertise such high maximums: When would you ever spend $100,000 on a purely commercial flight? Going forward, we're only going to take insurance that covers medical evacuation by whatever means are necessary. God forbid one of us had a stroke or heart attack... Allianz would have left us to rot in a clinic in Tahiti.