I just had to go to hospital after 3 days of increasing fever and a bad cold. The hospital wanted to admit me straight away, so I gave them my insurance details. There were a few snags to begin with: seems the hospital's lines were toll barred, they couldn't call Australia. So, I called them from my mobile, but my credit got burned up in Mondial Assistance's waiting loop. I guess this is partly my own fault, as MA actually have an office with freephone number in Bangkok, which I discovered later.

The hospital then managed to call them using another prefix (don't know how this works...) and from then on it was all plain sailing. I was still in the process of being transferred to a ward and I got to speak with one of their doctors, who was friendly and gave the impression he was genuinely concerned about my welfare. After that I didn't have to worry about anything connected with insurance or payment any more. When I was discharged 2 days later the insurance arranged to pay the hospital directly and I only had to pay a small amount.

All in all a mostly positive experience and lesson learnt: collect all the relevant phone numbers before I need them.

Pity they don't cover UK people on bikes, but they will cover my Thai partner.

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Cheers,
Peter.

Europe to NZ 2006-10