Dee Marquette-Slight

In 2014, Dee Marquette-Slight was diagnosed with a Neuroendocrine Tumour (NETs) a rare condition where tumours can appear in different areas of the body that form the neuroendocrine system, including the stomach, bowel and lungs.
Her life was changed completely; the tumour was found in her small intestine and had spread to her liver and she was told it was incurable, inoperable but manageable. She was also advised not to travel due to the aggressive treatment

she faced – doubly devastating because she and her husband both had a passion for travel.
However, undeterred, once her condition went into a managed phase, nine months later, she felt sure her travelling could resume. However she hadn’t realised how difficult it would be to obtain the insurance she needed. She tried all the usual outlets but was faced with insufficient cover and/or prohibitively high premiums. Sometimes after many minutes of medical screening she would simply be told the company could not progress her application.

Fortunately, Dee was signposted to BIBA member, PJ Hayman’s Free Spirit scheme, which was able to help. One month after having radionuclide therapy, she was on a cruise. Knowing she was fully covered gave Dee the confidence to travel further.

Talking about Dee’s travel ambitions led Free Spirit to look for an annual travel insurance solution to save her both time and money. Using their experience and understanding of Dee’s individual circumstances, an annual policy was made available and adapted to give Dee full cover for her condition regardless of the number of trips she made in a year.

Dee said: “Some providers would not even cover me excluding my NETs. Since finding Free Spirit we have been able to travel to some amazing places in the world. I’m also delighted that Mary and the team at Free Spirit have offered their help and advice to the NET Patient Foundation to assist people with the same challenges who really need to get the right insurance from the right sources.”

Mr Dingwall (70) and I have a number of health conditions that we are taking medication for and we have struggled to get adequate insurance through other providers.

We planned a last minute trip to Barcelona in September, so we decided to purchase our policy in August. Our telephone enquiry (with Rebecca from Avanti Insurance Brokers) must have taken the best part of 40 minutes, but she was professional and empathetic the whole way through the conversation which really put us at ease.

By the end of the conversation, we were not only really pleased with both the price and the customer service, but we were also able to go on holiday with complete peace of mind knowing that we were covered in case of an emergency abroad. I will definitely be taking all of our future travel insurance with BIBA broker Avanti.

Mrs Patricia Dingwall (76) from North Yorkshire

Customers have told us how valuable signposting can be.

Mark Scholefield who suffers from cerebral palsy, plays wheelchair basketball at a high level and has just secured a contract to play professionally for an Italian team. He was due to leave the UK in September 2013 to play in Italy until May 2014. Mark experienced difficulty accessing insurance for his personal possessions, medical cover and his car.

Mark’s mother Karen Scholefield was assisted by Sandra Dawson from H&R Insurance Services and in addition was signposted to the BIBA Find a Broker helpline. She was put through to relevant brokers for each type of insurance where solutions were provided.

Karen said:

The brokers provided an excellent service, the process was very straight forward, they ran through the main features of the insurance policies with me. They were a tremendous help and it was a great comfort to know that Mark had appropriate cover in place prior to his departure.

Mark and Karen Scholefield

Having been victims of a devastating arson attack in July 2012, we were very concerned about the risks to the future of our business. We looked to our insurance broker for their support.

By 8am our insurance broker J & A Brokers Limited heard about the fire and was immediately on-site with all documentation and was actively sorting out the situation. We had lost all power on-site including phone lines that could not be redirected, but thanks to the help from our broker, by the end of the day we had full power with restored phone lines and were able to operate again.

We can’t thank J&A Brokers enough, for their hands-on approach. We feel that the support, help and advice we have received following the terrible incident were critical to the survival of our business.

Alasdair Newton
Omega Business Suppliers

Mrs Ellis needed to find insurance for her daughter’s car which was in France but would be returning to the UK. Having trawled the internet and spoken to a number of different insurers she was becoming increasingly frustrated at her lack of progress. It was important to Mrs Ellis that the correct insurance was put in place.

Fortunately, it was suggested to Mrs Ellis that she call the BIBA Find a Broker helpline; she did and with the help of a BIBA insurance broker, was guided through the process and found a suitable solution.

Mrs Ellis

Having been victims of a devastating arson attack in January 2010, we were completely overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation. We did not know what or how to go about trying to sort things out.

By 9am our insurance broker Adrian Sutton, of Douglas Insurance Services, had heard about the fire and was immediately on site and actively sorting out the situation. By 12.30pm our broker had us viewing temporary premises, by 2 pm we had met the loss adjuster who arranged for the salvage team to start clearing the property and by 4 pm the property had been boarded up, made safe and we felt we could leave.

Our broker continued to work late into the evening and the next day was back on site with lots of ideas for publicity and the new temporary premises. He could see we were still completely shell-shocked by the events and continued to support us over the weekend popping round to the shop and ringing to check on progress of the stock take every day.

Even now as things have calmed down and business is picking up, our broker is continuing to help with the claims presentation and is on hand if anything crops up that we are unsure of. We feel that the support, help and advice we have received since that fateful evening has been incalculable. Without our broker we would not have re-opened Thornton’s Cycle Centre two weeks after a fire which destroyed all our stock. In fact we probably would not be open even now.

David and Nicola Thornton
Partners of Thornton’s Cycle Centre

In 2015, the Taxi Charity10 – run and funded by London’s cab drivers – took 120 veterans back to the Netherlands to attend a commemoration ceremony for the Liberation of Arnhem in 1945. The veterans who came from all over the UK had not been back since they left the war torn city 70 years earlier. The oldest veteran to travel was aged 97, with a further 100 veterans aged 90 or above so specialist travel insurance was vital.

BIBA member, PJ Hayman & Co Ltd, via its Free Spirit scheme, took an innovative approach to the insurance requirements and abandoned the ‘one size fits all’ standard policy and stepped outside the usual medical screening ‘box’ to provide the Taxi Charity with a tailor-made policy including blanket cover for the medical risks of the travelling group.

Mary Holt, Free Spirit Manager explained; “It would have been an impossible task to medically screen each person. Providing the insurance wasn’t just about ages and medical risks, it was about giving the veterans the peace of mind that should something happen to them on their trip, they would be covered.”  Free Spirit was able to offer full policy cover to a total of 306 veterans, committee members, carers, drivers, medical support team members and guests. We are pleased to say the whole travelling group returned safely with not a single claim against the policy.

#Making Memories

In the summer of 2015 the Liversidge family were unable to find travel insurance for terminally ill Jason Liversidge due to the seriousness of his conditions.

Liz Liversidge tells the story:

“My husband is the only person in the world with both Motor Neurone and Fabry disease. This meant we just could not find travel insurance to have our dream holiday to Disney World, so we were delighted when BIBA broker & MND Association volunteer Greg Broadhurst saw our tweet for help and contacted BIBA.  A quick tweet back from BIBA and we were able to use its Find-A Broker service which thankfully was able to provide a suitable insurance policy so we could have this important holiday together.

I want to highlight to others the benefits of the BIBA Find-A-Broker service which enabled me to arrange cover and, could do so for others even if they have a number of serious conditions like my husband.”

Watch the full story here