"Emergency Assistance was excellent!" 

Peter, 76, and his wife are from Baulkham Hills, NSW, and never expected a cobblestone would change their whole travel itinerary. 

"It was a world cruise Sydney to Europe, via Melbourne, Adelaide, Fremantle, Dubai, Oman, Jordan, Suez Canal to Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, St Petersburg, Estonia and Latvia, the UK, Ireland, Canada and New York, where we left the ship with the aim of spending four weeks in the USA."

No one expects to have to cut a holiday short... 

"While in Amsterdam I broke my leg (I use a wheelchair and my foot came off the footplates while bouncing over cobblestones, and it got caught in cobble stones bending my leg back behind me). The ship's doctor x-rayed my leg and fitted a surgical boot and allowed us to continue on the cruise. On the ship my wife received both physical and emotional support from fellow passengers, but in New York we were "on our own" and it became too stressful. So we cancelled our train journey to Washington, our hotel in Washington and our flights to San Francisco and Sydney."

"Very helpful claims staff."

"Emergency assistance centre was excellent and advised us to contact them if we found we needed medical assistance in the USA. Also very helpful claims staff. The only difficulty was getting information from the tour operators, but the claims staff took over and eventually got the information they needed."

Peter – 76 year old traveller from Baulkham Hills, NSW

Peter's worldwide cruise comes to an unexpected end

Peter and his wife were on a round-the-world cruise from Sydney to New York and had planned to spend four weeks in the USA afterwards. However, their plans were unexpectedly cut short when Peter broke his leg on cobblestones in Amsterdam. The on-board doctor fitted a surgical boot, but the couple decided to fly straight home for treatment after disembarking in New York. They were able to claim for their cancelled train journey to Washington, as well as the pre-paid accommodation, domestic flights within the USA and the return flights home.  

What travellers can learn from Peter sharing his experience 

Be mindful of where you will be travelling to - does it have a lot of hills and valleys or is it surrounded by mountains and lush scenery? Snowing or rainy? Knowing the landscape of where you are going may help reduce your risk of getting hurt.

Fast Cover thanks Peter's for sharing his story to highlight the importance of purchasing travel insurance and how it helped in his specific circumstances. If you'd like to share your travel insurance claim story to help your fellow travellers, you can fill out our online travel insurance claims stories form.

Traveller details have been changed to protect their privacy.

Claims are assessed based on individual circumstances and your policy details. Refer to our Product Disclosure Statement here.