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Destination Florida

As the nights start to draw in and the leaves begin to change colour, Destination Florida starts planning insurance for a unique trip for over 70 children. Each has a life-threatening illness or condition but looks forward to enjoying a week’s holiday in Orlando, Florida.

The USA tempts over three million people to visit its warm culture and spectacular sights every year. However, it has one of the most expensive healthcare systems in the world, exposing travellers with pre-existing medical conditions to high levels of financial risk. So Destination Florida appoints an insurance Broker to assist with each trip’s medical insurance. Every two years, their aim is to enable sick children, medical staff and additional helpers to travel to Florida for a trip of a lifetime.

In 2018, Free Spirit’s Mary Holt was on call to correspond with Destinations Florida’s chosen Broker. An understanding of the children’s medical conditions would be needed, to source the most suitable cover for 70 children living with serious illnesses such as leukaemia, epilepsy or muscular dystrophy.

How did Free Spirit help?

Mary was able to source suitable medical insurance for the children after gaining consent from the underwriters. From an assessment of the medical condition and age of each child, Mary could calculate a premium for two different levels of cover.

Due to it being a great cause and the belief in the work they do, Free Spirit was determined to support Destination Florida as much as possible. Mary was able to work out a special reduction for both Super and Super Duper cover, although given the children’s serious medical conditions and the destination, the charity was advised to take the Super Duper level of cover.

Destination Florida agreed, and chose to take Super Duper cover. They were delighted at the way everything was handled and were even happier with a 25% reduction and the revised premiums.

The benefits of the Super Duper level of cover for the children included:

Cover for all declared medical conditions
• Emergency medical & associated expenses covered up to £10,000,000
• State hospital benefit (£50 every 24hours, of up to £1,500)
• Personal liability of up to £2,000,000
• Over 100 activities were covered for free

Also included were all medical aids and medication. These included items such as walking aids and everyday prescription medication. It also covered emergency packs of medication for the flight, containing needles, syringes and ampules of hydrocortisone, as well as additional, daily medications of hydrocortisone in tablet form.

How else did Free Spirit assist with the trip?

Although there were over 70 children going to Florida, Free Spirit also set up one policy instead of over 70, which assisted the organisation of the trip greatly. Attached to the insurance certificate was a list with every child’s name, medical conditions and the trip organiser’s name.

Sadly, some of the children had to withdraw from the trip, while others became able to attend. Others had changes to their medical conditions. However, Mary worked tirelessly to update and amend the quotation, when required. By the departure date, all the children were fit to travel. A final quotation was completed and a certificate in place for all children to fly to Florida.

With that out of the way, the onus was on making sure every child on the trip had an amazing time. The children had the opportunity to visit all the major theme parks including Animal Kingdom, Universal Studios and of course, the Magic Kingdom. They also had a relaxing day in the hotel pool, took in an eye-popping Cirque Du Soleil show and enjoyed a final night party complete with entertainment.

To learn more about their trip and all the great work the charity is involved with, visit the Destination Florida website.

Become a partner or tell us about a charity that has helped you

We support and work with lots of charities across the UK. Some have even become our partners, where we provide specialist travel insurance to their customers/members. To view all the charities we support, visit our charities page.

If you would like to become a partner/affiliate visit our partner page.

Or, if you are passionate about a charity or organisation, which has made a difference in your life, tell us about it by email.

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