Inter Group, the UK's biggest travel claims and assistance provider, is to look at setting up its own medical centre in Spain in an effort to combat medical fraud.


Jonathan Russell

Inter Group, the UK's biggest travel claims and assistance provider, is to look at setting up its own medical centre in Spain in an effort to combat medical fraud.

The initiative comes in response to tourists, and their insurers, being saddled with inflated bills and unnecessary treatment when taken sick abroad.

Inter Group managing director Laurie Hopkins said: "Private Spanish medical care providers are very experienced at taking advantage of the large tourist market. This results in inflated bills and exaggerated, unessential medical treatment."

Spain accounts for over 40% of the British holiday market, with around 13 million people visiting every year.

Though British tourists in Spain are entitled to free medical treatment, many of them are funnelled into private clinics where they can be misled into having unnecessary treatment. Insurers report tourists in Spain being hospitalised for headaches, having limbs encased in plaster following sprains and in one case having a gall bladder removed after suffering indigestion.

Problem clinics in Spain, Corfu and Malta have all been identified by insurers and reported to the relevant authorities. Both the ABI and insurers are urging travellers to use the 24-hour emergency helplines as a way of combating the problem.

Hopkins said: "Attempts to overcome this are made through auditing and obtaining discounts.

"Nevertheless, this only goes so far and is the same as any assistance company can offer insurers. Companies must therefore explore any practical means of wresting control from the Spanish providers' hands."