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Axa 'threatened to cancel cover' for Briton in coma after US crash
The Guardian
|November 27, 2024
The daughter of a woman who suffered brain injuries while on holiday in the US has said she was told by her insurer that her mother must return to the UK, against the advice of doctors, or face having funding for her medical care withdrawn.
Jane Rubens, 73, from Edinburgh, is in a coma after being hit, as a pedestrian, by a vehicle in St Louis, Missouri, at the start of November. The collision left her with severe brain injuries requiring multiple surgeries.
Her daughter, Cat Rubens, says insurance company Axa Partners has insisted her mother be repatriated to the UK - against the advice of experts.
"We have been shown zero empathy, customer care or reasonableness from Axa at one of the darkest times of our lives," she wrote on X.
Rubens, a solicitor, described how she communicated the medical advice from neurologists in both the UK and US to the insurer, but was told on Sunday that the family had to agree that day to repatriate her mother by today or cover for her medical expenses in the US would cease.
This story is from the November 27, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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