Unexplained Illness
If you have suffered with an illness on your holiday, we want to hear from you, even if you believe you do not have sufficient evidence to support your claim.
A large proportion of people we speak to and process claims for have had an unconfirmed bacterial infection, yet they still suffered with diarrhoea, sickness and stomach cramps on their holiday. As such, people often make enquiries under the impression that they are unable to make a claim due to a lack of concrete evidence.
This can be due to several reasons. Many are simply too busy to visit their GP on return or feel they are well enough to avoid going. Some are unable to locate their booking documents, some no longer have the pill-packets from the medications they took and some feel that fact they didn’t report the incident to the hotel at the time will go against them.
None of these are strictly essential in getting your claim underway. Such cases are dealt with on the balance-of-probabilities; we consider the amount of evidence you have along with details of the illness you have suffered against the number of reported illnesses from that hotel. If we have had previous reports of similar illnesses by other guests, there is a high probability that we can pursue your claim.
We often hear reports of negative stool samples, but don’t be alarmed – this is a common occurrence and can be due to several factors, such as:
- The antibiotics prescribed abroad were effective in eradicating the bacteria in your gastrointestinal tract, resulting in a negative stool sample.
- Your GP back home sent a limited-range stool sample, testing for only a minor proportion of the potential infective bacteria/parasites. This would result in a negative result unless further strain analysis was completed.
- Your GP back home recommended allowing time for the infection to resolve by itself. By the time a sample was submitted the bacteria had been beaten by your natural immune system, again resulting in a negative sample.
- You were unable to visit their GP for a prolonged period of time due to other commitments.
We commonly hear from teachers, carers, police officers and shift workers who have been unable to visit their GP surgery upon returning to the UK because of their working hours; this will always be taken into consideration when making a claim.
If you are having doubts regarding the amount of evidence you have, please let a member of our team look through the details for you. We have successfully recovered thousands of pounds for people just like you who thought it wasn’t possible
