Snowbirds fly into COVID storm
For many, judging the Mailmans came easy.
The Valley couple had grabbed cheap flights to Florida in the midst of a pandemic. They failed to ensure they had travel medical insurance. Then they caught COVID-19 and now face huge medical bills.
Our news article this week on the Mailmans drew more than 1,100 comments on Facebook — most condemning the pair as stupid and getting what they deserved.
But before piling on any further, let’s take a closer look at the lives of Debbie, 63, and Wayne, 74.
“I would say that they are ignorant of our situation,” Debbie said when I asked her about the online criticism. She hadn’t read the comments but her son told her they were nasty.
“Until they’ve walked a mile in my shoes, they can’t judge me.”
Here’s their story.
The Aylesford couple have been travelling south every winter for more than a decade. The reason? To ease the chronic pain that plagues them during Nova Scotia winters.
“My husband fell off the roof when we lived in Ontario, when he was 59 years old,” Debbie said. He had been taking down Christmas lights. “He broke his back in two places. The doctors told him he’d never walk again. But he did.
“But he is in constant pain, in his back, in his legs. He can barely move in the wintertime, it hurts so bad. But when we go to Florida, he doesn’t have any of that pain. He’s just normal.”
And her?
“I have arthritis. I have fibromyalgia. I have very painful bouts with Crohn’s disease. And liver disease. I’m in constant pain in the wintertime because it’s just so cold,” she said. “When I go to Florida, I’m almost normal. I have hardly any pain at all.”
They discovered the benefits of Florida’s sunshine while visiting her aunt and uncle, who live in a motor home park in Largo, a small community (pop: 84,970) between Tampa Bay
and St. Petersburg.
They started returning — to the same motor home park — every winter they could. First they rented, then they bought property.
They always drove, Debbie said. Flying was too hard on their bodies.
“We flew down twice and that’s when we decided we’re not flying anymore because we get too sick,” she said. “The first time I flew down, I was sick for two weeks. Headaches, body ache, all that stuff.”
Wayne got equally sick, she said.
Now, back to last fall. COVID-19 was something the Mailmans mainly heard about on the news. In Aylesford, a small town (2011 pop: 2,408) in the Valley where “everybody knows everybody,” no one they knew had gotten sick.
Still, Debbie asked people at the motor home park in Largo, including her best friend, about the situation.
“She said the park had no COVID. And the little church where we attend (there) had no COVID. They said most of it is over near the big airports. And she said, ‘We just don’t have it here.’”
They were also encouraged that Canadian Snowbird Association’s endorsed travel insurer, Medipac, covered
COVID-19 medical expenses. Medipac’s coverage is not affected by Canadian federal government travel advisories telling travellers to avoid non-essential, or even all, travel to a location due to COVID-19.
Back to the narrative. The Mailmans hoped to drive to Florida, as usual. But the land border was closed. They concluded their only option was to fly, despite the short-term impact on their bodies.
They bought Medipac travel insurance, to begin Jan. 1, 2021. Debbie packed the insurance papers in her suitcase. Were they warned not to go by anyone?
“Our kids told us to be careful. And other family members said, ‘You sure you want to go down there? You know, it’s COVID.’ You know, just the normal stuff,” said Debbie. “But no one came out and said, ‘Don’t go.’”
They planned to be careful, get to their motor home park where they’d been assured there was no coronavirus and not go anywhere.
Then, weeks later while looking for flights, Debbie noticed Air Canada was offering a tremendous deal. They could fly to Tampa Bay (close to Largo) for $488.
And so, they made the fateful decision to fly early, on
Dec. 5.
For whatever reason, however, the thought of updating their medical travel insurance — documents still packed away in her suitcase — never entered her mind, Debbie said.
In Tampa, a neighbour from Largo picked them up and took them home, roughly a 25-minute drive.
As expected, they felt lousy, Debbie said, similar to previous times they had flown, she said. “We just thought it was from flying.”
Then, a week or so later, she opened her suitcase for something and saw the insurance papers.
“‘Oh, look, Wayne,’ I said, ‘We’re not really covered because it starts Jan. 1. I better give them a call.’ Because there’s a couple of weeks left in December, you never know what could happen” Debbie said. “So, I did.”
She called Medipac on Dec. 21 and paid, by credit card, for coverage to begin immediately. She said she was given policy numbers to verify the coverage. But her credit card was never charged.
The next day, Wayne began feeling much worse and was taken to hospital.
Debbie said hospital staff asked her about any symptoms.
“‘Do you have a headache?’
Well, yeah, I have a headache every day. ‘Do you have body aches?” Yeah, I have body aches every day,” she said. “So, they assumed, because I had this and this and this, I had COVID. Then, when they did the test, it came back positive.”
She was in hospital for eight days. Wayne, much sicker, spent almost a month.
Medipac informed her they wouldn’t be covering her medical bills.
“They said we knew we had COVID when we called up on the 21st. Well, no, I didn’t.”
The insurance company did pay to have Wayne medically evacuated back to Nova Scotia on Jan. 20, because they knew the Mailmans couldn't afford the rising hospital bill, Debbie said.
Wayne’s bill is in excess of $300,000, Debbie said, She doesn’t know what her hospital stay will cost but that’s not being covered, either. They still have no idea where they caught COVID-19.
Debbie said she plans to hire a lawyer to fight the insurance company.
So, let’s review.
The Snowbird Association’s endorsed travel insurer offers insurance explicitly for people like the Mailmans who fly into Florida despite the COVID-19 situation. Buyers of Medipac’s annual plans, like the Mailmans, can apparently purchase extensions to coverage, even if out of the country.
It comes down to what Debbie and Wayne knew on Dec. 21. Given how much flying always leaves them feeling sick, Debbie said they had no idea they had COVID-19. The insurance company disagrees.
It looks like lawyers will be fighting this one out.
Meanwhile, the Mailmans get clobbered online.
“Most of social media is negative and nasty,” Debbie said. “They’re not looking at the issues, they’re just looking at people who are stupid enough to go to Florida during COVID.
“I really feel sorry for them, because they have not developed any empathy skills at all. They’re just going by, one trying to outdo the other being nasty. That’s all.”