The new service will see Allianz Worldwide Care (AWC) use commercial flights to evacuate insured members who are medically stable, accompanied at all times by one of Allianz Worldwide Care’s own doctors, the company said.
It will supplement AWC’s use of existing “air-ambulance partners” to transport insured individuals who are in a medically critical condition, delivering "significant cost savings to corporate clients", AWC said in announcing the new service.
Dr Ulrike Sucher, medical director at Allianz Worldwide Care, said the demand for the evacuation of insured individuals was growing, for a number of reasons, including a rise in the number of AWC’s corporate clients whose employees are working in remote regions within Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, where a shortage of medical facilities "means a greater reliance on evacuation services following a medical emergency".
In addition, "advancements in medical treatments and/or medical specialism in specific countries means that sometimes insured members need to be brought to another country to receive the care they need," he said.
"Added to this is the increase in natural disasters such as storms, earthquakes and floods, which can result in people needing medical treatment at a time when the closest medical facilities [to them] may have been damaged."
AWC said it had trialled its new Medical Escort Service over the past 12 months.
AWC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Allianz SE, the Munich-based holding company of Allianz Group, the multi-national insurance and financial services giant.
