Can they force me to decrypt this gobbledygook?

Factual Questions
1

Purely hypothetical legal/insurance question here. Lawyers, adjusters, and other qualified professionals, feel free to answer without impunity. As for the rest of you, feel free to engage in wild, groundless speculation as usual.

Suppose Psychonaut has an accident while abroad and requires medical attention. Being in a great deal of pain, not to mention at risk of death, he is promptly rushed to some hospital where nobody speaks English, and is treated there by a licenced practitioner of medicine. Upon his discharge from said hospital, he is given a receipt/case summary written partly in Latin and partly in a relatively obscure language which only a few million people on the planet speak, one of which is not Psychonaut. He is also given a medication prescription which is so illegible even the apothecary has trouble deciphering it.

Further suppose that, not wishing to bear the brunt of these unexpected medical expenses himself, Psychonaut wishes to make a claim against the travel insurance he prudently purchased before leaving home. Upon receiving the claim forms from the insurer, he finds attached a cover letter which emphatically stipulates that “ANY document submitted to substantiate your claim must be translated either in the English or French language” [hypothetical emphasis theirs, not mine]. Psychonaut promptly reaches for the original 16-page travel insurance policy he received at the time of original purchase, and, after about half an hour of meticulous reading, notes the conspicuous absence of any term implying that he must submit his receipts in English or French.

So, my hypothetical question is this: can they actually refuse to honour my claim if I don’t fork over the dough for a professional medical translator? (I mean, I doubt the average József here is going to have the first clue how to translate something like “supramaculopapular tachylichenification”.) Or should I just thumb my hypothetical nose at this silly request, submit the documents as-is, and tell them that the linguistic deobfuscation is their baby?

I suppose jurisdiction matters, so here’s a spanner in the works: the putative insurance was bought from a Saskatchewan-based agent of a Quebec-based insurance company, who now want me to submit my claim to an Ontario address. :rolleyes:

2

:smack: Of course, that should read “with impunity”…

3

IANAL, but as far as I know, amendments to a written contract are null and void unless approved by both parties, unless the original contract stipulates that the creator of that contract may, at their discretion, alter the terms with no notification to the parties bound by that contract. You might want to check the “fine print”, as it were, and see if there is any similar language in it.

4

The first thing I would do is ask them to point specifically to the portion of the policy (not the cover letter) that explains the language requirement. If they can, then there’s probably not a whole lot that you can do.

If they can’t then submit the claim with original documents and a “nice” little letter about your willingness to sue them if they don’t honor the claim.

I had a situation where my car was totaled and they wanted to pay me blue book value versus replacement value. They backed down once they knew I would fight it.