Aussie seriously injured in Bali forced to crowdfund emergency flight home as insurance company drags on

A tourist who suffered horrific injuries in Bali has been forced to crowdfund an emergency flight back to Australia as his insurance company drags on.

Jacob Villablanca, from Terrigal on the NSW Central Coast, was hospitalized after a “serious motorcycle accident” that left him unconscious on Wednesday.

The accident tore the skin and muscles of his shin and caused him to suffer a brain haemorrhage, meaning he needs urgent medical attention at home.

His mother Julie and sister Grace boarded the first plane to Bali to stand by his hospital bedside with his sibling and revealed the family are desperately raising money for his flight back to Australia.

“The insurance company won’t approve it for another four days and that’s too long. We need to get him back immediately for surgery on his leg,” Grace wrote on Facebook.

She also shared a graphic photo of the shin bone where the skin and muscle had been torn off, leaving some of the bone exposed.

Friends at home rallied around the family after it emerged Mr Villablanca required an ‘SOS’ medical evacuation flight back to Australia.

“Jacob was found unconscious and transported to a hospital in Bali,” friend Aimee Kostrubic wrote on a post. GoFundMe.

‘He is now conscious but has significant lower limb damage and some bleeding on the brain.

“Jacob has been advised to return to Australia as soon as possible to receive the medical attention and surgery he desperately needs.”

Mr Villablanca’s family were told he required an SOS pick-up flight due to the extent of his significant injuries, which cost $68,000.

“As you can imagine, the family is extremely sad and wants to get Jacob back to Australia as soon as possible,” Ms Kostrubic said.

“He will need emergency surgery in Western Australia before he can go home.”

More than $50,700 has been raised since the fundraiser was set up Thursday.

The Villablanca family’s battle follows similar negative experiences other Australians have had with insurance companies while traveling.

In June, a fateful decision to relax with some Long Island Iced Teas while on holiday in Thailand changed the lives of a devastated family forever, with one woman’s insurer refusing to pay her medical bills because she was in ‘a vegetative state’ was in hospital.

Pest control company owner Paul Enwright appealed for help to bring his wife Kylee, 48, home from Thailand after a horrific accident left her with catastrophic brain injuries.

The Enwright family from Singleton, NSW, were shocked to find their travel insurance had been voided, with their insurer claiming his partner had consumed too much alcohol before the fall, leaving them with $250,000 in medical bills.

They were on the second day of a holiday in Khao Lak when tragedy struck on May 28, with Mr Enwright openly admitting they had had a few drinks at their resort’s pool bar on a rainy day.

The insurer’s investigators used CCTV footage and the couple’s bar tab, which showed nine Long Island iced teas ordered to their room number, to determine she may have had a blood alcohol level of 0.35.

Disturbing footage showed the grandmother stepping off a wooden plank, apparently mistaken for a staircase, falling 50cm and landing on her face.

The family was hit with a huge medical bill after their insurance company refused to cover the costs due to an alcohol limit clause that Enwrights was unaware of.

According to consumer website Choice, most travel insurance policies have an exclusion clause that covers alcohol and drug use.

Choice warned that this means that ‘there is a good chance that your travel insurer will not pay any claims as a result of you being under the influence of alcohol’.

But like most people, the Enwrights were unaware of the existence of such a clause in their insurance coverage.

In August, an Australian man who crashed his scooter in Bali was hit with a $370,000 bill for not checking the box for $7 motorcycle cover on his travel insurance policy.

Blake Gibb, from Adelaide, traveled with two friends to the Indonesian island of Lombongan earlier this year, where he crashed his scooter into a concrete wall after going around a bend.

He suffered multiple skull fractures and was transported to Bali International Medical Center, where he was put into a coma as he fought for life.

Mr Gibb was later taken to an Adelaide hospital in a serious condition.

His mother Rosslyn Gibb said travel insurer Freely, backed by Cover-More, agreed to pay for Blake’s hospital treatment and medivac on the condition she signed a form saying she would be responsible for the bills if they subsequently denied the claim.

“They (the doctors in Bali) decided to call the medivac team to take him back to Australia because they were worried he wouldn’t make it,” Ms Gibbs told Nine News.

The travel insurer ultimately rejected Gibb’s claim because Blake had not added motorcycle cover to the policy he had taken out.

The family turned to GoFundMe in their desperate attempt to raise money to pay for $370,000 in medical bills.