Heart bypass patient from overseas tries third NZ court for $105,000 insurance claim

Heart bypass was performed in Auckland when the visitor was here for a three-month holiday. Photo / File

An Indian man who bought travel insurance from New Zealand’s Southern Cross has gone to a third court over his $105,000 claim after he suddenly needed a $116,000 heart bypass at Auckland Hospital.

The man was on holiday and bought the policy for just three months.

First, the self-represented Stewar Singh Jabbara went to the District Court, then the High Court and now has gone to the Court of Appeal over his claim.

It’s all over a policy he bought to cover him from only December 2020 to February 2021.

But during that time here, he suddenly needed heart bypass surgery, a court decision showed.

Jabbara had that done at Auckland Hospital but because as a foreigner, he was invoiced for $116,000.

He said he relied on Southern Cross to pay that out but it has not fully covered the expense, with $105,000 still outstanding.

So he took action in the District Court against Southern Cross Benefits, which owned Southern Cross Travel then.

But in the meantime, he made an application to the High Court at Auckland asking to get the case heard there.

During the High Court hearing earlier this year, Jabbara advised he had difficulty hearing and “was not very tech savvy”, the judge noted.

His daughter Jaisleen Khanna was with him at the hearing. She sought to appear on his behalf.

But the judge ruled against that. When told, Justice Pheroze Jagose got an adverse reaction.

“I asked Ms Khanna to communicate that decision to Mr Jabbara. She advised she would appeal my decision to the Court of Appeal,” Justice Jagose noted.

The foreign patient who has a bill exceeding $100,000 tried taking his case to the Court of Appeal. Photo / NZME

Jabbara had decided to apply to the High Court to hear his case, claiming a hearing in the District Court would be unfair.

In the latest ruling on August 28, Justice David Goddard at the Court of Appeal dismissed Jabbara’s application.

But it wasn’t the substance of his claim at the centre of that case, but rather whether his daughter who lives in New Zealand could represent him.

She prepared various documents and participated in case management hearings before the District Court.

In the District Court last October, a judge issued a minute recording that Jabbara and Khanna would need to file an application for leave for her to appear on his behalf.

He wanted to argue in the Court of Appeal that permission should be granted for his daughter to represent him.

But the appeal court rejected that application and noted: “Southern Cross was put to some cost in responding to this application, despite not opposing it. They should not have been put to the trouble and cost of responding to this application.”

That decision also referred to Jabbara’s application as “misconceived”.

Jabbara had previously argued moving the case from the District to the High Court would mean a quicker outcome.

Confident of a victory, he said that would enable faster payment of Auckland Hospital’s invoice which was of substantial public interest and in the interests of justice, he told the High Court judge.

Southern Cross, represented by Tiffany Utama earlier this year, opposed that because the proceedings were already set down for a substantive hearing in the District Court.

The matter was “a straightforward dispute raising no issue of public importance”, the insurer told the High Court.

Jabbara has claimed Southern Cross has exploited its financial superiority to his detriment, the March decision said.

The case did not hear the substantive matter, nor extensive evidence from Southern Cross.

His application that the High Court hear his matter was rejected, just like his last Appeal Court case.

Southern Cross declined to comment this week on the latest ruling in the long-running saga.

The parent entity of Southern Cross Travel is Southern Cross Health Society. That opened in 1961, is a not-for-profit membership-based entity and says it paid 72 per cent of all NZ health insurance claims in the last five years.

Southern Cross Health Society paid around 86c in the dollar in insurance premiums in claims for the year to June 30, 2022.

Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 23 years, has won many awards, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.