An Oshawa man must pay a $147,502 medical bill despite having travel insurance
He was hospitalized for eight days during a trip to Mexico
An Oshawa man who travelled to Mexico in 2024 is being charged $147,502 for a medical bill, even though he had travel insurance covering health care while abroad.
Two days after Bahoz Ali’s trip began, he started feeling sick. He had multiple seizures, requiring hospitalization. In the hospital, he fell into a coma.
“At that point, my brain goes numb, and I don’t remember much of anything afterwards,” Ali told CTV News.
He was treated in Mexico for eight days, then returned to Canada by air ambulance.
A year later, his insurance company informed him that his claim was denied, and insisted Ali was on the hook for the six-figure medical bill.
“There is no way to expect a typical household to pay over $147,000,” Ali’s brother, Hano, told CTV.
It turns out that Ali had visited a walk-in clinic in Ontario for flu-like symptoms prior to his trip, which Manulife, his insurance company, discovered through an investigation of the claim.
“Manulife can confirm that medical records indicate that prior to travel, Mr. Ali was experiencing symptoms and had sought medical care related to a pre‑existing condition,” the insurance company told CTV. “Under the policy, this condition fell within the three-month stability period prior to departure. Since the condition was known at the time of travel based on the prior medical care, this affected how coverage was applied.”
CTV interviewed Martin Firestone, the president of Travel Secure Inc., a travel insurance company. He described the situation as unfortunate, especially because Ali’s Mexico hospital stay seems potentially unrelated to the flu symptoms that prompted him to visit a walk-in clinic.
“Doctors here say it had nothing to do with the flu or any of the symptoms he represented,” he said. “But the insurance company is saying, ‘we believe there is a connection between the two.’ That’s the problem.”
Ali’s family has appealed the decision twice, but has been unsuccessful.
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Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
