Tere!
When I visited Japan in 2022, I just wanted to be able to ride on a scooter. A Japanese scooter looks like a moped in Europe. If we have a car driving licence, we can ride on a scooter. I have had a driving licence since the end of 2016, but I had never driven a car or a scooter in Japan. My brother had both a motorcycle and a scooter, so I decided to practise riding scooter in the home garden.
Table of Contents
1. Why the accident occurred
2. Physical injuries
3. Insurance
4. Reimbursement
★Summary
1. Why the accident occurred
My brother taught me how to use the accel, brake, indicators, and so on beforehand. My mum told me not to rotate the handle too much.
I followed what they told me.
I wore a helmet, and rotated the handle a little.
Then it just ran very fast and I collided into the bushes in the garden.
I tried again. Then I collided with a small tree in the garden.
I gave it up.
I thought if I could ride on a scooter, I would be able to go to a shop in the town from my home village, but I gave it up.
Driving a car with manual transmission is much safer.
Anyway, this is how the accident occurred.
2. Physical injuries
After colliding into the tree, I found that my trousers were damaged, and then found a huge hole in the trousers.Those trousers were my favourite and they were not so old.
However, there were two worse damages. Damages to my body.
One of them was a scratch. Though it was just a scratch, the size of the scratch was big, and it was on my knee. It wasn’t bleeding that much, and bleeding stopped very quickly since I have a lot of haemoglobin (according to a doctor who I met when I had my company’s health check in Estonia).
I disinfected the left knee. Also as there was no big plaster at home, I covered the scratch with a cotton soaked with disinfection liquid. Then I covered the cotton piece with a piece of gauze, and taped them.
The other injury occurred to my left front tooth. After colliding into the tree, I felt like the tooth had been rocking. There was no pain, but I felt something. It wasn’t bleeding either.
My mum was working at that time, but she took a short leave, and took me to dental and oral surgery in Tanabe, Wakayama, Japan.
I explained what happened as well as the fact that I live in Estonia.
They did an X-ray check first, and observed all of my teeth. After that, the dentist with a certificate of oral surgery checked the injured tooth.
He said that my jaw has no problem, the root of the injured tooth has no problem, and the tooth wasn’t dislocated either. There is just a contusion. In the future, the nerve around the injured tooth might necrosis, however, this is treatable according to him. Even outside of Japan, the machines that they need to use to treat the necrosis are the same as ones in Japan, so he told me I don’t need to be worried about that.
On the other hand, in order to avoid the necrosis, I need to avoid using the front teeth when chewing, and he prescribed me two medicines: painkillers and antibiotic tablets for three days. The dentist recommended that I not use the front teeth for at least one week.
I was very fortunate that I didn’t get serious injuries.
3. Insurance
Then, you may want to know the price for seeing a dentist and getting a prescription. Let’s talk about that.
I bought travel insurance on Globe Partner. According to their policy, in my case, there are two types of coverages in terms of dental treatment. Before seeing the dentist, I checked this point.
The first type was “Emergency dental treatment”. This includes treatment for decayed teeth and wisdom teeth. Therefore it was not applicable in my case.
The other type was “Dental treatment following an accident”. This covers 100% and up to 600 EUR. I thought this should work.
Then, when I went to the dentist, I asked them to provide me with as many materials and proofs as possible because this sort of insurance asks for lots of documents.
In my case, since the dental and oral surgery clinic sold medicines too, I got a receipt of treatment as well as the prescription document with prices and other details.
To be honest, as I paid the treatment fee at the clinic, I kind of already wanted to give up asking for the reimbursement to the insurance company because it cost only around 7640 JPY (approximately 53 EUR at the rate then). I mean, it’s still a lot, but less than I expected, which was 20,000 JPY (approximately 138 EUR at the rate then).
4. Reimbursement
Since I had travel insurance on Globe Partner, I sent necessary documents to them by email after coming back to Estonia.
The annoying thing was they requested me to send the document twice. Once I thought pictures were not acceptable but I had to give them PDF files of my passport copy. However, as they requested the same thing repeatedly, I replied to them to check my documents thoroughly. Then they were shut up.
After that, it did not take much time to receive the compensation. (I got the compensation in EUR.) I was afraid that Globe Partner might be like My trip, but they were more reliable. It was my second time to use their travel insurance, and the first time to request compensation, and yet the result was all good.
★Summary
I was very lucky that the injuries are really small although I’m not sure if my left front tooth will necrosis in the future.
I strongly realised and told my mum that driving a car with manual transmission is much safer than riding a scooter because a car with manual transmission has a clutch pedal, whilst a scooter requires control only from the handles!
Aitäh! 🙂
zooks.ee 