Travel Insurance - medical condition?

lobster123

I usually buy my Travel Insurance from Travelibility (They cover pre-existing medical conditions). Just had a quote for £77 for 2 people to American but can get a similar policy from Karma for £43.

Not much of a saving I know. However............better in my pocket. Has anyone got any experience with either company.

Many thanks

dacouch

Its a very cheap premium for America, you title mentions you have Medical Conditions, have you declared them to Karma?

The Policy is underwritten by Whitehorse Insurance whose reputation is not the greatest, have a look at post 64 on this thread by FHBrit (FH Brit is an expat who works in Florida and chases Brits for money that is outstanding from their medical bills often because their Insurers are not paying out). I have copied and pasted his comments. (The medical assistance is from Axa which he has problems with as well)

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1011487&highlight=fhbrit&page=4

UPDATE - BEWARE!

WHITE HORSE INSURANCE IRELAND LTD.
P.O. Box 178
Breadford
BD11 2WS

please bear this in mind if you are thinking of taking out a policy with this company. There is very little help that you can get if you have the need to complain. This company is based in Dublin (I assume their Bradford PO Box is a forwarding address) and with my experiences with them they are totally useless (cannot even see that a bill for £5,000.00 is not the same bill as one for £956.00! ! ! let alone cannot see the difference in the name of the companies sending them bills).

This company I have now found out are NOT registered or regulated by the Financial Services Authority and therefore you have little recourse in the event of a complain or dissagreement. They are registered with The Irish version of the FSA but it don't help if you are in the UK.

Please beware - you could buy the policy and then end up paying all you medical bills - just like my customer this morning ($12,000.00)

http://www.karmainsurance.com/includes/appendix/Policy%20Wording%20TP.pdf

lobster123

dacouch wrote: »

Its a very cheap premium for America, you title mentions you have Medical Conditions, have you declared them to Karma?

The Policy is underwritten by Whitehorse Insurance whose reputation is not the greatest, have a look at post 64 on this thread by FHBrit (FH Brit is an expat who works in Florida and chases Brits for money that is outstanding from their medical bills often because their Insurers are not paying out). I have copied and pasted his comments. (The medical assistance is from Axa which he has problems with as well)

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1011487&highlight=fhbrit&page=4

UPDATE - BEWARE!

WHITE HORSE INSURANCE IRELAND LTD.
P.O. Box 178
Breadford
BD11 2WS

please bear this in mind if you are thinking of taking out a policy with this company. There is very little help that you can get if you have the need to complain. This company is based in Dublin (I assume their Bradford PO Box is a forwarding address) and with my experiences with them they are totally useless (cannot even see that a bill for £5,000.00 is not the same bill as one for £956.00! ! ! let alone cannot see the difference in the name of the companies sending them bills).

This company I have now found out are NOT registered or regulated by the Financial Services Authority and therefore you have little recourse in the event of a complain or dissagreement. They are registered with The Irish version of the FSA but it don't help if you are in the UK.

Please beware - you could buy the policy and then end up paying all you medical bills - just like my customer this morning ($12,000.00)

http://www.karmainsurance.com/includes/appendix/Policy%20Wording%20TP.pdf

Thank you so much for getting back to me. I'll give Karma a miss now and make a few calls to other companies that have been recommended on this site.

dacouch

Have a read of the thread I posted as FH Brit has some good advice on there, he gives his opinions on the companies to avoid and the ones he personally finds are good to use

lobster123

dacouch wrote: »

Have a read of the thread I posted as FH Brit has some good advice on there, he gives his opinions on the companies to avoid and the ones he personally finds are good to use

Found some interesting info. Thanks

Martin recommends Travelbility but they appear to be connected to Axa which FH Brit says to avoid at all cost. See below.........

TRAVELBILITY

Dedicated travel insurance for people who are disabled and those with pre-existing medical conditions, Travelbility provides you with easily arranged cover for travel in Europe, the US or Worldwide. Designed to give you full peace of mind, Travelbility is administered by J&M Insurance Services (UK) plc and backed by AXA Insurance.

Still feeling confused

dacouch

I'm in the industry and would agree with FH Brits comments on the good guys and bad guys. Axa are a massive company and don't intend to be bad payers, they are just badly organised and constantly restructure. They generally offer good cover but when things go wrong with them it takes a lot to get it sorted out. Axa tend to underwrite a lot of the policies in the industry.

I like Fortis who FH Brit also recommends, they underwrite the Post Office Policy or you can go into most local brokers and they tend to recommend Fortis for travel.

What is a good trick is to have a look at the website for the disability you or your family have and they often have a link with an Insurer as well as useful advice for when you travel. Have a look at them and check who they are underwritten by.

One of the other points FH Brit makes is that on some policies Axa do not underwrite it but offer the "Assistance Services" this is basically the telephone number you ring in a medical emergency. He also advises avoiding those policies, you can check who underwrites the policy and who provides the Assistance Services by looking at the last few pages of the policy wording. If your not sure post up here the website and we will find it for you

lobster123

dacouch wrote: »

I'm in the industry and would agree with FH Brits comments on the good guys and bad guys. Axa are a massive company and don't intend to be bad payers, they are just badly organised and constantly restructure. They generally offer good cover but when things go wrong with them it takes a lot to get it sorted out. Axa tend to underwrite a lot of the policies in the industry.

I like Fortis who FH Brit also recommends, they underwrite the Post Office Policy or you can go into most local brokers and they tend to recommend Fortis for travel.

What is a good trick is to have a look at the website for the disability you or your family have and they often have a link with an Insurer as well as useful advice for when you travel. Have a look at them and check who they are underwritten by.

One of the other points FH Brit makes is that on some policies Axa do not underwrite it but offer the "Assistance Services" this is basically the telephone number you ring in a medical emergency. He also advises avoiding those policies, you can check who underwrites the policy and who provides the Assistance Services by looking at the last few pages of the policy wording. If your not sure post up here the website and we will find it for you

Thank you agian for all your advice. I seem to be getting heavily loaded fo my medical condition which is stable. Epilepsy, no seizures for 15 plus years but still on medication

Whilst trawling through the message board, I read some favourable reviews for Insure and Go. What are your views on this company:

INSURE AND GO

Travel Insurance is provided by Europ Assistance Holdings Limited who are authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Policies are underwritten by Europ Assistance Holding Irish Branch.

Many thanks again.

dacouch

You may find these links helpful.

http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/travel.html

http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/services/insurance_travel.html

Europ Assist are not to bad.

Another thing to bear in mind, its often around the same price to take out an annual multi trip policy as it is a single trip policy if one of the trips is to America. So it might be worth you having a look at an annual quote

tralu

Dacouch.

You say you are in the Industry? And that you know there are good and bad guys out there.
Having had first hand experience of Axa's behaviour, i would not make any excuse for them, ie... Being a massive company does not excuse them from being badly organised and constantly restructure.
They have a duty of care to their customers, and should sort out any claims outstanding in a timely fashion. BUT... they don't!!!! In my experience they constantly buck passed, promised, but never delivered! Surely a Massive Company like AXA should never behave in such a way? I will never deal with any insurance company that is linked to Axa in any way again. Once bitten twice shy as the saying goes.

dacouch

I think its because Axa are such a massive company that they have so many problems. They appear to me to be administration / communication which all seem to be connected to cost cutting (Most companies do this with varying results).

There off shore call centres are in my experience worse than Norwich Unions and that takes some doing.

Axa do have some good staff but its difficult getting hold of them as they have the worst phoneline I have used, you press one option and it brings up a load more options and this in turn brings up more and then u get the long hold.

With the advent of Direct Line and buying Insurance on the internet, Insurers decided to start cost cutting, what they did was get rid of their older more experienced staff as they have were paid the bigger wages. The result was they employed lots of younger staff on cheaper wages who had limited knowledge and could not learn the ropes from the older staff. This has affected most companies.

One of the things that makes me laugh with Axa iswhen they get a lot of claims in because of say a storm there claims department will answer the phone and let you talk in great detail about your customers claim and then say sorry we are just taking telephone numbers you will get a call back tommorow (Sometimes they call back sometimes they do not call back). This is no good for customers and brokers, it does not occur to them to use the brokers skills to weed out the claims that need emergency repairs and advice the broker any increased limits etc.

Whenever they get a new boss they always say they realise they have problems with admin and communication and they will get to the bottom of it and none of them ever do.

Axa have some great policies they just struggle on their admin.

You may find the results of this survey interesting http://www.instimes.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=376295

FH_Brit

Lobster - no comment - dacouch said it all (my head is swelling!)

DA - Have a few AXA bits to add - Tralu is totally right from a paying point of view - they never pay on time, my oldest case with them was from 1998 and they are still arguing about it - it's now at our lawyers but guess what, it's the poor customer who is going to pay one way or another not AXA.

For USA AXA US assistance in Chicago is the root of all troubles for AXA - often if you complain then AXA UK will ask Chicago what's happening, then Chicago say that they have it in hand, then that's what UK tell you their customer. You cannot blame them for being given the wrong or missleading information, but you can blame them for not getting the Chicago office to stop committing insurance fraud here in the USA, and therefor giving AXA bad name even worse press.

COME ON AXA - ACT LIKE THE PROFESSIONALS YOU CLAIM TO BE!