Cheap Travel Insurance query

TrickyNicky

Hi everyone

Have been hunting for winter sports travel insurance to include pre existing medical conditions. Got the cheapest quote from Holiday Extras, despite declaring everything honestly. Is there some kind of catch with this company, I can't believe the quote is so low? Does anyone have any experience with them at all - good or bad?

Many thanks and a Happy Christmas to you all.

Regards

jonesMUFCforever

What is the cover for? How much did they quote in premium for you? and finally what is the next best quote?
Did you do this all online or speak to someone?

TrickyNicky

Hi

Thanks for responding. Insurance is for winter sports (cross country skiing) for husband and myself for 1 week in Finland in February. Both of us have pre exiating medical conditions, many of them are sufficiently insignificant they don't charge anything for them but at least we have declared them. We each have one condition however which they have increased the premium for. I went on line for the quote (via compare the market) and also phoned them to check various things and they went through quote with me. On the phone the price was £5 less than on-line! Just under £40. Next cheapest was around £65 but seemed to have even less cover.

Is this too good to be true?

Thanks again for responding.

stephb34

Whats the excess if you make a claim, sometimes on cheap policies they're extortionate.

jonesMUFCforever

TrickyNicky wrote: »

Hi

Thanks for responding. Insurance is for winter sports (cross country skiing) for husband and myself for 1 week in Finland in February. Both of us have pre exiating medical conditions, many of them are sufficiently insignificant they don't charge anything for them but at least we have declared them. We each have one condition however which they have increased the premium for. I went on line for the quote (via compare the market) and also phoned them to check various things and they went through quote with me. On the phone the price was £5 less than on-line! Just under £40. Next cheapest was around £65 but seemed to have even less cover.

Is this too good to be true?

Thanks again for responding.

Two things you need to do - go back over the application and confirm to yourself that all pre conditions have been noted down on the application and READ THE POLICY BOOKLET!

This probably will be in pdf format for you to download - go through it with a toothcomb - anything you don't like cancel the policy under the cooling off period.

TrickyNicky

Thanks everyone for good advice. Checked PDF policy booklet and compared to several other quotes I had. Still this one came up the best with smaller excess payments (mostly £50 only) and much better max payouts ie. Personal Accident 30,000 compared to only 10 or 15,000 on a lot of others. The only item that was covered less well was the ski cover (own equipment) which only gave £350 per person, but we can live with that. Looking at some other policies it doesn't seem to insure us for the following either - Petcare, Hijack, Mugging, Physio in UK, Funeral, cancelled excursions, travel disruption, imprisonment, terrorism. Again, we're not bothered about any of these.
We did notice however that this policy has only limited regulation by the FSA in this country. The policy is actually with Mapfre Assistance - a spanish company and so is regulated by Direccion General de Seguros, plus partly with FSA. Anyone with any knowledge of Mapfre? Does this mean if Spanish banks go bust we will have problems with any claims? Holiday Extras say not.
It all seems pretty good - so probably will stay with it unless anyone has had a bad experience with them. Thanks again. Hope my heads up on this might help other folk needing cheap insurance with underlying medical conditions.

DannyBrown

Holidays Extras seem a reliable company, they have quite a good reputation and have been around for a fair number of years, I imagine the policy will be fine for you if they are offering it as they don't seem to be cow boys.

alun4

I would steer you towards Snowheads forum for friendly and very informed help with ski related enquiries. I have asked a number of questions there concerning insurance for family, off piste and racing

Crater

Just a small point. Mapfre if I recall rightly are also the underwriters for Insure and Go, and also the Marble policies which I&G will "refer" you to if your medical conditions mount up and their underwriters don't want to handle it ... "Marble" also seems to be supplied under some other brand names, and isn't all that easy to link to I&G unless they "refer" you ... can't work out why they underwrite all these separate policies, and why they won't underwrite on one policy but will on a very similar one from the came company ... just more expensive ??

I don't have a problem with this, I just find it puzzling ...

TrickyNicky

Thanks everyone for your input. Have stayed put with Holiday Extras. Clearly we won't know if there is a problem unless we need to claim and we find something we missed. Hope that won't arise. Will update you all if it does........!

Hubby uses Snowheads Forum already so will get him to post a query there for anyone who has claimed from Holiday Extras. We've time to take out another policy if necessary and lose the £40 we've paid - but I'd rather that than find we're not suitably covered.

Many thanks again.

stephb34

Don't forget you can cancel free of charge within 14 days on your insurance policy.