Pre-existing Travel Insurance Guide Discussion

koru

hjd wrote: »

From NFOP website
From the 1st September, anyone wishing to apply to the Annual Travel Scheme must have held NFOP membership for a minimum six consecutive months prior to an application for cover.

I'm not surprised. As they don't exclude pre-existing medical conditions, they need to avoid ending up with too high a proportion of policy holders who only became members so they could get the travel insurance.

jonathon

my wife and I have travel insurance with our bank account for 8 years.
12 years ago my wife had bowel cancer and we declared this to the insurance company she has had no problems since.
today she went for her normal 12 month check up and they found a slight chance of anal cancer she has had a biopsy for which we are awaiting the results.
we go on holiday in 2 weeks and it worries me that we should have informed the insurance every year.


what do you think are we covered ?


Thanks

EssexExile

I think you should phone the insurance provider & ask them.

koru

Depends on the wording of the policy, but most would say you have to notify any new conditions before departure.

Aubury52

I get travel insurance with my Coop bank account & have informed them of my cancer. They will now not cover me for this. So I will need to get cover elsewhere, I guess. BUT, then I would have two lots of cover, wouldn't I, which would invalidate parts or all of the cover? This doesn't seem to be covered by the Guide you have here. Do you know what happens in this scenario, please?

koru

It depends on the wording of both policies, but I doubt your cover is invalidated. They usually say that if your claim is covered under another policy the cost will be shared so that you can't claim more than the actual loss. But for any cancer claim you are not covered under your coop policy so the issue does not arise.

Copthornemike

Background
I have held a travel insurance policy with my bank account (Smile, the internet bank part of the Co-Operative Bank) for over 10 years. Over that time I have declared medical condition (a hereditary heart condition) which has not changed or resulted in any symptoms over that time I am required to declare the condition annually and until recently this did not require any additional payment to include cover.

I have now been asked to pay an additional fee of £35 per annum and the only change has been that Smile's policy provider / insurers (AXA) now use a different company (Rock medical Insurance) for medical screening. Whilst I have paid I asked Rock to raise a complaint with Smile - after all of Smile are unaware of issues they are not in a position to investigate / review.

However my wife who holds a TSB account has experienced a similar outcome concerning an annual declaration for an existing medical condition in which Rock Medical Insurance (who may well be part of AXA) significantly raised the fee to include pre-existing conditions in her policy.

Question
Is this coincidence or are AXA / Rock Insurance trying to increase income from a potentially captive group of 'loyal' customers.

Penalising 'loyalty' is not exactly new to the insurance industry - I call it a loyalty tax!!!

ajaxer

It is time a national campaign was launched against the exorbitant
rates charged for pre med travel insurance.
Most of those applying are being treated with the latest methods
available and are in a better state of health than the hundreds of
thousands who travel whilst being heavy drinkers /smokers/overweight/
diabetic etc ,but for some reason have never been treated.
These people are just as likely to claim as the so called
high risk pre meds.
I call on all major insurers to publicly prove and publish the figures
that justify such large premiums.

koru

ajaxer wrote: »

It is time a national campaign was launched against the exorbitant
rates charged for pre med travel insurance.
Most of those applying are being treated with the latest methods
available and are in a better state of health than the hundreds of
thousands who travel whilst being heavy drinkers /smokers/overweight/
diabetic etc ,but for some reason have never been treated.
These people are just as likely to claim as the so called
high risk pre meds.
I call on all major insurers to publicly prove and publish the figures
that justify such large premiums.

If you shop around, you can usually find insurers who are willing to dig into the detail of your pre-existing conditions and understand how risky you are, so they can offer an affordable premium. This way, they win business from other insurers that quote silly premiums. The market therefore stops insurers from charging premiums that are excessive, given the risk (except if you don't shop around).

If it was possible to make super-profits on people with certain pre-existing conditions, that would be an opportunity for an entrepreneurial insurer to grab more business by undercutting other insurers. If no companies will offer affordable premiums to a particular person, I suspect this means that they genuinely represent a high risk.

tgon

I agree. The algorithm for calculating risk from common ailments being successfully treated by medical practitioners seems disproportionate to some of the quotes derived. Like all products - shop around.