Travel insurance query - disclosure of pre-existing conditions

Parkhall

Hi
I'm organizing travel insurance for a school group and have been asked by the insurance company to get pre-existing medical conditions vetted by them. The most common condition for these kids is very mild asthma and they are being asked to pay extra for this. Some parents think it's absurd as their conditions are so mild and completely controllable and do not want to pay.

So getting to the point . . . if a person has a medical emergency which is totally unrelated to an undisclosed condition ( eg. a mildly asthmatic person breaks a leg) will the insurance company pay out ?

Annisele

The Financial Ombudsman Service publishes a technical note on non disclosure (which has links within it to the relevant law).

Will each child have an individual policy, or will there be a group policy of some sort? I'm not sure how the non-disclosure would affect a group policy (particularly since you know about it). But if each child has an individual policy, and the parents are asked a clear question and deliberately (fraudulently) fail to disclose the asthma, then the insurer can avoid the policy. So no, they probably wouldn't pay out for the broken leg in those circumstances.