Need travel insurance but don't want cover for pre-existing medical conditions

StinkyMonkey

I have received the renewal letter for our family travel insurance. The premium has increased to an eye-watering £130 for annual multi-trip European cover.

I want to find another insurer with a lower premium and I do not want to cover any pre-existing medical condition but in most cases the online quote generators ask for information on those. Since they ask, I feel I must not lie or fail to disclose anything. People in the family have pre-existing conditions for which we do not need any cover. I have also recently undergone some specialist investigations which showed nothing sinister at all. However, I am loath to waste time providing details for cover that I am not asking for, only to see insurers either declining to offer a quote (irrespective of how srious or relevant the pre-existing medical condition are) or ramping up their premiums.

Does anyone know of any insurer with decent policies who simply asks "Do you want to cover pre-existing medical conditions?" to which I can honestly answer "No" and get on with the quote?

Thank you

rs65

StinkyMonkey wrote: »

Does anyone know of any insurer with decent policies who simply asks "Do you want to cover pre-existing medical conditions?" to which I can honestly answer "No" and get on with the quote?

I arranged cover for a family member with directline and had th option to include or exclude conditions. Still had to tell them about them though.

StinkyMonkey

Thansk for this. We ahve quite a long list of conditions we do not want to cover, frankly I have no appetite to waste so much time disclosing so much unnecessary information

FutureGirl

It isn't unnecessary information - the insurer will still want to know about the pre-existing conditions to rate the risk correctly, whether you want to be covered for pre-existing condition or not.

The risk rating of a person who is fit and healthy, is going to be a lot different from rating someone the same age / gender etc but who has a lot of pre-existing issues.

csgohan4

still need to declare or you risk invalidating any claim. You might not think blood pressure is a big thing for example, but stroke and heart attack is linked to it.

flower77g

Depends what you want to insure: you should be able to insure for flight delays and loss of baggage etc. without declaring medical conditions.

A few premium credit/charge card providers might let you do this but read the policies and exclusions very carefully (eg: Diners, Citibank)

StinkyMonkey

I take the points everyone makes - it does make sense from teh insurer's perspective. I just do not want to bother with the process. Incidentally, I did find that Boots Travel Insurance (with a Defaqto 5-star rating for its most premium versions) indicates that if you tick "No" under the question "Have you any pre-existig medical conditions to declare?" they interpret this as (a) you do not have any such conditions, or (b) you do not wish to cover any such conditions. This seems to meet my needs plus their insurance is cheaper than my existing provider, so I will probably move to them

rs65

StinkyMonkey wrote: »

This seems to meet my needs plus their insurance is cheaper than my existing provider, so I will probably move to them

It's very unusual so you may not have many other options.

Odd wording:-
Travel insurance policies do not provide cover for claims arising as a result of any condition in existence or being investigated at the time your policy was purchased, this includes claims relating to significant medical history you may have had previously, therefore you have to let us know if you or anyone named on the policy with you had an existing medical condition so that it can be assessed and taken into consideration when calculating your final premium.

Significant medical history would include ever being diagnosed or treated for; any heart or circulatory condition, any type of cancer, any breathing condition, a stroke, high blood pressure and any type of diabetes.

If you choose 'NO' then your policy will be issued on the basis that either you have no medical conditions to declare or, if you have any medical conditions (including history of the above), you understand the policy will not provide cover in the event of any claim that arises out of, or is caused by those conditions or complications of those conditions.

takman

StinkyMonkey wrote: »

Thansk for this. We ahve quite a long list of conditions we do not want to cover, frankly I have no appetite to waste so much time disclosing so much unnecessary information

Considering that the policy wording (as above) is:

the policy will not provide cover in the event of any claim that arises out of, or is caused by those conditions or complications of those conditions.

Then your going to be taking a big risk when travelling abroad because if you do make a claim you will have to declare every one of those pre-existing conditions. Then they will be reviewed to see if any of them could have possibly led to the claim being made and if so you will not be covered.

k3lvc

StinkyMonkey wrote: »

Thansk for this. We ahve quite a long list of conditions we do not want to cover, frankly I have no appetite to waste so much time disclosing so much unnecessary information

That may be your desire now but when you're stuck in a foreign country trying to get your insurance company to help with repatriation is that the time you'd rather be reeling off the list of conditions ?

There are some things better done when time/frame of mind are in the right place and I'd consider this to be one of them