Travel insurance for teenager daughter recovering from anorexia nervosa

sky_rat

Can anyone recommend travel insurance which will cover my 16 year old daughter who is recovering from anoreixa nervosa that does not cost the earth.

For just over a year we have been treating her with family based therapy which involved planning and supervising all her meals with the support of CAMHS.

As expexted, there has been many distressing and upsetting moments, but she hit rock bottom in March this year and was admitted to hospital for 10 days where she was nose fed.

Over the last few months she has made significant progress, her weight is now healthy and she is feeding herself.  There's always the risk of relapse, but fingers crossed she is over the worse of it.

When she was in hospital, I promised I would book a holiday to Dominica Republic if she started to show signs of improvement.

I booked the holiday with Firstchoice (which appears to be owned by TUI) and we are due to travel from the end of October for 10 nights.

When I initially booked the holiday, travel insurance quotes from the Post Office was around £450 and Good to Go was around £550 (these were just for the basic packages).

The deposit for the holiday was £400 and if I were to cancel the holiday 90 days before we travel I would only lose the deposit.  Therefore I delayed purchasing travel insurace as the insruance cost more than the holiday deposit.

The 90 day cut off date is fast approaching and I have to pay for the remainder of the holiday at the beginning of August, so I must now get insurance.

Yesterday I got a quote from the Post Office, but its increased to £550 for the basic package !

I'm also concerned as to whether I would need cover for COVID and strike action, I heard on TV that many of the insurance companies don't cover for strike action.

My daughters mother and I have been seperated for over 10 yeas, I live alone so only have a single income which has to cover all living costs on top of child maintenance and supporting my daughter.

I can't believe the extortiante quotations I am getting for travel insurance, is there anywhere that can provide a more reasonable price whilst still providing decent cover ?

I took my daughter to Mallorca last year and the insurance from Good to Go was £150, although my daughter hadn't been admitted to hospital back then.

sheramber

Not only will your daughter requiring a hospital stay increase the risk assessment but a trip to the Dominican Republic will be higher risk than to Mallorica.

TELLIT01

Have you done a search on "travel insurance with medical conditions"?  Insurance is likely to expensive because of your choice of destination.

Sandtree

Do you need the anorexia covered? If you choose to exclude it then its likely insurance will become much more sensible. You may not be able to do this with online Q&B systems but several times when doing medical screening I've been given the option of paying £x for a medical condition to be covered or no increase if its excluded.

Dom Rep is Caribbean and so can often mean medi-vac for more serious illnesses/injuries and hence why just in general any N.American and Caribbean cover is notably more expensive than the likes of Europe 

sky_rat

Sandtree said:

Do you need the anorexia covered?

The eating disorder specialist told us how a family she worked with went on holiday to the USA with their daughter who was anorexic.  Whilst their she was admitted to hospital because of her anorexia but they didnt decalre it on the insurance and the medical costs were so high they had to remortgage their house to pay for the costs.

Insurance companies are scum, their business model is to try as hard as they can to get out of paying for a claim, that's how they make so much money.

If I needed to make a claim for something not related to anorexia (e.g. a broken leg) the insurance company would try to get out of it paying if they found out anorexia was not declared, despite the claim having nothing to do with anorexia.   That's the way insurance companies work, they will use any excuse to get out of paying up.

elsien

To be fair, something like a break could be related if the anorexia had impacted on bone density, for example. I agree you’d need to be careful about not being insured on that basis. 

TELLIT01

Failure to declare any illness, even if it ends up being totally unrelated to the reason for claiming, can certainly create major problems in the event of trying to claim.  The insurer may initially refuse to make any payment and then it would be necessary to fight the decision once back in the UK.  That is no help if there is a medical bill of thousands to pay.  I have read of cases where the court found in favour of the insured party but, as I've said, that all takes time.

If, as the OP claims, insurers will use any excuse to get out of paying up, the last thing the insured should be doing is giving them an additional opportunity.

MalMonroe

Have you tried Staysure?  I've travelled a lot and now that I'm sadly over a certain age - 70 - I have to pay more whether or not I declare myself fit as a fiddle. Because I take BP medication my premiums are higher than they used to be too. But I pay the insurance premium because that's much cheaper than having to pay for anything that goes wrong. Medical care, lost suitcases, accidents, being robbed, repatriation, etc. I always found Staysure to be reasonable and fortunately never had to make a claim.

https://www.staysure.co.uk/ 

If you're going to the Dominican Republic, which is a long haul flight holiday, you do really need very comprehensive insurance and need to ensure that every single thing is covered. I doubt that you will be able to find any cheap insurance that covers you for everything. When booking such a holiday you need to factor in all costs, not just the travel tickets.

I don't agree with what you say about insurance companies because you get what you pay for - and as long as you are diligent and ensure that you read all the information, you should be okay if you should need to make a claim. Travelling without comprehensive insurance is sheer folly. In my experience with insurance companies they do not try to get out of paying valid, honest claims or try to commit fraud. They are regulated by two different organisations - the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and can't just operate in any haphazard way or as they please.

With your daughter having been so ill she understandably would love an exotic holiday but of course the flights are long (around 4 times as long as the flight to Mallorca for example), which may not be helpful for a person recovering from anorexia (I have personal experience of it) and you also need to keep up to date with the information from the UK government about travelling to the Dom Rep.

This link contains information as of today's date - https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/dominican-republic

As others have said, holidays in Mallorca and the Dominican Republic cannot really be compared because they have nothing in common.

Sandtree

sky_rat said:

Sandtree said:

Do you need the anorexia covered?

The eating disorder specialist told us how a family she worked with went on holiday to the USA with their daughter who was anorexic.  Whilst their she was admitted to hospital because of her anorexia but they didnt decalre it on the insurance and the medical costs were so high they had to remortgage their house to pay for the costs.

Insurance companies are scum, their business model is to try as hard as they can to get out of paying for a claim, that's how they make so much money.

If I needed to make a claim for something not related to anorexia (e.g. a broken leg) the insurance company would try to get out of it paying if they found out anorexia was not declared, despite the claim having nothing to do with anorexia.   That's the way insurance companies work, they will use any excuse to get out of paying up.

I never said not to declare it, I said do you need to have it covered? Insurers give you the option to declare a condition but not have it covered therefore avoiding most of the premium increases it'd cause.

Really you need to blame the MPs not the insurance companies on the example you gave... its the government that made the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Act 2012 which states that an insurer can void a policy for an intentional or reckless non-disclosure irrespective of if its relevant to the claim or if the insurer would have covered it (for an additional premium or not) had it been declared. 

Insurance is a contract of trust... you trust the insurer will pay inline with the T&Cs and they trust you have made honest declarations when taking the policy out. If its proven you intentionally gave false information you've fundamentally broken the contract.

Insurance companies business model is to collect the premiums based on the risks they are offering to take on in terms of both policy T&Cs and the proposers declared details and then payout based on those same T&Cs. The big issue is that insurance is a distress comoditised purchase and encouraged by sites like this people try to buy the cheapest (not best value) possible. For some very odd reason unlike other products people fail to realise that a cheaper price is often achieved by being lower quality and this means having less favourable T&Cs, which they dont read. Therefore complain that "insurers are scum" when their claim isn't covered even though any independent person could have told them that before they even bought the policy by reading the booklet. You however dont hear people who buy a £200 TV complain that it doesn't have the same features as the £3,000 TV... indeed most will brag how good it was for the money instead. 

sky_rat

Sandtree said:

....encouraged by sites like this people try to buy the cheapest (not best value) possible. For some very odd reason unlike other products people fail to realise that a cheaper price is often achieved by being lower quality and this means having less favourable T&Cs, which they dont read. Therefore complain that "insurers are scum" when their claim isn't covered even though any independent person could have told them that before they even bought the policy by reading the booklet. You however dont hear people who buy a £200 TV complain that it doesn't have the same features as the £3,000 TV... indeed most will brag how good it was for the money instead. 

I totally agree about these comparison sites, its not about getting the cheapest quotation, its about getting cover that meets your requirements and for the best price.

The comparison sites dont compare like for like, the policies can vary widly.

For example, the cheapest quotation is likely to have a much higher excess, reduced cover and lower payout for claims etc

I always go for middle of the range inusrance, as you get what you pay for.

What I should have asked for in my original post was for an insurance company that can be trusted and not try every trick in the book to get out of paying for a claim, but also provides good cover and at a reasonable price.

I've read reviews on insurance companies before but most reviews are from people who have not needed to make a claim, so these reviews are meaningless.  You dont know what an insurance company is like unless you need to make a claim.

Whenever I get insurance I always disclose everything as I'm fully aware the insurer can void a policy for non-disclosure of information, irrespective whether its relevant to the claim.  I learnt this from a young age when insuring my modified car (alloy wheels etc).  I disclosed the modifications and paid extra because I did not want to risk the insurance being void.  I learnt this thanks to a very honest and helpful insurance broker, who I still use to this day.

I did not realise I could disclose  my daughter has anorxia but not have cover for it, I thought it would have to be covered by default, so this is useful to know.  It doesnt seem to offer this option on the websites so I assume its a special case meaning I would have to call to discuss ?

Sandtree

sky_rat said:
I did not realise I could disclose  my daughter has anorxia but not have cover for it, I thought it would have to be covered by default, so this is useful to know.  It doesnt seem to offer this option on the websites so I assume its a special case meaning I would have to call to discuss ?

It's certainly an option I have been given several times when doing the medical screening over the phone... unfortunately one of my conditions is unusual and doesn't often feature in the online screening options. 

sky_rat said:
I totally agree about these comparison sites, its not about getting the cheapest quotation, its about getting cover that meets your requirements and for the best price.

I agree aggregators have also promoted price over value though personally was talking explicitly about this site (which I appreciate is owned by an aggregator now).

Aggregators also promoted promiscuity, that you shouldn't be loyal to your insurers though several years ago they were then calling in consultants because they found that the promiscuity had spread to which aggregator people used and they were struggling to try and build loyalty in their brand whilst maintaining you shouldn't be loyal to your insurer.

Certainly agree that you shouldn't be blindly loyal but there are some advantages of renewing with the same crew if pricing remains competitive.