Travel Insurance - residency question

lifemagic

I'm British and left the UK in 2015, I spend almost all my time in Phnom Penh, currently on 3 month single entry visa. I used to have backpacker insurance and needed to claim last year for investigative tests. As part of the claim I had to show the original air ticket leaving the UK, from 2015. I'd paid an 'already traveling' supplement and so they ended up paying out about a grand OK.

Then I turned 50 so it's too expensive. But I thought about it and it's not too much if I pay a year in advance. It still bothers me that the terms and conditions say it's for UK residents as when I claimed previously they didn't ask anything further than seeing my ticket from 2015. So I emailed them to check. They said it's fine as long as I don't apply for permanent residency anywhere and that I have access to the NHS.

... er, not sure if I do. I use my niece's address in the UK, have no other ties (UK passport by birth), pay a weekly guesthouse in PP. I  live on savings. I read the terms and conditions of the insurance. 'Resident' isn't defined (which is why I asked them), but there's a passage there saying the policy is sold 'non-advised' and to make sure I understand the terms and conditions. But that makes me worry that if the criteria they just explained to me turns out to be wrong, it's already 'disclaimed' if you see what I mean. Btw, I'm corresponding with a company that sells it, which is actually not the same as the underwriters who provide it (I found that out when I claimed last).

What do you think? Tldr: Does a person out of the UK for 8 years have access to the NHS? If insurance is sold 'non-advised', can it be 'legally missold'?

Flugelhorn

my understanding was that if people were away for more than 6 months they were no longer entitled to NHS treatment, hence why we used to get ex-pats returning every 4-6 months to just keep the entitlement going - this is a DoH paper / set of questions about residency https://www.salisbury.nhs.uk/FOIdocs/FOI_6003/QuestionNo3/Ordinary_residence_tool.pdf

lifemagic

Yeah, I vaguely recall something similar. I think I need to phone CAB.

DullGreyGuy

lifemagic said:

What do you think? Tldr: Does a person out of the UK for 8 years have access to the NHS? If insurance is sold 'non-advised', can it be 'legally missold'?

Generally they wouldnt. 

It's exceptionally difficult to "miss-sell" a non-advised product but it's easy to miss-buy one. Only argument would be if the had failed to make the relevant information you require to make an informed decision on the appropriateness of the product either at point of sale or during the cooling off period. These days this will almost never happen as it's so easy to have a link to a PDF document with the key details and get the customer to click to say they've read it and agreed to it. 

What are you plans? Why rely on UK insurance if you have no intent to live in the UK?