Travel insurance Medical Conditions and Family

Scrumpymonkey

I've been reading through the thread regarding travel insurance with pre-existing medical conditions and there is one subject that doesn't appear to be covered.

The wife and I are trying to plan our first overseas family holiday in 6 years.  We're planning on booking a standard package holiday and we're only travelling within the EU and have EHIC's. I've developed several medical conditions in those 6 years and have looked at both a joint and an individual travel insurance policy for me and one for the wife and kids. The joint policy is slightly more expensive than me having an individual policy but I am a little uncertain around cover with seperate policies.

I'm not clear what would happen if we had to cancel the holiday or cut it short for whatever reason. Do we have to submit two claims?
Will my policy cover me if my wife or one of the kids can't travel and vice versa?

Any clarification or experience would be greatly appreciated.

DullGreyGuy

The issue of having separate policies is that your wife and kids will not be able to declare your medical conditions on their policy and so your pre-existing conditions would effectively be excluded as a cause for cancellation/curtailment. If you have a joint policy it will cover all for your conditions. Naturally if you couldn't travel for another reason (eg injured in an RTA) then both policies would respond.

Claims are typically made per traveller per policy so two policies would mean a claim against each but the excess is per traveller so you dont lose anything more by having two policies (unless one has higher excess than the other etc).

Some imply that there are insurances where you can declare a non-insured persons medical conditions but I am yet to find one that actually does. There are some where the terms are more generous and they effectively will cover some pre-existing conditions if a medical report states that there was no reason to believe the condition would cause an issue at the time of purchase. 

Scrumpymonkey

Thank you, you've clarified the concern I've had. I think for the sake of £15, a joint policy covereing us all would be more sensible.