Automatic annual travel insurance renewal with pre existing conditions

katejo

My previous insurer which I used for years did not allow automatic renewal to anyone with declared medical conditions. I wasn't allowed to just say 'unchanged' since last year. I had to answer all the questions again which was tedious and it was easy to forget something. I now have a policy with Avanti for the first time. Due to expire early in 2025. I noticed on my account that it is set to renew automatically so I rang to query this and was told that I could do this despite pre existing conditions (assuming no changes). Is there a catch to this? Do they tell you of any increase in price in advance of the renewal date? 
 

TELLIT01

I presume they would inform you of any price increase, just as motor insurers with auto-renew do.

Savvy_Sue

I have a spreadsheet set up (sad, I know) which lists all our various ailments, and the dates on which we've seen doctors / consultants for these and one-off issues. 

I actually feel happier going through the questionnaires again, although it IS tedious and time-consuming, because if something has changed I feel I'm less likely to forget to tell them about it. Whereas in my day to day life I try to ignore my increasing decrepitude. 

And a few things have changed for the better over the years! 

DullGreyGuy

katejo said:

My previous insurer which I used for years did not allow automatic renewal to anyone with declared medical conditions. I wasn't allowed to just say 'unchanged' since last year. I had to answer all the questions again which was tedious and it was easy to forget something. I now have a policy with Avanti for the first time. Due to expire early in 2025. I noticed on my account that it is set to renew automatically so I rang to query this and was told that I could do this despite pre existing conditions (assuming no changes). Is there a catch to this? Do they tell you of any increase in price in advance of the renewal date? 
 

They will make the assumption that nothing has changed unless you instruct them earlier and so the price will include pre-existing conditions at the severity as the last quote. 

katejo

DullGreyGuy said:

katejo said:

My previous insurer which I used for years did not allow automatic renewal to anyone with declared medical conditions. I wasn't allowed to just say 'unchanged' since last year. I had to answer all the questions again which was tedious and it was easy to forget something. I now have a policy with Avanti for the first time. Due to expire early in 2025. I noticed on my account that it is set to renew automatically so I rang to query this and was told that I could do this despite pre existing conditions (assuming no changes). Is there a catch to this? Do they tell you of any increase in price in advance of the renewal date? 
 

They will make the assumption that nothing has changed unless you instruct them earlier and so the price will include pre-existing conditions at the severity as the last quote. 

I am not sure that this is correct. They told me that less serious conditions (which only need to be declared for 2 years after the hospital referral/treatment( will be dropped after the 2 years.

DullGreyGuy

katejo said:

DullGreyGuy said:

katejo said:

My previous insurer which I used for years did not allow automatic renewal to anyone with declared medical conditions. I wasn't allowed to just say 'unchanged' since last year. I had to answer all the questions again which was tedious and it was easy to forget something. I now have a policy with Avanti for the first time. Due to expire early in 2025. I noticed on my account that it is set to renew automatically so I rang to query this and was told that I could do this despite pre existing conditions (assuming no changes). Is there a catch to this? Do they tell you of any increase in price in advance of the renewal date? 
 

They will make the assumption that nothing has changed unless you instruct them earlier and so the price will include pre-existing conditions at the severity as the last quote. 

I am not sure that this is correct. They told me that less serious conditions (which only need to be declared for 2 years after the hospital referral/treatment( will be dropped after the 2 years.

Was more considering chronic conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, hypothyroidism as well as more major conditions that dont necessarily get cut off after 2 years like heart attack, stroke, cancer. 

On our former policy minor conditions that were over 2 years were still shown on the declaration at renewal but may not have been considered for pricing in the same way if you had a motor claim with us we'd keep that information on file indefinitely but ignored it for pricing after 5 years. 

hotncold47

A timely thread as I was only discussing automatic renewal with friends yesterday, they have/had an annual policy through Virgin Money which was renewed online in May. Pre existing medical conditions had been declared on the original policy. Last week they were contacted by Virgin Money asking why pre existing had not been declared on the new policy? I'm not sure if my friends missed something when renewing but they were under the impression that the pre existing conditions had been added.

They have actually been on holiday with this cover which would probably have had any claims declined if something had gone wrong. On calling VM it became clear that this was the case and to make matters worse my friend is now on a waiting list for a Hip replacement next Feb and VM say they will not insure him at all.