Travel insurance - is dentistry a pre existing condition?

The_Librarian

I need to purchase travel insurance, but when getting quotes, have no idea whether my recent visit to the dentist for a root canal counts as a pre-existing medical procedure? I am booked in to have the final filling done the week before we travel, and don't know whether I have to declare this or not? Nowhere can I see whether dentists count as medical treatment or not.

I have tried talking to some insurers, who just say the customer service rep is a non-advisory role and cannot tell me whether to declare or not as they are not medical professionals. Google is littered with questions about going abroad for dentistry, but that is not what I am doing!

Any guidance gratefully received.

DullGreyGuy

I would argue it technically is, certainly looking at a couple of online travel insurers a root canal is a treatment that you can add under the medical screening, likewise gingivitis. For both they dont ask any further questions so clearly not something they are too excited about. 

NoodleDoodleMan

We have travel insurance by AXA on packaged bank account - whenever I've had to seek guidance on pre-existing conditions their customer service reps have been able to offer advice on specific issues to determine if they are covered or require an additional premium.

Never been told that they are unable to offer clarification.

Same with Aviva when I looked at their bank provided policy.

I would also be asking my dentist for general guidance.

DullGreyGuy

NoodleDoodleMan said:

We have travel insurance by AXA on packaged bank account - whenever I've had to seek guidance on pre-existing conditions their customer service reps have been able to offer advice on specific issues to determine if they are covered or require an additional premium.

Never been told that they are unable to offer clarification.

Advised and unadvised sales are very different and require very different training, record keeping etc etc. If you do advised sales you can also do non-advised but not the other way around. 

Certainly some companies go overboard on what is considered "advice" and create a culture of fear. Back in my consumer days an incident came across my desk where an existing customer called up saying they'd come into some money and were thinking of getting their dream car but wanted to ensure they could also afford the premiums. 

Our agent asked them what the car was, the customer said its a Ferrari something or other and our agent responded "thats a nice car". Unfortunately for the agent the call was being listened into by someone in quality control who deemed it to be advice and the member of staff was immediately suspended for gross misconduct. In the end they were reinstated, we successfully convinced Compliance that it was a statement of fact not advice etc but you can imagine how those sorts of things create a culture where people dont want to go off script. 

Clarification, like if dental issues are required to be disclosed, is not advice and they should be able to tell you. Likewise stating how the policy would respond to certain events isnt advice. Advice is telling the customer that this is a good policy for them, that it will meet their needs etc etc. 

The_Librarian

Thank you for your help. It looks like I will declare it as a medical condition then just to be on the safe side. 

I was genuinely quite shocked that they couldn't tell me whether visiting a dentist in the past year counted as having visited a medical professional or not. Part of me thought it can't, as otherwise half the travelling population would be having to declare their 6 month old fillings, but then again, I didn't want to risk it and find my insurance cancelled if it gets found out..