Travel insurance claim

catprofit

My parents booked a holiday and 5 days later my dad's brother died unexpectedly.
I have been supporting them to cancel the holiday and deal with the insurance.
his brother lives abroad and they intend to go to the funeral.
I have managed to get a copy of the death certificate which I have sent to the insurance.
They said they need, information about his medical history for the previous 12 months.
Does anyone know if this is correct and would I be able to get supporting evidence?

sheramber

They need to confirn he  died unexpectedly and did not die from an pre existing condition.

Whoever is his executor/dealing with his estate will need to obtain it fron his GP.

MyRealNameToo

catprofit said:

My parents booked a holiday and 5 days later my dad's brother died unexpectedly.
I have been supporting them to cancel the holiday and deal with the insurance.
his brother lives abroad and they intend to go to the funeral.
I have managed to get a copy of the death certificate which I have sent to the insurance.
They said they need, information about his medical history for the previous 12 months.
Does anyone know if this is correct and would I be able to get supporting evidence?

Its normal practice as pre-existing conditions are excluded so they want to ensure his death wasnt related to some known medical condition he had. 

How easy it will be to get depends on the laws surrounding the deceased in whichever country they are in. In the UK the executor could ask the GP and data protection laws dont apply to the dead in the same way as the living so generally there isnt a problem. 

Brie

@MyRealNameToo
I get what you're saying but when one takes out travel insurance there are no questions about family health issues.  So while you may know a brother has something wrong, heart condition or whatever, the claim shouldn't be put in jeopardy due to that. 

I've never been asked about my various siblings health and while I know their ages and general level of health I don't know any specifics so I would expect my travel policy to honour the clause that might say something about "refunds due to a death of a close family member".  

MyRealNameToo

Brie said:

MyRealNameToo
I get what you're saying but when one takes out travel insurance there are no questions about family health issues.  So while you may know a brother has something wrong, heart condition or whatever, the claim shouldn't be put in jeopardy due to that. 

I've never been asked about my various siblings health and while I know their ages and general level of health I don't know any specifics so I would expect my travel policy to honour the clause that might say something about "refunds due to a death of a close family member".  

Whatever you may think of how it should work the policy operates inline with the policybook and I can think of only a single provider that doesnt simply exclude pre-existing conditions for non-travelling family members. The one exception still excludes anything material you knew about but will accept something that took a sudden and unexpected deterioration. 

In principle insurers could ask you for their conditions and rate the policy based on what's declared but I'm yet to find a single case where this is done. Others on here have claimed to have been able to do so in the past but none could remember who it was. 

Never had an in-depth conversation with an underwriter about why they dont, my guess would be because of the difficulty of a son/neice etc not knowing their relatives condition and not being able to answer the detailed questions like how many blood pressure meds are they taking etc -v- them giving answers they believed were true but turned out not to be... avoid the later fights by simply not asking and excluding. 

Brie

@MyRealNameToo
Thanks for the explanation - I'll recheck our travel policy to see what it says rather than what I think it says.

catprofit

MyRealNameToo said:

catprofit said:

My parents booked a holiday and 5 days later my dad's brother died unexpectedly.
I have been supporting them to cancel the holiday and deal with the insurance.
his brother lives abroad and they intend to go to the funeral.
I have managed to get a copy of the death certificate which I have sent to the insurance.
They said they need, information about his medical history for the previous 12 months.
Does anyone know if this is correct and would I be able to get supporting evidence?

Its normal practice as pre-existing conditions are excluded so they want to ensure his death wasnt related to some known medical condition he had. 

How easy it will be to get depends on the laws surrounding the deceased in whichever country they are in. In the UK the executor could ask the GP and data protection laws dont apply to the dead in the same way as the living so generally there isnt a problem. 

Thanks for your response he did die unexpectedly with no pre existing condition. The problem will be getting information from the hospital

catprofit

Brie said:

@MyRealNameToo
I get what you're saying but when one takes out travel insurance there are no questions about family health issues.  So while you may know a brother has something wrong, heart condition or whatever, the claim shouldn't be put in jeopardy due to that. 

I've never been asked about my various siblings health and while I know their ages and general level of health I don't know any specifics so I would expect my travel policy to honour the clause that might say something about "refunds due to a death of a close family member".  

He did die unexpectedly with no pre existing condition. I'm aware that insurers will avoid paying out if they can. Unfortunately my issue will be getting proof from abroad that this is true. I also feel asking his wife to get this information may be asking a bit too much at this time as she is grieving her husband.
Thanks for your response,I appreciate it.

MyRealNameToo

catprofit said:

Brie said:

@MyRealNameToo
I get what you're saying but when one takes out travel insurance there are no questions about family health issues.  So while you may know a brother has something wrong, heart condition or whatever, the claim shouldn't be put in jeopardy due to that. 

I've never been asked about my various siblings health and while I know their ages and general level of health I don't know any specifics so I would expect my travel policy to honour the clause that might say something about "refunds due to a death of a close family member".  

He did die unexpectedly with no pre existing condition. I'm aware that insurers will avoid paying out if they can. 

Insurers price based on their terms and settle claims on the same. Unfortunately people buy insurance on price alone in the vast majority of cases, encouraged to do so by sites like this and its parent company MoneySupermarket. It has the inevitable consequences that if price is king everyone cuts their terms to get their prices cheaper and policies pay out on less. 

Of cause insurers then get the rap for avoiding claims when all they are doing is giving people what they want which is cheaper insurance. Champagne lifestyle isnt possible on a lemonade budget. 

catprofit

Thanks for all your help. The insurance company paid out in full 

luci

catprofit said:

Thanks for all your help. The insurance company paid out in full 

That's good to hear. Thanks for coming back to update.

For anyone interested, the section you need to look for in the policy wording is usually entitled, “Close Relatives” or mentions “those on whom the travel depends”. This was always the first thing I used to look for when we had elderly parents.

Many policies have the criteria that you would not be covered for them if they had “been on any medication in the past 3 (or 6) months”. This used to really annoy me, as there must be very few, if any, older people who are not on something. Some insurers only ask that a GP would confirm that there was no known reason why that person may die.