Annual travel insurance

Beancounter298

I have had an annual policy with the same company for several years, it normally auto renews in April. This year they told me I could not auto renew as I was awaiting surgery. I can take out a new policy from the original renewal date. However I have 2 holidays booked for June and September and I can't get them to confirm the following:

If I have to cancel, can I claim cancellation costs under the old policy, which would have expired?

Am I fully covered (apart from cancellation) under the new policy for holidays booked under the previous policy, but taken while the new policy is in place?

there is no gap between the old policy expiring, and the new one starting

TELLIT01

Only the insurer can answer the question as they all have their own rules. Generally once past the expiry date if the existing policy, any new restrictions will apply.

A friend of mine has recently been in exactly that situation. Their current travel insurer wouldn't renew at all because of her being on a waiting list for surgery, another company has provided cover. I don't know what conditions may be applied to the cover, for example anything related to the reason for surgery may be excluded. In their case, they know that they would be able to get treatment in the country they are visiting if needs be, and that the service there is virtually identical to the NHS and provides the same level of free cover, with a GHIC.

heatherw_01

Only they can tell you this for sure.

But for your first question, you cannot claim on your previous insurance policy for upcoming trips. If a policy has ended/lapsed, you can't claim on it for any future trips.

So lets say you need to cancel your trip later this year, you cannot claim on the policy that ended in April.