Has travel insurance tripled or am I doing something wrong?

ThorOdinson

I used to pay about £20-25 for annual travel insurance. Now the cheapest I can get it is £70 for a single trip (to the far east).

I'm in by 40s and have some pre-existing conditions (that I had before too), and asked for them to be excluded.

Tried the MSE comparison and a few other sites, tried Staysure.

Is this really 300%+ inflation or do I need to do something to lower the cost?

luci

Was your previous insurance also worldwide?

It's my understanding that Staysure only cover people who were 50+.

Age puts up the cost of travel insurance.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6678915/has-travel-insurance-tripled-or-am-i-doing-something-wrong

Sounds more like you are getting older… premiums are up, no surprise with the middle east issues etc, but you can still get premiums of £25 for annual cover for europe excluding malta, cyprus and spain if you are in your 20s and a clean bill of health. Change that to 45 and premiums go to £31, add medical conditions and that will compound further. Adding in the rest of europe and premiums go up about 50%

ThorOdinson

Previous was world-wide excluding the US and other dangerous places.

Maybe it just is mega inflation. I don't want any cover for medical issues but there aren't many who do online quotes for that. I just need basic medical/accident and travel disruption cover.

The £70 was after I called them, got them to exclude existing conditions, and they discounted it further when I rejected their first offer. Initial quote was £200.

luci

Can you say who you were insured with previously and who you have the recent quote from? People might be able to suggest other insurers to try.

flaneurs_lobster

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82093941#Comment_82093941

If you are only needing 'basic' medical cover + the usual travel bits, have you looked at the packaged bank account offerings from the likes of Co-op, Chase, Santander?

Should give the cover you need plus extra bits that might be useful - start at about £12/mth.

ThorOdinson

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82093944#Comment_82093944

Before I've been with Staysure, eSure, and some others. I used to declare my conditions (have not changed, beyond then getting a bit better) and get lower quotes.

The only tricky part is that I'm away for 45 days so a lot of annual policies aren't suitable. I used to always get annual.

ThorOdinson

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82094006#Comment_82094006

I have looked at bank accounts, but they don't seem worthwhile for me. Well, they would be if I was paying £200, but I've got a £70 quote so not this year…

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82094006#Comment_82094006

If you have any existing conditions they are worried about, then the insurance is not free anymore

TELLIT01

We've used the travel insurance packaged with our bank account for several years. 3 years ago I had a hip replacement and there was a £60 charge for that. When I renewed the following year and obviously mentioned the hip replacement I was told that although it had to be declared there was no charge. I queried the fact that I'd been charged the previous year, the agent checked and the previous charge was refunded.

This year there was a charge because my wife had a medical procedure recently and my blood pressure medication had also changed within the past 6 months. Even so the charge was only about £150 which was less than a 1/3rd of the figure quoted by other travel insurers. The packaged account is worth having for us as it also gives us AA cover. The annual cost of the account is little more than the AA cover provided.

luci

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82097491#Comment_82097491

Did you get a breakdown of the additional cost for each medical condition? I’ve only ever been given the total cost for all our conditions, so don’t know the individual costs or which ones have the biggest effect on the additional premium.