Hi, anyone on here with a chronic ailment had to get special insurance before travelling? Normal travel insurance won’t cover pre-existing conditions, so looking at the alternatives. Needing it for a trip to Japan in 2 months and USA over Chrimbo.

Tales of good/bad experiences welcome, thanks!

Kit

A friend has breast cancer that’s metastasised to loads of her bones and lungs. She’s just been to Paris as it’s something she wanted to do in the limited time left.

No insurer would touch her with any cover at all regardless of excluding pre-existing problems. They just took a P11D and hoped for the best.

You need to consider the cost of repatriation if the chronic illness caused serious problems overseas. It can run into to tens of thousands of pounds very easily.

I’m sorry about your friend, neninja. I’m lucky not to have anything as serious as that, but I do have (probably) Crohn’s disease so any cancellations or early flights home wouldn’t normally be covered… Hoping it won’t come to that, but you never know!

Shop around, premiums for the same medical condition can vary by several £100. One insurer might cover you for an extra £10, another might charge £200, another will say you’re uninsurable! They also have an annoying habit of changing their medical screeners from year to year so don’t allow them to auto-renew (medical coverage is often sub-contracted to a different insurer, and if this changes your premiums can rocket).

You could try a comparison site such as http://www.moneysupermarket.com/travel-insurance/pre-existing-medical-conditions/ but it’s limited in the included companies.
I’m currently with http://www.world-first.co.uk/ though luckily never had to claim so can’t comment on that.

Generally need to just get on the phone to a couple and see.

In a similar situation; Best result I had was to use a comparison site for initial ideas, then rang the top hit to discuss the issues with an actual human being rather than hitting tick boxes.

I was discussing this very issue with my mum last week. She has some existing condition, but thankfully nothing extremely serious. Main stream insurers were quoting her £150+ (the insurance company’s way of telling you to beat it) for a week in Italy.

I told her to look at specialist insurers on google and she got cover for £16.50 in the end. As a start point money supermarket has a section for this type of cover (edit: sorry this was posted above already!):

https://www.moneysupermarket.com/travel-insurance/pre-existing-medical-conditions/enquiry/?hp1.x=145&hp1.y=36&hp1=Start+a+new+quote…

So don’t give up hope, just find a specialist company who is able to assess your risk and offer decent cover. The main stream insurers don’t want the hassle. hence awful quotes.

My other half as the SLE form of Lupus which is a chronic illness and she was recommended to use the Post Office.

linky

They are reasonably priced and have a good reputation amongst the Lupus support groups for paying up when needed.

I’d kinda forgotten I’d posted this, so I ended up going with World First in the end for £128 for worldwide multi-travel 1 year cover for my crohn’s disease. I didn’t look at any price comparison sites as the last time I had a look it seemed ridiculously expensive to add the extra cover.

Thanks for the advice anyway! Hope I don’t have to use it 🙂

Here we go again… I’ve just discovered that World-first have switched their medical screeners and their formerly reasonable premium has turned into a point blank refusal to cover. So, any other recommendations apart from those listed at https://www.moneysupermarket.com/travel-insurance/pre-existing-medical-conditions/ ?

I use Travel Insurance Web

I don’t know how they compare for more serious issues but the extra we’ve paid to include existing conditions such as epilepsy has been fair and is based on your answers to various questions, e.g. how many nights have you spent in hospital being treated for this condition in the past year etc. rather than a blanket supplement without any consideration to the management of the condition.

I used All Clear after a melanoma diagnosis and got a decent quote. You can do it all online too, which I found helpful, so you don’t have to ring up.

Thanks. The Travel Insurance Web screening process looks similar to what I had before (though the reviews of the company aren’t exactly glowing).