with the excess on travel insurancee, when is the excess normally paid? I would love to know before i purchase my insuarance,

Many Thanks

If you make a claim, the excess is deducted by the insurance company before they send out any monies due.

Hi

I'm looking at booking a holiday with a friend, and the healthy pair that we are we both have pre existing medical conditions! Does anyone know if we need to declare each other's conditions on our policies or if we only needed to declare our own?

Thanks
Rachel

Hi Rachel79

Each person needs to declare their pre existing medical conditions, or if you are buying for your friend you need to tell the insurance company both yours and your friends pre medical conditions. Either way both people need to disclose their pre medical conditions on the insurance application.

I hope this is the answer you are looking for.

Alan

Sorry Alan, I think I might be being a bit thick here as I'm not sure what you mean! It's been a long day!

Can I take out a policy just declaring my ME and my friend takes one out declaring her diabetes, or should my policy show that I have ME and that I will be travelling with someone with diabetes and vice versa?

Hi Rachel .... you would normally need to declare pre existing conditions relating to yourself as well as anyone else on whom the holiday may depend, that is anyone whose health problems may potentially cause you to make a claim under the cancellation terms of your own policy.

David

Thanks David! Just done the quotes as individuals as well as putting both of us on the one policy and it doesn't work out any more expensive.

Is it wrong to think though that even if my friend can't go for whatever reason then I'd still want to go on my own?!

Is it wrong to think though that even if my friend can't go for whatever reason then I'd still want to go on my own?!

If you were intending to proceed with the holiday, even if your friend had to pull out on health reasons, then there would be no need to declare your friend's pre existing conditions on your own individual policy. You would only need to declare pre existing conditions of anyone on whom your holiday may depend, that could be a travelling companion or any close family member at home whose pre existing health conditions could potentially result in you having to cancel your holiday.

On a shared policy, you would each need to declare your own conditions along with those of anyone else on whom the holiday may depend, if either one of you intended to proceed with the holiday even if the other person cancelled.

David

Brilliant thank you! That must make me sound awful, I'm sure that if it actually came to it I'd feel too guilty to go anyway!

Thinking about it, I've put both our medical stuff in and said 2 travellers, but I'm not sure if that means that we're both covered, or if it's just me that's covered but taking into account her health too... if that makes any sense.

Once the holiday's definitely booked I'll give them a call to find out for sure.

Declaring my full health

In two minds on what I should do, do I tell the insurers my full medical history, or seeing how now my doctor thinks most of my problems have been down to stress, and this is now being dealt with diet, and exercise

Have had scans done on my heart and they are all clear

Declare anything that falls into the categories that they ask about.

I don't think you need to go through every symptom and date but the bottom line diagnosis of stress should be declared. For some reason insurers now seem to go two ways, some want all diagnosed/waiting diagnosis conditions and some only want details in a few categories which seems easier but I'm always suspicious of travel insurance that's easy at the start!

I've just upgraded my bank account to one with free travel insurance. When they were selling it to me they said about the amazing travel insurance but I explained that as I have ME I have to take out special insurance for pre existing medical conditions. I was assured though that I wouldn't have to pay a premium. I called them to let them know about my health problems and they told me it would be an extra £30 premium on top per year. It would only cost me £20 to take out my normal insurance through the specialist company. That would be for just the week whereas the one through the bank was for a year, but as I'll only need it for a week there's no benefit in having a year's insurance anyway.

I had a bit of a rant to the poor guy on the end of the phone about having to pay extra as I said that there is nothing that could happen to me on holiday as a result of my ME, I couldn't be admitted to hospital because of it or need any medical treatment, and if I had a flare up all that'd mean would be I'd do even less than normal! He then said that that was fine, I could actually take out the insurance without paying extra for the ME but that I wouldn't be covered for anything relating to that. I'm happy to do that as like I said, I really can't see anything that could cause me to need to claim because of it, but I'd be worried that they might use it as an excuse to not pay out for anything else too. "What, your camera got stolen? Sorry, that'll be down to your ME so you're not covered I'm afraid!!"

I just can't decide what to do, does anyone know if the NatWest travel insurance is really worth it? They've said it's 5* industry standard or something but that doesn't really mean much to me! I also don't know how much of a risk I'd be taking in not being covered for it. Thanks for any help or advice anyone can give me.

x

The important thing here is did he note the declaration?

The industry does have a reputation for trying it on by linking medical conditions but I don't think they've ever tried to cross policy sections and link illness to theft so I wouldn't worry about that!

What normally happens is that someone has something like odd dizzy spells, one day he just slips and breaks his leg, the insurance says "ah, we think you went dizzy which is why you slipped so we're not paying". Man can't prove he didn't go dizzy, insurers say they have reasonable doubt and it all ends in tears.

What we need to consider is whether any ME symptons could be dragged into an argument along those lines. Would they dare say something like "if you'd been more alert and concentrating that accident wouldn't have happened so we think the ME is partly responsible"? And if they did, would NatWest risk the bad publicity? I'd guess they subcontract the insurance but it's still got their name on it and any bad publicity would link back to the current account business. With a simple insurance policy the insurers will assume that if they annoy you they'll lose next years £30 worth of business. But when it's linked to an ongoing bank account it gets more complicated and swings in the customers favour. Most sane people would close the account (and all other business they did there) if the bank's linked insurance let them down, thus causing a longer term loss for the bank and I suspect the banks bear this in mind.

We booked our hols in Jan, and son done ligament damage to his ankle in Feb, he has been discharged form hospital, but is undergoing physio at the moment, which seems like physio is going to continue for quite some time, due to the amount of damage he has done my query is, do I need to inform the Insurance, and would he be covered if he had another injury to his ankle whilst we are away ? Going to read through our insurance docs tonight, but just wanted to see if anyone knew the answer, or do I inform the insurance of sons injury ?

Thanks in advance

I think you need to Roo.

Yes, you definitely need to tell them.

I have a similar question to Roo. I broke my thumb (okay not a major injury, but very painful and its amazing what you cannot do without being able to use it ). I dont need *touch wood* any other aftercare, no physio etc, it was just a straight forward trip to a&e and a "yes its broken" but would I need to notify my insurance?

Your insurer will want to know about any pre existing medical conditions and perhaps also any recent hospital visits, consultations, procedures, treatments, surgery, etc.

Policies will vary and so if in any doubt, it's best to check your policy wording or contact the insurer.

David