Everyone is looking for ways to save a few pennies right now, as costs of day-to-day essentials like fuel and food continue to rise alarmingly. And that includes finding ways to trim down the costs of going on holiday this summer.
If you have a long-term medical condition, you are no doubt already well aware of how this can push up the cost of travel insurance – sometimes, depending on the condition and the provider you go through, up into the realms of the unaffordable.
Given all the other financial pressures people are facing at the moment, that may be pushing you to consider one of two courses of action. You may be weighing up simply not buying travel insurance at all, and taking a chance that you won’t need to make a claim. Or you may be wondering about not declaring your condition to get cover at a cheaper rate.
The first option has obvious drawbacks, especially at a time when airlines are cancelling flights in droves and there are widespread reports of passengers losing their luggage as airlines struggle to cope with critical shortages of ground staff, including baggage handlers. Travel insurance covers you financially both for any money you lose as a result of a cancellation and for lost luggage. Not having this protection is a big risk to take this summer.
But travel insurance also covers you for the cost of medical treatment if you happen to fall ill while abroad. This is actually more valuable than the cover you get for cancellations – the cost of hospitalisation in another country can be many times more expensive than even the most luxurious holiday.
This is reflected in the fact that travel insurance payout limits for medical costs are routinely 100 or more times higher than the cancellation cover offered. You don’t find many policies offering medical cover of less than £1 million, versus up to around £10,000 for cancellations.
But the terms and conditions around medical payouts change if you have a medical condition. To put it bluntly, insurers see you as more of a risk if you have a pre-existing condition. They adjust their terms (and their prices) in the expectation that you are more likely to make a medical claim.
Simply not declaring your condition might seem like an obvious way around this. But doing so means taking as big a risk as not buying travel insurance at all. Here are two very good reasons why you should always tell insurers about any condition you are receiving treatment for.
Standard insurance won’t pay out if you need treatment for a specific condition
The medical schedule of standard insurance policies is designed to cover you for unforeseen medical emergencies. So if you catch a nasty virus, eat something that doesn’t agree with you, suffer a bad episode of heatstroke or injure yourself in an accident, travel insurance has your back. If you end up in hospital, you could end up with a bill running to five or six figures, because as a foreign visitor you won’t be entitled to state-subsidised care in most countries. But if you’ve taken out travel insurance, no problem. It will pay your bills for you.
Things are very different, however, if symptoms of a pre-existing medical condition flare up while you are on holiday. If you have a respiratory or cardiovascular illness, if you are diabetic, if a musculoskeletal condition leaves you vulnerable to bouts of chronic pain – whatever the condition happens to be, there is always a risk of your health deteriorating and needing medical attention.
If this happens while you are abroad, you won’t be covered by the terms of a standard insurance policy. It won’t be deemed as ‘unforeseen’, because having a medical condition by definition means you are liable to need medical treatment. Without a medical travel insurance policy specific to your condition, you will be left to foot the bill. Which is a very compelling reason not to keep quiet about your condition.
Your insurance could be declared void
Even if you fall ill while on holiday and it has nothing to do with your medical condition, there is still a risk you could fall foul of not declaring it. Say you pick up a stomach bug that leaves you severely dehydrated and you end up having to be admitted to hospital to get fluids in you and stabilise you – something that could happen to anyone anywhere in the world. You’d be charged for the treatment and would then make a claim against your insurance in the normal way.
Your insurance provider would then investigate the claim. They would seek confirmation from the hospital you were treated at about your state of health and the treatment provided. They could also then look into your medical history and contact your doctor at home to see if there is anything that could make you vulnerable to such an illness.
If they find in the course of those checks that you have a pre-existing medical condition that you haven’t declared – even if it has no bearing on the illness you experienced – your insurer could declare your policy void and refuse to pay out. They are entitled to do this on the grounds of non-disclosure, or the fact that they would have sold you a different policy had they been aware of all the facts.
