To not mention a health condition when booking travel insurance?

[Noellefielding]

If we get proper travel insurance mentioning a pre existing health condition it will cost £65.
If we don't, it'll cost £28.
We have European health cards.
What do other people do?!
I know it's cautious to do so but I feel as if I've spent my whole life pouring money into insurance and never ever claiming.

[shay2006]

Depends on the medical condition. I understand how you feel but can you afford to pay for the treatment if needed out of pocket?

[3Trees]

Be very careful about doing this. it can end up costing you THOUSANDS.

The ONLY time I would do this (becasue I do) is becasue I have been advised by my INSURANCE company that I no longer need to pay the higher premium as my pre existing condtion has not changed in 5 years, no longer requires medication and, as such does not really exist, in that it would have zero impact on my holiday or any other thing I may be likely to claim for.

[TrillianAstra]

The way Iunderstand the difference between having real insurance and the EHIC is that if you break your leg and rely on EHIC then you will be treated in hospital but they won't help you to get home with the broken leg. Real insurance will sort out a car to the airport, an extra seat on a plane to accomodate your leg, etc.

I imagine that if anything happens to you at all and the company finds out about your pre-existing condition (whether or not it is relevant) your having lied about it will invalidate the insurance.

Is it the sort of thing that you would have to mention to a doctor/hspital, even if you were in for smething unrelated, like having fallen down and broken your leg?

[ThatPoshBirdBellavita]

It will make your insurance null and void. Buy the right insurance. You must be mad to not mention it. If you don't and get the cheaper insurance and something goes wrong, they will find out.

[Fel1x]

If you are going to lie then you may as well not get any insurance and save all your money!
If you fall ill and do need to claim they will check your details and you won't be compensated if you've lied.
What is the existing condition? Something you could need treatment for

[TrillianAstra]

I was going to say that Felix, then remembered that travel insurance also covers non-medical things like bags not turning up.

But like Bella says, your entire insuranvce, for the whole family, for everything, will be void if they find out.

[breatheslowly]

Big can of worms here - it might depend on the nature of the pre existing condition (some things are unlikely to recur or might not require instant attention). On the otherhand insurance companies love to be able to invalidate your insurance, so might refuse to pay for treatment for something entirely unrelated (e.g. broken leg when your pre existing condition is heart related).

[CMOTdibbler]

If you do this, your entire insurance will be void - not just the existing condition. So, effectively you are no better off than not having any.

Remember that travel insurance isn't just about the treatment in hospital, but about paying for the family to stay if someone has to be in hospital, flying you back by normal plane or repatriation with a Dr if needed etc etc

[traceybath]

Don't do it.

My step-father ended up having a triple heart bypass in Japan last year whilst on holiday.

He hadn't disclosed he had high blood pressure. Thankfully the inusurers did cover him but it was touch and go and he was facing bankruptcy to pay bills if they'd refused.

[traceybath]

As Trills says - you may get cover for emergency treatment via EHIC but airline may refuse to let you fly without a Dr present etc.

Step-fathers bills and my mums for staying with him would have been in the tens if not hundreds of thousands as he was in hospital in Japan for several weeks and had to have a Dr fly over from the UK to accompany them back.

[mrsmindcontrol]

For the love of god, PLEASE don't do this. I am a travel insurance underwriter and I see every day the consequences of people not declaring existing conditions.

3Trees is right when she says it could cost you thousands.... I've seen people declared bankrupt through unpaid foreign medical bills.

Please believe me when I say that the extra premiums you may have to pay for cover for existing conditions will be well worth it if you need to claim. The EHIC will not get you home if you need to be air ambulanced back to the UK - this is something which happens a lot. Neither will it cover the costs of a member of your family staying out with you or someone from the UK flying out to be with you. And it really does cover only the most basic of medical costs. Some of the state hospitals overseas are a disgrace. Honestly.

These additional premiums are reflective of the risk and are not designed to be a con.

Do shop around though as you may able to find a better deal somewhere.

You may want to try the place you get your stamps/car tax from (don't want to blatantly advertise!). They have a call centre who handle all the medical screenings - look on their website for details.

[minibmw2010]

For the sake of saving £40, are you willing to put your health and financial security at risk ???? Don't be daft, just disclose and buy the proper insurance.

[tablefor3]

It is also worth bearing in mind that EIHC only covers you for what you woudl be covered for if you were a national in the country where you are being treated, not what you get in the UK (ieg free).

So, in France (for example), the state only covers, not sure, but say 50% of covers, the rest is picked up by someone's private insurance. So, under EIHC 50% would be covered, but you would still be presented with the rest. Taking out private insurance would cover the rest, and actually, depending on the policy, might only cover the "extra" not the amount that would have been covered by EIHC.

Sorry if I have got the facts wrong for France and actually everything is free, but the principle of EIHC still exists. Also, private insurance would normally allow you access to a private hospital in whichever country rather than the state hospitals which EIHC might send you to.

[sheenbeen]

OOh, thanks for the tip mrsmindcontrol

I've always declared my health condition but often wondered about this - I have high blood pressure....except I don't really as I'm on medication for it so my blood pressure is normal - of course the extra insurance is there to cover for when the medication doesn't control it I suppose or god forbid, I forgot to take it with me

[mrsmindcontrol]

Just to correct an assumption on here. No insurer can invalidate an entire policy because of the non-disclosure of one condition unless the condition was so serious as to mean that no reasonable insurer would have offered the policy had the truth been known. In reality, this would mean that the proposer would have to be terminally ill.

What would happen is that no cover would be in place for that condition. So, in the scenario mentioned above, if you had a pre-existing heart condition which you didn't declare and then broke your leg, your insurer would still cover the treatment for your leg despite your non-disclosure.

Despite the public perception, insurance has changed a lot in recent years with regulation and insurers can no longer get away with blatant persecution. The balance has shifted much more in favour of the customer than most people believe.

[traceybath]

Yes mrsmindcontrol - step-father was told he wouldn't have been covered for a stroke as his blood-pressure problems could have been a factor in that.

However as he hadn't had any heart problems before he was covered for that.

Was still not much fun though waiting to find out if he was definitely covered or not.

[ShinyAndNew]

What's the medical condition? We were having the same problem getting medical insurance with Dh's epilepsy. He went onto Epilepsy Outlook website and discovered a special policy for epilepsy sufferers and their family that cost us no more than normal insurance.

[tokyonambu]

There's also the downstream problem that if you have a problem with your insurance you'll forever after have to tick the "have you ever had insurance cancelled, declined or offered on special terms" box. Which will not be fun.

[BigBadMummy]

If you claim for ANYTHING and it comes to light you have not disclosed this RELATED OR NOT your claim will be dismissed.

Lots of cases of "oh well it is not connected to this illness now" in the press and still insurance companies throw out claims.

It is called Full Disclosure. And without it they reserve the right to remove cover.

Do not knowingly withold information as it could come back and bite you on the arse.

[Morloth]

Insurance is very expensive right up until you need it, when it suddenly becomes very cheap.

Your insurance will be void if you don't declare it, so you might as well save the 28 quid as well.

[mrsmindcontrol]

BigBadMummy - you are wrong. Please see my post above.

There are rules relating to what insurers are allowed to do in the event of non-disclosure. They are dull and complicated but essentially mean that insurers cannot null & void a policy for non-disclosure other than in the circumstances I described above.

I can send you a link to the relevant legislation should you so desire .

[EightiesChick]

As mrsmindcontrol says, if you don't declare something you won't have cover for that condition or anything that could be associated with it. So it wouldn't invalidate the entire insurance policy. What that means though is that the nature of the condition you're thinking of not declaring is crucial. If it's something like diabetes, for instance, I would definitely declare it as various other things could be argued as being attributable to the diabetes, say if you have a heart attack or blood pressure problems while away. Other stuff might be easier to deal with especially if it's a condition that is now dealt with and you know won't cause you a problem, or that you'te confident you could self-medicate for if it flared up while you're away.

Certain providers can be pretty good for this - I think it's Cancer Research or Macmillan who offer good cover for all sorts of conditions, not just cancer. Plus Saga if you're old enough I've also used specialist insurers like Medicare.

My other tip would be to look into getting a policy just for you that covers your specific medical conditions, and then another for the rest of your family without that cover. This can actually work out cheaper. I have a medical history as long as your arm and what we now do is that my DH has a bank account where you get free family travel insurance, so if anything non-related happened (like baggage loss or car accident) we would claim on that policy as it has better general cover, whereas if a medical problem of mine raised its head I would claim on my specific policy and be covered for that without disturbing the claims history of the other policy.

[Noellefielding]

type 2 diabetes.

[proseccogirl]

if you lie to your insurer in these circumstances your whole policy of insurance will be void. If you need to make a claim because of an unrelated medical situation it is likely that they will get wind of the problem from asking for a report from the doctor treating you overseas, and void the policy, thereby rendering your insurance worthless in the first place. They won't refund your premium. They will give your details to the UK insurance information sharing scheme for people who give false details or make false claims and you won't get insurance in the future. Its a very bad plan.