third party travel cancellation insurance cover

[iloveglee]

Can anyone give me a clear explanation of what this covers. The explanation from the travel insurance companies is vague to say the least. Has anyone had an experience with cancellation similar to what is worrying me about our travel and did the insurance pay. We have booked an expensive holiday for next May and have purchased our travel policies. We have elderly parents who have the usual medical conditions of old age, high blood pressure, breathing problems etc but are otherwise well and have their conditions under control. If one of them became ill, and usually if they do it's related to their chronic condition, and prevented our travel, the insurance company say that if they become ill as a result of something they had suffered from within the last 6 months then cancellation would not be covered. Can this be right. If so this would mean that thousands of people who have elderly parents with chronic conditions would not have cancellation or curtailment covered if these parents became ill, or died.

[bednobs]

seems right to me. You are saying that your holiday is dependent on the health of your parents.

[iloveglee]

Not exactly. When elderly people have long term chronic conditions, they may remain well for years, but sometimes out of the blue they become ill. There is no way to predict whether this will happen or not. It seems to me to be very restrictive that the possibility someone will become ill does not cover a family member for cancellation of their holiday, it is impossible to know how someone will be healthwise in 10 months time.

[jno]

I think most insurance policies ask you to list ailments you've got, and may then charge the earth for them or just exclude them. That seems about right. If your parents are more likely than other peole to claim on their policies, you'd expect to pay more for the privilege because they're higher-risk. Or you ask for the particular conditions to be excluded and hope they don't recur while you're on holiday, in which case you'd be taking the risk rather than the insurance company.

[iloveglee]

We are actually not planning to take the elderly parents with us, the cover we need is in case they become seriously ill just before we are due to go away, or while we are away requiring our return home. This appears not to be covered on these policies, we can claim if we ourselves become ill and cannot go away, but not if anyone else becomes ill if they are already suffering from some condition that requires medical treatment. Not sure whether they'd pay out if this person got run over by a bus!! I believe that many people just do not realise this is the case, let's face it there are many many people out there suffering from some medical condition or another and if they become ill and a close family member feels they cannot go away, then they would lose their holiday. I guess its just another case of insurance companies wanting to take your money but being reluctant to pay out. After all, I always believed that insurance was to cover you for things that you hope won't happen but sometimes do.

[spudqueen]

Check out page 4 on here
ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/public/ctf/
po/F8760_Travel_Policy_Text_DocFV.pdf

though I'd ring the helpline (the number is on page 2) for clarification.

[spudqueen]

Sorry - that didn't come up. Go here
http://www.postoffice...762&mediaId=107600787 and click on classic travel insurance policy.

[jno]

sorry, I misunderstood. I think death of a close family member is quite often regarded as good grounds for cancelling a trip (I'm not sure about returning home mid-trip but I would expect so).

[dzug2]

<sorry, I misunderstood. I think death of a close family member is quite often regarded as good grounds for cancelling a trip (I'm not sure about returning home mid-trip but I would expect so). >

That's normally the case - but such cover may be dependent on the state of health of that close family member and any preexisting conditions they have.

[iloveglee]

I have had a long conversation with the company who provide our medical insurance. If you have a relative whose illness of death may prevent you from taking your holiday, parent or child say, and that person has a medical condition in existence 6 months before you take your holiday, if you have to cancel you will not be covered. If you have booked and paid for your holiday 12 months before you travel, and you have a well relative, then that relative subsequently is diagnosed with a medical condition in the next six months, then becomes ill with something related to that condition when you are due to travel you are not covered. If they become ill with something not related to their condition, or have an accident or something, then you are covered. However, there is no facility to add a non travelling person to the policy just for cancellation, even if you were to declare those medical conditions. The only thing you can do is have them on your policy for the full conditions, i.e. including medical care abroad etc, which is obviously not required as they are not travelling. To obtain this kind of policy for someone of that age would probably be as expensive as the trip. It would appear that, these days, you have to either not go on expensive holidays, or risk losing a lot of money if you are in this situation.

[ladyalex]

I think that ,sadly, you are right iloveglee.
I was in a similar position to yours some years ago. We had booked to go on holiday, then my elderly father fell and broke his hip just a week or two before we were due to go.
When I questioned the travel insurers, they said that we would be insured for anything befalling my father ' as long as it was not his broken hip'. Of course, if we had not told them about him breaking his hip just before we went away, we would not have been covered either as we 'had not disclosed all relevant information'. Fortunately, Dad was OK after he got his hip replaced, so the holiday went off as planned...but I do think that it is jolly unfair that if you don't tell the insurers of problems , you are not covered, but if you do tell them about problems you are still not covered.......
It is hard to see what IS covered.

[iloveglee]

My point exactly - I did look at the post office insurance, thank you for the link, and their wording is a little different, in that cover for relatives with medical conditions is covered unless they are under hospital care. Anyone who is managed by their gp presumably is covered. This is if the situation applies at the time you bought the policy or booked your trip. If, in the time between buying the holiday, and going on holiday this situation changes, then who knows what the situation would be. I imagine the terminology is deliberately vague so that the insurance company can try and get out of paying if at all possible.