Our story – trying to get travel insurance when you’ve had a pulmonary embolus.
Paul is attending the European Haematology Association conference in Copenhagen this June and I’m lucky enough to be going with him. I’ve spent quite a while looking up and comparing flights and accommodation and have settled on flying with Qatar airlines and staying at some nice looking apartments. Then I remembered travel insurance. And remembered that last time we went away I tried to organise it last minute and found it very hard. Last year, I started by looking at the insurance we could get for free by booking with our credit card, but no, the small print said no cover for pre-existing conditions. I phoned and they said they’d cover some pre-existing conditions for an extra charge, but not a history of pulmonary embolus (PE).
So I went online and looked at all the heavily advertised, reasonably priced travel insurance I could find. None covered pre-existing conditions and when I phoned none were willing to cover PE. I asked Paul. He said lots of patients in his clinic had complained about the difficulty getting travel insurance but he had no idea it would be this hard. I began to get concerned. I couldn’t find cover anywhere. How much could it cost if we decided to risk travelling without insurance? The answer was not reassuring! At last on an online forum I found the name “Covermore” and went to their site. I didn’t even have to phone. They covered PE and I just had to answer a few easy questions online (and pay a lot of money!) and we were insured. So this time I went straight to the “Covermore” website. I noticed they do an annual insurance and thought that might be a good idea as we have three overseas trips planned within the year. But pulmonary embolus wasn’t on the list of conditions covered. Had it changed since last year? I phoned the company and was advised that it might be because I was trying to book an annual insurance that included the US and to try just booking the individual holiday. I went back and did just that and now we are at least insured for our three weeks in Europe.
I’d be interested to know if anyone else has had trouble getting travel insurance and what company you ended up using and why.
Good morning. I’m on warfarin for heart valves but same problem. I went through a broker and a company insured me for Europe too. The USA I avoided as I assumed it would be harder. Three weeks to Europe cost me $1000.00. The company was NZI.
That’s interesting Elini, maybe travel insurance should come high on our priority list when thinking about holidays.