Travel insurance: cancer-free but still a risk?

I agree with your second point. Why do we need insurance? If holidaying in the UK, not many people buy insurance for a week’s stay in Scotland or Cornwall. In the EU, we are covered for reciprocal health care with an EHIC card. The only problem would be a need for repatriation for circumstances such as death abroad but not for illness and medical treatment.
I know of a friend who suffered a heart attack in Italy and received excellent treatment for it. However, having insurance , the insurance company insisted on him being repatriated whereupon after landing back in GB they then left him to our medical services and therefore renounced any further responsibility or liability. In this case it would have been better to remain in Italy to complete full treatment and relied purely on the Italian Health Service.

I wholeheartedly agree with you DT. There is a complete blanket of mystery over travel insurance risks and premiums and it would benefit from a penetrating investigation since, once again, the most vulnerable are either being exploited, or denied a holiday of their choosing.

Whether Which? is up to the task of running a suitable campaign I could not say, and perhaps its resources would be better deployed in areas were there are no other champions. But in the UK there are scores of cancer-support charities in various forms and colossal funds and their silence on this issue is both deafening and disappointing.

I think I read in a previous Which? Conversation discussing travel insurance that people who exclude certain conditions from their cover find that, in the event of a health-related claim, every attempt is made by the insurer to pin the cause of the event on the excluded condition.

If ever there were a case for a Freedom of Information law this is a deserving one since, unlike with any other purchase, 90% of the people who buy a travel policy get absolutely nothing in return. Yes, I know you can’t put a price on peace of mind, and that the whole point of insurance is that it’s a cheap safety net if the worst comes to the worst, but in my view there is more than a whiff of profiteering here; the sheer number of companies offering it who are absent from all other insurance sectors is a bit of a give-away.

Another little wrinkle with travel insurance is that if you get it ‘free’ with your bank or credit card account, as well as having a superior or further-reaching policy with an insurance company, there will be an argument between them both over the liability for and apportionment of any claim as one policy might cover the risk while the other doesn’t, or not sufficiently – and failure to disclose the existence of the gratis policy [and vice versa] could invalidate or limit a claim.

Getting back to health cover in travel insurance, it would be useful if there was a medical opinion on what existing conditions, or events during the holiday, are likely to require repatriation or intensive medical treatment; I suspect that a cancer diagnosis is not one of them. Strokes and heart attacks that can come out of the blue are more likely occurrences. It seems the industry presumes the worst in calculating its premiums; the skies are not exactly dark with medevac planes flying in to our airports during the holiday periods.

As for the risk of death in Venice or wherever, then an inexpensive term life insurance policy can provide the funds required for repatriation, although, as ever, the premiums will be loaded according to a medical assessment but still might be better value overall.