Just FYI Travel Insuance/Pre-existing condition

[Luvdogs]

Learning the hard way on this, thought I did everything right.

So we're going to Europe in June, paid for the flight in January, then hotels, etc. We will self insure the flight, hotels are refundable up until a few days before.

I always got med evac insurance through Medjet Assist and will get that again.

Our health insurance covered us overseas until my husband went on Medicare a few months ago. He has a pre-existing condition from 10+ years ago, no problems but has been on medications since.

He has plan F Medicare which is the most comprehensive so they say. It includes $50,000 lifetime overseas insurance (which of course is not much)

So I went online to get medical insurance including his pre-existing condition and all of them have the condition that their insurance must be bought within 24 hours of booking your trip.

I was not aware of that and just thought that I would share.

So if you have a pre-existing condition that you want covered (hopefully), get it when you make your first payment.

 

[cathy63]

Double check the definition of "pre-existing condition" in the policies you want to buy. Typically, if he's been stable and hasn't seen a doctor for this condition or had any testing or medication changes in the past x days (x varies by policy), then they would not refuse to provide coverage for him.

 

[athena53]

I've tried buying coverage right after booking a cruise, which is typically more than a year out, and can't get travel insurance that early. I assume they're OK with getting coverage at the earliest date it's available?

Fortunately I don't have any pre-existing conditions, AFAIK.

 

[sengsational]

To me, there is no one moment when "I buy my trip".

There are a bunch of components of a trip; I might book fully refundable hotels before I book air, I might book tours and other things that have a minimal or no cancellation penalty. Did I "book my trip"? The airfare is probably the biggest expenditure, and that is going to be non-refundable. That's when I consider myself really committed. But from another thread, if you don't need/want to be covered for reimbursement of travel expenses, and only want the evac coverage, then put in "$0" for the cost of the trip. If all you want is to cover medical and evacuation, I can't understand why it would matter when you bought the trip. It would seem to me, the only "important date" for buying would be the date you left home.

 

[athena53]

If all you want is to cover medical and evacuation, I can't understand why it would matter when you bought the trip. It would seem to me, the only "important date" for buying would be the date you left home.

It affects the coverage for pre-existing conditions. They want to avoid people gaming the system not buying coverage until the doctor says, "You need surgery and no way are you going on that cruise".

 

[jonat]

I just bought trip insurance for a trip a year and a half out. Every time I have bought trip insurance there has been a statement that the "lookback period" on preexisting conditions is waived if you buy the insurance within some period (usually 14 days) of initial booking. This is also generally the requirement to buy "cancel for any reason" insurance.