Travel Insurance for Cancer

[hedge]

Hi,

Family member has cancer and is undergoing treatment with longer term maintenance drugs (over a period of 1yr +). This means that I have to tick the "still receiving treatment" box when I apply for travel insurance.

This means that most TI providers refuse the cover automatically.

Any idea which providers will cover for cancer?

Otherwise we will have to rely on reciprocal health cover and TI for the potential non cancer related issues.

 

[Pushka]

Hi,

Family member has cancer and is undergoing treatment with longer term maintenance drugs (over a period of 1yr +). This means that I have to tick the "still receiving treatment" box when I apply for travel insurance.

This means that most TI providers refuse the cover automatically.

Any idea which providers will cover for cancer?

Otherwise we will have to rely on reciprocal health cover and TI for the potential non cancer related issues.

Try Insure and Go.

 

[Spongbob]

There is also the issue of an airline may not carry a passenger undergoing medical treatment. You should check the requirements needed to support the claim that they are fit to travel.

 

[hedge]

Try Insure and Go.

Thanks, I did try their online questionnaire and was rejected, but will give them a call.

There is also the issue of an airline may not carry a passenger undergoing medical treatment. You should check the requirements needed to support the claim that they are fit to travel.

Thanks, good point. These maintenance treatments are an IV administered drug, so I would think the oncologist would be okay with travel. Something I will ask.

Many people undergoing chemo do travel from what I have read.

 

[aliceadventures]

So it will often depend on who is doing to medical assessing - the insurers tend to outsource the assessment process to third-party medical risk assessment companies, so there's like four companies doing all the online medical assessments for all the travel insurers in Australia. They tend to be linked to who the underwriter is, so many of the travel insurance brands underwritten by Lloyd's have Healix doing the medical assessments, a lot of the Allianz underwritten brands have the same medical screener, etc. Having the same screening company means they tend to cover and exclude basically the same stuff unless an insurer has specifically requested to allow it.

So while a lot of brands do cover cancer, the questions the will ask about the cancer will often prevent coverage, particularly if you're undergoing chemo at the time.

If there are some that allow it, the tips I would offer for finding them would be to look at a list of all the travel insurance brands in Australia and who their underwriter is. That *might* help weed out which have different screening companies as well, which tend not to be disclosed anywhere. The other thing would be to look at a list of companies which have online screening forms.

The mods have suggested that I'm not allowed to post links because I have worked in travel, but if you google travel insurance underwriter comparison and travel insurance pre-existing medical conditions comparison, you should be able to find sites that will help.

An alternative option worth looking at would be specialist medical travel insurer, AllClear. My understanding is that they don't automatically exclude any conditions, although the premiums can be pricey af. I tend to recommend older folks with heart conditions check them out, but they might be able to help here too.