Travel Insurance

I use Staysure which has cost about £500 for 8 weeks to Australia and the Pacific.

I have just noticed whitewave's post about ex-civil servants - I belong to the association, should have asked them first!!

I have already taken out the travel insurance for later in the year, which I took out as soon as we booked the flights. You then have to stick to the dates, if you change your flights or booking you would have to let them know.

We have travel insurance through the bank which covers everything except pre-existing medical conditions, which I should imagine is the same with the Post Office instant insurance.

The Post Office do an instant travel cover. Handy in the days when the DC had sudden invites to join friends abroad. x

oh! I have posted this info before

Are you ex-civil servants? If so join the pension association and get travel insurance - they don't ask about your previous health record or age.

Could you make that up roughly?

I`ve tried that Grannytwice, but they keep asking for holiday details, i.e. destination and dates.

Yes - you can go online and get a quote or ring up companies to get one that way without committing yourself

We want to book a couple of short holiday breaks, one in the UK and one in Ireland, but daren`t book in case we can`t afford the travel insurance. Is there a way to get a sort of idea of how much insurance will be before booking a holiday?

I got cover via my bank for £23 but they wouldn't cover DH because of his heart attacks and PVD. DirectLine covered him for around £80-this was for a week's Med cruise.

I went this year for a single trip policy with Good to Go which seemed to cover specific pre-existing conditions as an add on cheaper than anywhere else.

I have a standard holiday insurance cover for Europe with my home insurance.

There must be a lot of money to be made with travel insurance. For years we were able to have an annual policy for both of us with up to 90 days - then the underwriters were changed and it was restricted to 60 days. The insurance given by banks etc tends to be only till you are70.
Here in France the insurance is so much easier and cheaper - when we did a trip of seven weeks last year with five of them in USA we had full insurance except for fligh cancellation as it was covered by the credit card - it cost the two of us £200 and it was the best Ins company here. We have a great broker and he also told us that here should repatriation be required our HOUSE insurance would pay! There are no health restrictions either - illegal - and when you think of it if a condition is controlled by medication and that is taken responsibly why does that need to be taken into account - a signed form from the GP saying the condiction is controlled should be sufficient.

I had problems after breast cancer, even just on Tamoxifen, and even now, eleven years on, with all my joint replacements etc, it is the cancer that seems to raise the premium. I am still (just) under 70 too. Of course, it depends to where you are travelling - the USA means a lot of money to pay out.

Worth it if you can...

I wrote TravelandGo. Not sure such a company exists.
I remember now it is called InsureandGo.

My friend was telling me of the Civil Servants Pensioners Insurance thing. I haven't looked at it yet I have to find the web address from her. But if you are an ex-civil servant it may be worth a look.

There is a website medicaltravelcompared which may be useful. We have recently sorted our travel insurance out for a 62 day trip to New Zealand. 60 days is easy but 62 days caused a sharp intake of breath! I have medical conditions and we ended up paying £272 and got cover through Explorer travel insurance. We have "platinum single trip cover".

Whilst on this subject if you are hiring a car please remember to take out "excess" insurance in this country before you go. Costs around £50 but worth every penny. Whilst in Australia a few years ago we had the misfortune to "ping" the air conditioning unit on the hire car. A charge of Gb£760. It would have been an ouch moment had we not taken out the excess policy in UK before we left home.

TravelandGo is probably worth a look.
You may have to answer questions over the phone, but they ask reasonable questions.

Hi my travel insurance is attached to my nationwide bank account and covers me until im 80...way to go yet. Have the basic policy for cancellation and illness and did not get charged more for high blood pressure as it is controlled with tablets. Worth looking at cos i got some frightful premiums some as much as the holiday

We were away in the Canaries for three months last year when my husband fell ill two days before our return home with a urinary tract infection needing a catheter etc.etc. we were insured with Staysure no problem getting treatment and recompense through them on our return home. However we are going again this winter and are now looking for insurance again so interesting reading replies.

I have booked with Spectrum for our next trip of 3 months costing just over £800, I received quotes of up to £2,500.

When you get older are on medication with health problems your choice of insurance companies willing to insure you decreases and the cost will depend on what your health issues are.

We have been with Staysure but when I tried to claim for items stolen we were told that because we had contents insurance we would have to claim half the cost from this supplier.
I was furious having paid them for my travel cover.
I couldn't claim without penalty from my contents insurer as I had a flood two years previously, our whole house was flooded when we were away on holiday so we ended up not claiming.

You can't win with insurance companies.

I'm sure I have read about this somewhere recently but can't remember where. It would either be The Daily/Sunday Telegraph travel section or Martin's Money Tips I think. The latter is on-line and comes every Wednesday which you can sign up for.
Sorry I can't be more help but maybe you could look those two up on-line - it was a week or two ago.
Alternatively Nationwide bank offer travel insurance free (Europe) or for about £20 extra it can be worldwide with their current account (no need to pay a monthly fee either). I think it applies to anyone up to the age of 75.
Sorry to be a bit vague but I am sure there are companies out there who will insure us more mature people!

I have just paid £900 for my travel insurance (to go to the USA) having had serious heart problems when I was in the USA at Christmas. I am under investigation so that puts the premium up. Apparently if that is no longer the case the premium will come down.

My travel insurance company is All Clear. Perhaps the main problem is the length of stay that you are hoping to go for. I think they will only insure for something like 30 or so days.

I go on Saturday!

I was hunting for travel insurance today too and gave up. We have booked for next May and I was looking for something that included cancellation insurance should anything happen to MIL who is 90 and has many illnesses. Unfortunately it seems that no one will cover for an existing illness even if that person is not travelling with you but might cause you to have to cancel the trip.

There was a thread about this a while back where people said that Staysure was a good company, but I have no personal experience of it.