Recommended Travel Insurance

Hi It's a while since I posted and thank you everyone for your experiences. I need to post this as I know that Eurotunnel have been quite a helpful insurer for people travelling in Europe.  Unfortunately when we had to turn around after 24 hours in France because the ski resort suddenly closed, I found that we weren't covered on our Eurotunnel policy, mainly because there are various types of curtailment (including your travel firm going bankrupt) which are excluded or just not covered. We didn't see this coming as this was an unusual situation we just hadn't anticipated. The accommodation hire was from a small firm who only does flats and isn't liable for things like "no resort" suddenly happening. (I accept that, they are not a holiday provider.)

Also Eurotunnel have "Any epidemic or pandemic" high on their list of exclusions, and have done for years - we never thought twice about it as we never expected to travel in a pandemic! But we had paid in full and it wasn't in the area we went at the time. What we didn't expect was the "whole French alps" to close within a few hours. (This was before the French general lockdown.)

As covid19 will probably dominate world travel for at least a couple of years, be warned .

For anybody that booked using Free Spirit and have had their holiday cancelled, you can either claim back 50% or put your policy on hold until you need to use it again. I received this information from them:

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At the moment, for any policyholders requesting refunds for single trips outside the 14 day cooling-off period Insurers require us to keep to the Terms and Conditions of the policy which limits the refund to 50% of the original premium. In order for us to complete this, please confirm the below;

1.You have made no claims on the policy
2.You have no intention of making any claims on the policy

However, we wish to help our customers as much as possible, especially during such a testing time. If your travel plans have been cancelled we are happy to freeze your policy until the time comes that you are able to re-book your travel arrangements; at which time we can re-commence your policy. Please note that if the destination, duration or your current medical situation changes, this may affect the premium.  In order for us to process this, please complete the form on the below link;

www.freespirittravelinsurance.com/.../

We will then email you confirmation in due course. Should you have no confirmed dates, we will input fictitious dates. Once you have a new trip planned , we can amend the dates again for you.

1. Hi, I am really struggling to get insurance as I have a prognosis of February lifespan and find most insurance companies won't insure for less than 6 months. If any one can offer any advice I would really appreciate it. Kerry 

Hi Kerry

I don't have any personal experience of getting travel insurance with a prognosis of less than 6 months to live but I noticed you hadn't had any replies yet.

Have you had the chance to look through this thread and try any of the insurance companies that have been recommended?

I know that people have mentioned getting insurance with a terminal diagnosis on here before so I typed 'terminal' into the search bar in the group and found that Insurancewith was one of those mentioned. If you haven't tried them then they could be a good starting point.

It is best to phone the insurance companies rather than try and do online quotes as often at the end of the online quote it will tell you to phone the company and you'll then have to go through all the information again. Also sometimes the broker can refer to the underwriters to see if they would provide cover when an online quote might just give you a straight refusal. 

Do let me know how you get on

x

This is my first year of trying to book holiday insurance since being diagnosed with lung cancer. I was becoming very despondent with quotes ranging from £1,164 up to £2,340 for just a single 10-day trip to Europe. Yes, I have lung cancer, but all the answers I gave to the multitude of questions asked were positive, so I consider myself to be relatively low risk.

I gave up getting quotes by telephone and resorted to online applications using companies found on this forum. I was highly sceptical when I did an online application to one company and received a quote of just £154.07 for the same 10-day trip to Europe. Believing it to be too good to be true, I decided to call them and ask them to verify the information I'd given was correct. It took no more than 10-15 minutes to go through it on the phone, and yes - £154.07 was correct. The agent I spoke to suggested a final tweak to the policy which added £58 to provide additional cover to protect me against cancellation due to my cancer. 

The total cost is £212.16 for my wife and I with Platinum Cover (so not just the basic) for 10 days in Europe - it even gives protection for Covid. The company I used is Insurancewith which is one of the trading names of the company Travel Insurance Faclities Plc. 

Their website is at insurancewith.com and the phone number is 03339992679

Knibbo2004 - dated 7/5/2021

Hi Knibbo2004 and a very warm welcome to the online community

Thanks very much for taking the time to tell us about your experience getting travel insurance and it's great news that you were able to get some reasonably priced travel insurance after looking through the recommendations on this thread.

I hope you and your wife have a lovely trip.

x

Hi It's great that you have been able to find a good quote.  There have been some problems reported with tif group in the past, check out "tif group" and "Times newspaper".  I imagine it's only a small number, but it has come up more than once. TIF underwrite quite a few insurance companies so it may not affect InsuranceWith. I have had cancer in the past and my husband is being investigated at present so we will be in a similar situation re travel insurance, it's always been difficult. All the best.

Thanks for pointing that out Helenaa. I see there were several negative reports by The Times in 2018. TIF took the matter to court and won which resulted in The Times paying substantial damages and costs to TIF, plus a full written apology in their newspaper. 

I'm guessing that TIF is only as good as the front line insurance companies they underwrite. In my recent search for holiday insurance, I came across three companies mentioned in this forum that were all underwritten by TIF and all even had the same telephone number. 

Half the battle is setting off with confidence that if anything goes wrong, you're covered. Insurancewith seem to have positive feedback but with luck we won't need to put it to the test. 

Hi Knibbo thank you for taking my comments as they were meant, I must update on this though the Times hasn't been the only critic, but I agree about the front line companies and also take the view that I would insure with anyone, rather than no-one when travelling, and do my own risk assessment.  last year we used a good company who have always been good about minor medical emergencies, but when it came to our booking being ruined by COVID, there was no cover for that level of curtailment :-)  Swings and roundabouts. Medical is more important in the end.

Hello Knibbo2004. How long before your trip did you ask Insurancewith for a quote? in the past when I have contacted them they wold only quote me 60 days or less before I travelled, which was a problem with having to book a year in advance.

Regards

Ken W