Recommended Travel Insurance

I booked last week for a holiday in September, so a good 4 months away.

I arranged travel insurance with Insurancewith a couple of weeks ago, for a trip over New Year and another next March. Both are winter sports and the quotes were very reasonable. I asked them about another trip, to Africa, in July 2022 and they said they'd get back to me, but haven't yet. My feeling is that they probably won't be happy to cover this one.

Hmm, that's interesting as I want to go to africa in October 

LauraTT, they won't cover that trip as it costs more than their upper level of cancellation cover and they won't 'underinsure' me (even though I was prepared to take the excess risk myself). So I'm phoning round more companies today.

Thanks, that's interesting, do you know what their upper level is?

Be interested to hear how you get on with the others please

Upper level is £5,000 on their Platinum level. Several companies have said they won't quote for the level I need, more than 12 months before the trip, so I'll call them back in July. I've tried All Clear, Worldwide Insure and World First. If you're going in October, it sounds like you'll be able to get a quote. Good luck!

Thanks Joy, mine would be about £4.5k.

Of course, at the moment where I'm going is on the red list so will be keeping an eye out for any changes. 

Also direct flights to Jo'burg seem to be non existent at the moment so another hurdle to get over

Good luck and thanks again 

Hello all,

Firstly in reply about InsuranceWith, we have used them before and have needed to claim so I can report positively on that!  It was before my husband's diagnosis, I have a blood disorder which causes blood clots so needed different insurance myself.  3 years ago on holiday in Jamaica I was ill on the day we were due to go home, and after standing in the full sun waiting for suitcases at the airport I fainted in the queue for check in.  Unfortunately the airline staff saw and reported it and refused to allow me to check in until I had seen a doctor.  There was little wrong with me other than dehydration but it was at a private hospital, and of course knowing I had insurance that was it.  I had blood tests, ECG, brain scans the lot.  They even wanted to keep me in overnight for observation!  Of course we missed our flight.  They thankfully decided it was an infection and allowed me to leave with my husband. The hospital wouldn't deal directly with the insurance company so we had to pay for everything on a credit card and claim it back but at this point InsuranceWith were excellent.  We had a £4,000 bill and they paid it back within days.  I simply had to fill in a form, scan all my receipts and email it in.  I was dreading it taking ages and having to argue our case for it all but there was no issue at all.  They emailed me at each stage of the process and it was very efficient, so we are always happy to use them now.

I actually came on here to ask about typical excesses put on policies.  My husband has advanced prostate cancer and we are planning our first holiday post diagnosis.  I have done a quote for 2 weeks in Cuba next January and was pleased that the quote was £288, not much more than we paid before.  But I did notice that the excess for him was £500, is this normal?  I wondered if it was because of how far in advance it was and it might get better nearer the time?  But then you have the worry of it something changes before you do it!

Thank you :-)

Hi NorfolkExile and welcome to the travel insurance group

Thank you for your recommendation for InsuranceWith. Whilst I'm sorry you had to claim it's always good to know that in the event of a claim they were not a problem to deal with.

I haven't had an increased excess when I took out travel insurance since being diagnosed with melanoma but maybe that reflected the type of cancer I had.

It might be an idea to start a new post in this group asking for peoples experiences with insurance excesses.

I hope you have a lovely time in Cuba xx

Hi everyone. I've been hunting around for travel insurance for an upcoming two week UK trip with the family (my wife has undergone treatment for Breast Cancer and is now on the hormone drugs). I thought I'd share my recent experience of insurancewith. We have used them before and I was hoping for cover this time around. I completed all the on-line questions as usual and was asked to call as they needed to do a medical referral to the underwriters. So I called, (we are due to travel at the end of July) only to be told that their underwriting team is shut (due to furlough etc). until 21st July. So frankly, that's not much help. Thought I'd post that here in case anyone else is considering them. If you are due to travel soon you might want to consider an alternative. I ended up with a policy from Insure and Go who were able to include the Breast Cancer for an amazingly bargain premium of £1.06 on top of the standard holiday insurance.