Travel insurance with and without maintenance treatment for lymphoma

Hi Joy57 and a very warm welcome to the travel insurance group

Unfortunately it can be more expensive to get travel insurance if you've had cancer.

I'm tagging Tina478 and as they have both posted in the past about getting insurance with a follicular lymphoma diagnosis. Hopefully, they're still members of the community and will be able to pop in and tell you about their experiences.

x

Hello Joy,

Lets hope your scan results have good news for you.

I had RCHOP chemo, followed by Radiotherapy, then 2 year's Ritux Maintenance for FNHL which I finished at the beginning of last year.

Unfortunately, Rituximab Maintenance is still classed as treatment, even though non-toxic, in the eyes of insurers.  I approached about 15 insurers and from memory the cheapest annual policy I could find was about £250 ranging to over a £1000. Some insurers declined to quote.  Some insurers will want to see a period go by once maintenance has finished before they will give you a quote.  Eventually, someone pointed me in the direction of Boots online and I had no problem at all getting an annual multi trip policy for me and my husband for £100.  So I wouldn't let travel insurance be the deciding factor in you treatment.  I gave quite a detailed post about it some time ago and have tried to find it again, but since Macmillan updated the site, I find it nigh on impossible to find my old stuff, so the above is just from memory.

Personally I would rather have life saving treatment if it were offered than refuse it to save on travel insurance.  There are affordable insurance options, such as Boots as I have mentioned or a few other Insurers if you browse through old posts.

I am aware that many Rituximab maintenance treatments are on hold because of the pandemic, maybe this is why it may not be offered?

Good luck with everything.

Tina

Hi Tina478

Hopefully this was the post that you wanted to link Joy to 

Thank you Tina478. Food for thought. I think the pandemic is part of the reason that my hospital has stopped offering maintenance (I have had O-CHOP), but I know from talking to others under different hospitals, that they are still being started on maintenance. I will keepyou updated on what happens.

That's perfect Latchbrook, thank you.  I would be grateful if you could let me know how you found it? I can't seem to be able to find my old posts in my profile.

You're welcome Joy.  Latchbrook has very helpfully found my old post which gives a lot more detail., see the link above.

Hi Tina478

Now you'll have to bear in mind that I'm using a laptop but hopefully it'll be pretty similar on anything else.

All you should need to do is click on 'Activity' on your profile. This should bring up your posts in date order with the most recent at the top.

If you have more posts than can fit immediately on the screen you need to scroll down all the way past the green band to the very bottom of the webpage. This will cause all your posts to load. 

Let me know if this works

x

Thanks, it has brought up a couple more posts, but mostly not.  It doesn't really matter though.

You're right Tina478. I've just looked at your activity and it only goes back to the middle of 2019.

I found your travel insurance post because using the search bar in the group I typed in 'follicular lymphoma' and it brought up a few posts including yours.

I'm going to report the fact that all your activity isn't showing to the admin team for them to investigate as you, and anyone else who looks at your activity, should be able to see everything you've ever posted.

Take care

x

Hi Tina, just an update for you. My PET scan showed complete metabolic remission (yay!) and I saw my consultant last week who has offered me maintenance treatment (contrary to what I was originally told) which will start in May.

I rang Insurancewith yesterday who have given me good quotes on 2 trips coming up in the next year (insured as 2 single trips) and I'll accept those quotes.

Good to know that I can still travel without it costing the earth! Covid permitting of course, and I realise that I will still need to take a lot of precautions - but those are second nature now.