My experience - finding skiing holiday travel insurance

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Hi everyone! Thought I’d share my experience in case it helps anyone.

I’ve spent the last week ringing around to get a quote for a one week skiing holiday in Italy in March for my husband who has Stage 3 skin cancer (nodular melanoma). He’s had the mole removed (and one lymph node as it has spread) and is now on targeted treatment (tablets) to reduce the chance of it returning.

It’s taken a long time to get through to all the insurance companies listed on the government list for ‘specialist insurers who cover pre-existing medical conditions’ (often 15-30 minutes on hold to get through).

We’ve had a very mixed response - from a straight decline from StaySure, to an expensive quote from AllClear, to a very positive experience with Saga and InsureCancer. The quote for a one week holiday ranged from £200 to £764 for those who would quote so definitely worth shopping around.

We also asked for a quote to ski in Canada - which we’ve discounted as it was £2,500 for 7 days!!

So it is worth persevering! We’re going to go with Saga (08009047489) as the range of questions they asked was very comprehensive and they really treated you as a person (InsureCancer were also very good 01252 780190).

Good luck everyone!

latchbrook over 2 years ago

Hi Joolskigirl

That's great news that you were able to get travel insurance at a reasonable price and thanks very much for taking the time to let us all know about your experience.

I hope you and your husband have a wonderful time.

"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"

Helenaa over 2 years ago

Just looked at the InsureCancer website. They are an established company (2002 or 2007 depending on which name) - I was looking for policy documents (not on the site), and also info about Covid cover (again not on the open site). There seems to be more than one travel insurance company at the address, same directors! I like to see things in advance but I know that you can't always.

Joolskigirl over 2 years ago in reply to Helenaa

Hi Helenaa I know what you mean! But we couldn’t find any websites that really covered what we wanted to know - and all our conditions/treatments are so different.

In the end we just looked at the list of regulated insurance companies listed on the governments specialist medical insurance list and phoned a few of them to talk through my husbands condition. You can see the list of insurance companies here;

https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/everyday-money/insurance/use-our-travel-insurance-directory

Good luck! ️

Smirnoff over 2 years ago

My husband died 2 years ago with mesothelioma but 6 months before he died he wanted to go on holiday. Insurewith was the company I chose. I told them absolutely everything about his condition and they asked me questions around him having his lung drained. I told them he was terminal and they still quoted me their Sapphire insurance if £160 for a year. I was able to make his final wishes come true.

Smirnoff

Joolskigirl over 2 years ago in reply to Smirnoff

Thank you for sharing this story Smirnoff sorry to hear about your loss but so glad to hear that he did get to go on the holiday that he wanted x

Kingswear over 2 years ago

just to let you know got a quote for a weeks skiing for us both for Under £300 with insurewith.com.

My husband has 2ndy liver cancer and is currently on lonsurf.

Other companies we’re massively more expensive or refused to insure us.

thank you to the person on the blog who suggested it

Kingswear

Joolskigirl over 2 years ago in reply to Kingswear

Thanks for letting us know how you got on Kingswear - it’s definitely worth shopping around! Glad it worked out well for you!

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My experience - finding skiing holiday travel insurance