I've had a couple of medical scares in the past, but luckily have been fully recovered for years. I am used to paying extra for annual travel
insurance but this year my renewal with Wesleyan has almost doubled from £172 to £325 for up to 60 days per trip, limited to European travel only. I have tried AllClear as a specialist insurer for pre-existing conditions but they nearly gave me another heart attack with a quote of £522 for the year, with a maximum holiday duration of just 55 days!!
Has anyone any experience of other insurers that cover pre-existing conditions they could recommend please?
One of the members on Wildcamping gave me a recommendation which resulted in my started off doing an online quote with The
Insurance Surgery but a message popped up telling me to call them and speak to an adviser, who took all my complicated details and came up with a range of quotations starting at £698 with a £50 excess. After much discussion I decided I don't need £15million medical cover, nor baggage or cancellation cover, and this reduced the premium to £415 for £10million medical with £100 excess.
Going in the right direction, but still room for manoeuvre I hoped. The quote was for an annual policy with maximum trip duration of 93 days. I was thinking of going away for up to 65 days. If I change my plans to a maximum duration of 61 days the premium drops to £216. (By the way, a single trip
insurance for 61 days was more expensive than the same cover on the annual policy)
So to summarise, by dropping medical cover from £15million to £10million, holiday duration from 65 days to 61 days, and excluding cancellation cover (I can only lose the cost of a channel crossing) and baggage cover (it can't get lost when its in the motorhome), I was able to cut the premium by almost 70% from the highest quote but more importantly it saves £109 on my renewal quote.
Once again this community has come to the rescue. It is great to have the resources of such wide and varied knowledge and shared experiences. Thank you to everyone who contributed. It has been much appreciated.
P.S. For anyone else with pre-existing medical conditions who have been following this thread, it would appear that the best choice of
insurance provider can vary due to many factors such as age and medical condition and there isn't one company that's best for everyone. Nationwide seems a very good option but they wouldn't cover me. Allclear are highly rated but I found them very expensive. Wesleyan are very good but not competitive on price for me this year. I didn't try Staysure because the administration seems to onerous. It definitely pays to shop around, especially when an annual policy comes up for renewal.