Holiday insurance – tell insurer everything

The holiday season is well and truly here and it is crucial to ensure that you tell your insurer everything to avoid a dispute should you need to claim. Medical information accounts for 50% of all travel insurance complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service so non-disclosure of certain information could be a problem.

Not only do insurers need to be aware of all your health problems when you buy cover, but also those of your family members whose poor-health may prevent you from travelling.

A spokesperson for the Financial Ombudsman Service advised that you must tell your insurer everything, it is then up them to probe further if they think necessary. It cannot reject a claim if it did not ask the question.

Insurers will ask only specific questions about the health of the people you are travelling with or they are insuring. For instance, Direct Travel has a catch-all, asking whether you are aware of any reason your holiday would be cancelled due to the ill-health of a family member. Good insurers will not expect you to know every aspect of a relative’s health, but you would be expected to know of the big problems.

Some policies are provided free with bank accounts so you would need to notify them when opening the account and then keep the insurer up-to-date with any changes that could affect a future holiday.

According to Edmunds & Co, a specialist travel solicitor, people can be innocent in not informing their insurer that they have high blood pressure. Should the unfortunate happen like having a heart attack on holiday, they pretend they didn’t know the two were linked. The public needs to be more aware that it is their responsibility to reveal any medical conditions and insurers must be clear about what information they require and why.

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