Poor woman stuck abroad because her insurers won't pay up

[cottonwoolbrain]

I feel really sorry for her and her family, it must be dreadful.

However she didn't tell them she was on medication and had ongoing health conditions - If you are on any medication or have any ongoing condition it does show its worth telling the insurers and swallowing the slightly increased premium upfront. I have epilepsy so my holiday insurance is always a few pounds higher

Hope she manages to pull through :(

woman fights for life on dream holiday but insurer won't pay £200k bill"

I never quite understand the mentality of this sort of thing. She decided not to declare her prexisting conditions which is well known invalidates your insurance. Yet somehow its all Axa's fault the big meanies?!

There seems to have been a massive increase of go fund mes for this kind of thing. If you can't afford the insurance you can't afford the holiday!

That said I do hope she recovers and gets home soon

How is it the insurer’s fault? It’s one of the most basic conditions, declare medication that’s been prescribed. She chose to not do that, and claiming would be fraud.

I've not clicked on the link / read this particular story, but I'm with pp on this.
It is hardly a secret that you need medical insurance when you go abroad. The fact she has gone to the trouble of getting some, but lying to them on the form, is ridiculous.
I can almost understand an 18 yr old heading off on their first holiday thinking they are invincible, but I don't understand getting insurance knowing your lies will invalidate it

So woman attempts insurance fraud and people are supposed to feel sorry for her?

I don’t have much sympathy for this- it’s nigh on impossible to take out any kind of insurance policy without the company warning you multiple times in writing/ on the policy documents/ on their prerecorded telephone message that any inaccuracies can invalidate your cover.

People need to take responsibility for themselves. Winds me up a treat.

If you think it's expensive to honestly declare your pre-existing conditions, then wait until you see how expensive it can be not to.

There is zero point buying insurance unless you declare everything.

Might as well chuck your money down a well.

I understand the viewpoints of the PP’s, but I have a lot of sympathy for the lady and her family. Her previous condition of bi-polar disorder has no bearing on the pneumonia that she needs treatment for.
If she had previously had a lung condition and didn’t declare it I could support the insurance company, but these things are unrelated.

She presumably had some kind of pre existing breathing problem or she wouldn’t have been prescribed an inhaler . I have absolutely zero sympathy and frankly it doesn’t even add much to the premiums to declare your conditions if they are stable ( I have a few so am aware ) .

If she had previously had a lung condition and didn’t declare it I could support the insurance company, but these things are unrelated.

The article says she was previously prescribed an inhaler, so it would seem there are some previous issues.

To be honest I'm very wary of these stories when it's just the family's version of events- they usually (understandly) minimise their family member's part in the situation and put blame on an institution or company that they know is unlikely to comment on individual cases.

She'd been prescribed an inhaler which she didn't declare either, tells you further down the article. She took the risk. Not telling insurance company was daft.

Yes, she had an inhaler. A wee bit of asthma doesn’t unusually lead to pneumonia.

We don’t know why she was prescribed an inhaler. I had a cough that wouldn’t clear up last year, GP prescribed me an inhaler, it didn’t help. Used it once and never again. It wouldn’t occur to me to declare that as a pre-existing medical condition, it was a bad cold and a wrong prescription.

A one off inhaler won't show as current medication though. My

A family member is having a carry on with car insurance. He was the victim of a crime but because he lied about his address and where the car was kept they won't pay out and he seems to think it's the insurance companies fault and having it stolen is different to being in a m accident so he should be compensated. Nope, he was told time and time again to put the correct address and not his parents as that's not where the or him are based.

All insurance policies and the cover are based on you telling the truth. If you choose to lie or leave out info to keep the cost down you may as well not bother at all because it's void anyway. It's the risk you choose to take and while I hope she fully recovers, she made the choice to take the risk.

Holidays to Mexico are not cheap and she should have saved a little bit more to be fully covered accident and illness. You don't get to lie and then say the lie isn't anything to do with the claim. Insurance covers accident and illness is based on you telling the truth.

Also, there's every chance lung problems can be linked to bipolar, my best friend has bipolar, she has lung and chest problems and they are very much linked to her bipolar because she self medicates with constant smoking of joints and inhaling all sorts of shit in a daily basis and when she's manic, (which has been an awful lost the last eighteen months) it's constant smoking of weed mixed with tobacco. Her lung problems and inhaler she has is linked to her bipolar and she's prone to chest infections because if the damage to her lungs. It's surprising how much my friends bipolar affects all areas of her health because the choices she makes are very much linked to how stable she is at the time of making them and mental health services have let her down so much these last two years she's made some very dangerous choices that have almost put her in hospital for things that on the surface appear unrelated to mental health.

I have no sympathy whatsoever. She breached the terms of the contract she had between her and the insurance company. Whether you think her conditions were related or not, she wanted to keep material facts back from the insurance company, presumably in the belief it would affect her premium.

No sympathy but am firmly on the side of the insurers.

Slightly off topic, but when declaring previous illnesses etc how far do you have to go back? I put down literally everything I've ever had even if it's 20 years ago. Is it necessary?

You declare everything! My family are mostly in fluroxitine - my insurer doesn't charge more but won't include anything mental health related including suicide. You have to declare the condition for 5 years after you come of meds. Luckily anxiety is so common these days they don't see it as a red flag.

I really hope she gets home soon but I'm with pps you can't not declare a condition then expect insurers to pay out , she is a higher risk...higher the risk higher the premium !

AXA are a bunch of bastards though. My dbro got appendicitis in Serbia and had to have his appendix out. I was on the phone to them at every single stage telling them what was happening, checking he was covered, getting them to speak directly to the doctors etc. The while time they were telling me it’s fine, he’s completely covered, just send us the paperwork from the hospital when you’re home.

We got home and they refused to pay a penny as the doctors notes were in Serbian so they didn’t know what they said. Then they asked my dbro’s gp for his full medical history, they claimed because they hadn’t been faxed to them within 24 hours the insurance was completely invalid.

We ended up having to go on the local news doing sad faces. They still insisted that it was our fault and we hadn’t followed procedure but they’d pay as a goodwill gesture.

A few years back, I wanted to travel having just about recovered from a broken leg. A number of insurance quotes were increased because of it, and one or two insisted they would exclude the condition from my cover altogether. I was astounded at the number of people (including some posters on here) who advised me not to declare it!

“no sympathy” , “zero sympathy”

Some of you need to listen to yourselves

Yes it’s her fault and not the insurance company but....”zero sympathy”. Really?

How hard some of you sound.

It's never the individuals fault in these stories. People do some daft things

If you are not sure what to declare, ring up and ask the company. Their call handlers are operating to a script, but will be able to tell you what may need to be referred to their doctors (to secure cover at all) or are OK but attract an additional premium, or don't count at all.

And you need to declare any/all tests which you are waiting for.

That you made the call will then be noted in your customer record, which can be handy.

This case sounds fairly clear cut, but I find myself getting very anxious about what to declare, how far back to go, what if I forget something trivial that happened to any of us years ago.

I must admit I'm quite surprised about the inhaler thing, I had one prescribed 5 years ago when I had several chest infections in a row. Have never needed it since and have never had another one, I wouldn't think to declare that as a pre-existing condition or medication because it isn't, it was a one-off. I have several autoimmune conditions and list those, plus operations I've had. I've had several medications prescribed as trials for one condition and have taken one pack then stopped as they didn't work or had side-effects, Axa's view seems to be I should list every medication I've ever taken regardless of whether I currently use it?

It's not "poor women stuck abroad" it's "stupid woman who wasn't properly insured".