Honeymoon travel insurance whilst waiting for diagnosis

[victorioussponges]

Morning all,

I am due to go on my honeymoon in 3 months but am currently having some pain investigated. My GP has referred me for a hospital test no letter as yet to arrange an appointment.

The test is (fingers crossed) apparently likely to lead to a diagnosis that is not serious and can be insured without trouble. It is possible it could reveal some serious issues that could mean rethinking my travel plans but it's statistically fairly unlikely.

So I'm in a bit of a tricky spot with insurance. At the moment I think it's possibly more unlikely we wouldn't be able to travel due to coronavirus rather than the outcome of the test, so ideally I'd like to get the insurance ASAP. Our destination is thought to be at low risk but if things get bad here/we catch it we might not be able to travel.

In the circumstances should I go ahead and get insurance now that excludes cancellation/medical cover for anything to do with the undiagnosed condition (this exists but is quite expensive) so I am at least covered for coronavirus, or shall I hold out a bit longer for the referral letter? Waiting times for the test can be up to 10 weeks at one local hospital, though. Or is there an in between option I haven't thought of?

Thanks in advance for any help! BTW DP has already bought his so should be covered for coronavirus-related cancellation at least.

Check insurance terms and conditions but as a rule the vast majority, if not all, aren't covering for coronavirus related cancellations unless the FCO advice changes to do not travel. FCO advice has only changed for China and very small areas - even South Korea is still you can travel apart from 2 areas so people with holidays booked there are not being refunded by travel insurance other than for accomodation in those areas.

It's hard to get insurance undergoing tests - I'm in same boat and holiday to high risk destination booked. Went with Insure and Go but they only pay out if FCO advice changes and stays that way 48 hours before departure. With annual you need to be covered from now. It was £158 for 4 of us, worldwide annual excluding US etc with my pre-existing conditions covered out there but not for cancellation. Atm it looks like we will lose the money but it gives a minimal coverage so I got it - it does cover for coronavirus out there is get it but quarantine / missed flights its not clear - tbh if its bad we will just cancel and take loss.

Thank you @KoalasandRabbit! I'm sorry you're in a similar position and I hope things settle so you can feel comfortable going.

I think it's quite unlikely we'd be cancelling because of the virus being in the destination country but I think there is a real risk they could stop people from the UK coming. So we'd be prevented by their equivalent of the FCO - I wonder if that would be covered? I would hope so. Similarly if we caught the virus here and couldn't travel we would be covered?

Subject to the above I'm leaning towards getting a policy to cover me for everything except the undiagnosed condition (which I've seen mentioned by a few providers) and then trying to update it to cover it if I hopefully get a benign diagnosis before the trip.

I suspect if our government says don't travel anywhere that's not covered by insurance but haven't asked. However, what I have seen happening in those cases is that flights are then cancelled as no-one flying and refunded. Then sometimes the non-refundable hotels will refund or insurance pay out then. Though ask insurer - I haven't asked but read terms and conditions.

For my insurance there's no medical cancellations so I don't think it would pay out if I got coronavirus before although it maybe no pre-existing medical conditions in which case it would. Again ask the insurer but I was getting quite a few scenarios of maybe we would which isn't great.

Hope you can get a benign diagnosis and have a lovely honeymoon. My diagnosis looks benign now so I'm almost tempted to stop it and get better insurance - not sure I want to be hanging round hospitals atm with coronavirus either though at least they are well cleaned now.