Travel insurance cancellation question

[michgross]

We’re thinking about planning a holiday with our 18 month old and buying travel insurance. He’s had a few minor illness recently and we really wouldn’t want to take him anywhere if he was ill. Travel insurance policies I’ve looked at mention cancellation cover for “illness” but don’t go into any more detail. Ofher things I’ve read online say that someone needs to be declared medically unfit to travel, so that would be more serious illnesses.

So I was wondering if for example our toddler picked up a virus the day before the holiday, would insurance normally pay out if we decided to cancel? Or does it really depend on the insurer?

I don’t think you’ll find any insurer who would cover you cancelling if a toddler had a virus/cold/illness- they’d be paying out every other day if that was the case as children are ill so frequently & rarely does it last very long or is serious.

They cover you if you are medically unfit to fly, but not because you have a cold/d&v and don’t WANT to fly.

No, that would be disinclination to travel. There is no reason why you can't travel with childhood illnesses so it wouldn't be covered.

It has to be something where you are medically unfit to travel.

You have to get a letter from the GP or hospital that says the person is too ill to travel. Having a cold doesn’t count.

People go on holiday with illnesses all the time as they would lose money if they cancelled. You won’t get insurance that covers for this.
For travel insurance to pay out you need to be declared medically unfit to travel by a doctor, which rules out most “ normal” illnesses.

I was thinking more like a vomiting virus, not a cold. We wouldn’t want to cancel a whole holiday just because of a cold but if he’s vomiting every few hours then wouldn’t want to go.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/holidays/4900287-sickness-bug-but-insurance-wont-pay-out-if-we-dont-go

I've had a quick google- you would need a doctor to confirm that you weren't fit to travel- I'm not sure you would get this for a regular vomiting virus - I would recommend a very long look at the T&C's of your policy

When we cancelled our holiday we had to have a doctors letter (and pay for it) to explain that my husband wasn’t fit to fly.
This was due to uncontrolled seizures and hadn’t been diagnosed with epilepsy at that time.
Our policy was scrutinised and we had to provide dates that when we took out this insurance he hadn’t been poorly before this etc. Our policy wouldn’t cover a sickness bug.
We got our money back. It did take a while and this was it being straight forward.

I used to work for a travel insurance company (such a depressing job!) and as pp have said you would need a GP to sign to say your child was unfit to fly. Doesn’t necessarily have to be a major illness e.g a lot of ear infections were deemed unfit due to the risk of ear drum issues etc.
It’s worth considering the cost of the GP note and that excess will be per person, not per trip.