Where do we stand with annual travel insurance and daughter's day surgery

[pasqueflower]

I hope someone can help. In February we took out annual travel cover, including a genetic condition that both my daughters have.

One of them now has been given a date for day surgery connected with the condition, and it's a week before our holiday. We've paid for the flights, but that's all - about £800 in total.
We didn't know she'd need the procedure back in February... it's very minor, but needs a general anaesthetic and she would be off school for 2 days. The medics say it'll be fine for her to travel a week later.

I phoned the travel insurers to make sure she'd be covered in case of any (unlikely) problems, and they've said no. But neither would they refund the flight costs, according to the customer services woman I spoke to.

I argued they couldn't have it both ways - she's either covered to travel (as long as the doctors haven't advised against it) or they should honour the claim - as her condition was declared and we had no knowledge that she would need the surgery connected with it at the time.

They've told me to phone the claims department to see what they say. I'd be happy to have a higher excess on the policy if necessary as it does seem to be very low risk there would be a problem.

We can defer the surgery, but would prefer her to have it on that date and travel a week later - obviously there's a risk it might not all go to plan, or she might develop something else while we're away connected to the procedure, which is why I wanted to let the insurance company know.

Any idea where we stand? tia

I think you need to read the policy very carefully and look at the exclusions listed.

I also thought that if you declared a condition then they would honour the policy as they accepted you on those terms bit confused tbh

does sound like they not honouring the claim - however -

to be honest i would defer the surgery and travel first - as you say, you dont know what complicaitons there might be and maybe best to have a nice holiday first?

Thanks. Spoke to claims dept this morning, and also looked on ombudsman site. I think they would be in breach of contract not to pay up if she developed a complication, but less hassle to defer the surgery, which is what we will do.

It does sound very much like they want to have it both ways, if they agreed to cover the condition then not covering cancellation because of something arising from it does seem very unfair (but you will need to trawl the small print). Good luck with it.

If you do decide to defer the surgery then you will still need to tell them of the fact that she is awaiting surgery - we were advised that just because you have an annual policy you still need to update them for changes in health, surgery, referrals etc.

One question - are you 100% sure they covered the genetic condition and didn't just agree to cover your children but excluding the specific condition. DS has a severe allergy and I could find plenty of people happy to cover him but excluding any allergic reactions, I eventually found one who would cover him including reactions. Am sure you will have got this covered but just wanted to double check.

Thanks. We've deferred the surgery - dh spoke to the surgeon who said there would be a risk of infection, and given that we then wouldn't be insured without a fight, it's not worth the risk.

I will let the insurers know she's deferred - it's not something that will cause a problem while we're away and it's not vitally urgent. We'll have to make sure we don't book another holiday until she's had it and has recovered.

Yes, 100% sure the insurers had covered the condition - I had to shop around to find a policy that would cover it, but I don't think they really checked out the details tbh.