If you have a pre‐existing medical condition, it doesn’t mean that you can’t get travel insurance with Direct Line for your holiday or trip abroad. However, if you don’t let us know about certain conditions when you take out your cover, you could end up travelling uninsured. Here’s what to do to make sure that doesn’t happen to you.
Direct Line offers three main types of Travel Insurance: Annual Travel, Single Trip and Discoverer for longer journeys abroad. Details of all three policies can be found online: all offer up to £10 million of medical and emergency expenses abroad, up to £25,000 for personal accident and up to £5,000 for cancellation or curtailment per person. When you take out a Travel Insurance policy all details of cover will be found on the document we issue to you. In order to issue the details of this document and agree a premium we need to get certain details from you – importantly these include certain health factors. If your policy document does not contain correct and up‐to‐date details of any medical conditions you have, it could render your cover invalid.
What medical conditions do you need to know about?
We need to know about any pre‐existing medical conditions you have. This means you received advice, medication or treatment for a condition from a registered doctor or specialist during the 12 months before arranging the policy. Or the medical condition was investigated, diagnosed or treated by a registered doctor or specialist after you arranged the policy and before you left on your journey. Customers are required to tell us about all their pre‐existing medical conditions at point of sale as well as if they are diagnosed with any new medical conditions after purchasing the policy and before they travel.
How does this affect my cover?
If you have any pre‐existing conditions, please let us know. You will need to call us with any details on 0345 246 8704 (at present customers cannot disclose medical conditions online) where one of our dedicated telesales team will be able to help you. If you have existing Direct Line Travel Insurance and you have been diagnosed with a new medical condition, you will need to call us and make a full disclosure at which point we will explain what you need to do.
Are there any areas of exclusion?
Unfortunately we cannot offer full travel cover for customers who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness before travelling or those who are travelling against medical advice or specifically to get medical treatment.
Remember, you should make a full disclosure at point of sale and if you are diagnosed with any new medical conditions after you have purchased the policy. If we don’t have the correct details you may end up travelling without cover and be left in the lurch abroad. For absolute peace of mind check our travel policy documents online or give us a call now.
