Medical Cover?

[steph_goodrum]

It's the fact the insurance companies don't make it clear when they sell you the policy that is so frustrating, they are quick to tell you that if you have to cancel/curtail because of illness or death you are covered but hide it in the small print that it wont cover any preexisting conditions.

[Jo]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by steph_goodrum
It's the fact the insurance companies don't make it clear when they sell you the policy that is so frustrating, they are quick to tell you that if you have to cancel/curtail because of illness or death you are covered but hide it in the small print that it wont cover any preexisting conditions.

[/quote]

But if they made all the small print bigger, people still wouldn't read it as they say it was too much detail.

Would the lady in question in the original post not have had 8 or 9 vodkas had she known she wouldn't be insured? Sadly we will never know.

Whilst this is a scare story - i.e have a glass of wine with your meal or a few drinks with friends and invalidate your insurance, I don't think this case is quite like that.

There is a distinction between a 'normal' level of consumption and being that far over the limit.

However, when the only place we have the facts from is a newspaper, who knows the truth anyway?

Nevertheless I am sure we all feel sorry for the family and the lady concerned and hope for a good outcome for them - whatever the financial implications

[MTP]

I guess because we have always looked for annual travel insurance that covers our family's pre-existing medical conditions we are fairly careful to check what is and isn't included and are happy to pay any additional fee necessary to ensure it is covered. We have used our medical insurance sometimes, for example when I came out with chickenpox on our first visit to a villa (must have infected a plane full of people as the spots came out two days after arriving!); equally when we have forgotten to pack enough medication for the duration of the vacation for one of our family it was our mistake. We therefore paid for the doctor's consultation and the prescriptions necessary.

Now admittedly our bill would have been nothing like this family’s, and I wouldn't wish that kind of unforeseen expense on anyone, from what I have heard the medical billing companies are quite willing to negotiate and to look at payment options to pay up debts. As Jo also points out we are only getting the story second hand from the newspapers

[Macka]

I'm surprised by the cover a lot of people seem to have. We go away with my in laws often (always to Florida). My 70 year old FIL whilst being fit and in the main has had two strokes (one quite serious), he has a heart murmer, and low blood pressue. We insure him against all of this. His pre-existing conditions are subbject to a higher excess of £500 (not a lot when you consider the costs a reoccurance may incur.

In all honesty, if I couldn't get this level of cover, I wouldn't take them. The consequences could be really quite disastrous.