Travel insurance.

I appeal for your help once again!

I have a young son 3yrs old, who will be embarking on his 2nd Disney crusade next may with us.

Whilst his physical health is excellent, he has recently been diagnosed with a mild form of ';Myoclonic'; Epilepsy.

He now takes medication twice daily, and seems to be reacting well to it. In fact, his consultant seems very confident that within a few months he%26#39;ll be fit free. ( the myoclonic epilepsy is actually involuntary spasms lasting 1-3 seconds).

I%26#39;ve browsed a few sites, to get some quotes, and the 3 that i checked quoted 拢943 for 2 weeks!!

I%26#39;m 99% certain that he%26#39;d be absolutely fine out there, but when it comes to insurance, you can ill afford to take chances, especially where children are concerned, not to mention the US%26#39;s excellent, but astronimically expensive and convaluted medical care system.

If there is anyone out there who can recommend an insurance company that deals with chronic conditions, and isn%26#39;t going to rip me off, i%26#39;d be eternally grateful.

Travel insurance.

Hi there

I work in travel and we use a company called journeys travel ins its for travel agents only but they also have insuremore.co.uk which is for the public.

i had a customer last week who was almost 70 and going away for a week to spain, she had tried a lot of companies and they wanted almost 拢100, journeys who we use was 拢31 a big difference.

We cant sell stand alone insurance, but try insuremore.co.uk they are part of the same group.

dont give up, when i was looking for my mom whom i was taking to Florida last year, some wanted over 拢300 for a single journey we managed to get an annual policy for just over 拢100 - i think i spent about 3 hours ringing round.

good luck

chris

Travel insurance.

hi woffer73

I think there%26#39;s a firm called en route that we had recommended to us by someone as we have two boys with epilepsy. A lot deends on when your son was last hospitalised with his seizures. Hope that helps but we found the post office insurance very good and very helpful.

Angela

Thanks for your advice chris and madangie. I%26#39;ll try your suggestions. It doesn%26#39;t help that our son%26#39;s condition is fairly rare, and there tends to be some ignorance on the insurers part. The insurers i was enquiring with tended to group travellers with epilepsy all together. Our son has never been hospitalised in the 3yrs since he was born, and i can only liken the situation to mild, chronic asthma sufferers, who are able to lead perfectly normal, active lives, as long as they take their medication, but it%26#39;s something that you have to declare on your policy.

I%26#39;ll set a few hrs aside, and make some enquiries, based on your recommendations. I will keep you posted on any developements. thanks again.

w73

I use Direct Line insurance. Both myself and my daughter have Asthma and they only charged us 拢86.00 for us and my hubby. They shouldn%26#39;t be too expensive if your son hasn%26#39;t been hospitalised. Try them anyway.

Have a good trip

Emilysmum

I have had much trouble in purchasing travel insurance for the US as I have Wegener%26#39;s Granulomatosis (rare auto-immune disease), Haemochromatosis, heart failure (Left Ventrical Dysfunction), Renal Failure (presently off dialysis) and many more asociated illnesses. So as you can imagine I%26#39;ve done a fair bit of research. In fact many of the companies that specialise in people with medical conditions will not touch me and the few that have, have given my quotes that contain excesses of 拢2000 or 拢1000 as a maximum claim (which just about covers the cost of a plaster in the US).

The only company that I could find that would cover me without ridiculous excesses or seriously low maximum claim limits was medi-cover.co.uk.

If you are pretty certain you won%26#39;t have to cancel your holiday and you really just need cover for whilst you are actually in the US, just untick the holiday cancellation cover box. This saves me about 70% of the cost.

Does the UK have %26#39;insurance brokers?%26#39; These are people who, at least in the states, have relationships with many different companies and for either a small fee (or commission, depending on the service provided) work to get you the best deals.

For any kind of specialized insurance, I%26#39;d seriously suggest looking into one if they exist.

We do have insurance brokers in the UK but from my experience they are more interested in their commission than providing competive prices. Some will be better than others but I certainly wouldn%26#39;t bother using one again.

I use a fee based one. I pay him for his time, a flat fee, so he makes the same regardless of what he sells me for the business. Therefore, he has an incentive to find me good deals because he want sot be able to charge me another fee in the future.

Just out of curiosity, I called the company that handles my travel insurance here in the US, they suggested a few things:

1%26gt; Find out what your national health care system covers for overseas travel in his case, if anything.

2%26gt; Secondly, what your son has is not normally considered a high risk for cancellation, just care, so you may wish to purchase just overseas medical emergency coverage only, which might be much cheaper. This would NOT be through travel insurance companies which charge an arm and a leg for it. Admittedly, you would not be covered if you did have to cancel the trip.

3%26gt; Most trip insurance has a 180+ pre-existing condition rule, which would mean you need a rider to cover cancellation due to his illness. That%26#39;s where the expense comes in.

I use AIG here in the states, and they do have a UK system. The rep suggested you CALL directly and speak to an agent, where you can explain the condition and related risks, as opposed to checking on web.

Thanks for your help guys, i wasn%26#39;t expecting such a great response from a post that%26#39;s kinda out ot the ordinary. I%26#39;ve obviously underestimated the power and unparallelled knowledge of the TA faithful!

I%26#39;ve got plenty to go on here, so thanks again!

Woffer73.