It's the unfortunate truth: Insurance premiums are based on risk, and as far as health insurance is concerned, statistically speaking, the older you are, the more likely you are, to have one or multiple ailments that could result in a claim.
Most travel insurance providers offer travel insurance at premiums that vary based on age and the duration of the trip. They do not take your previous medical history into consideration. Once you hit as early as 50, at the latest 65, insurance providers like to include your health status in the premium. This means, that in order to buy travel insurance, you now need to answer a series of medical questions.
Often the insurance broker or travel agent will hand you a form on which you need to check either 'yes' or 'no' to various medical questions. Depending on your answers, you will be placed in a certain daily rate category. The more medical issues there are, the higher the premium. In addition to higher premiums, the timeframe in which the insurance provider considers your condition pre-existing, also gets extended.
In other words, with a 6 month pre-existing period, any condition that you may have had 7 months ago would be eligible for coverage. If you are a higher risk to the insurance company (meaning the more conditions you have), that pre-existing time frame may be increased to 12 months. In this scenario, the condition that you had 7 months ago, would now be considered pre-existing and therefore not covered while on your trip. These plans therefore do not cover any conditions that the policy defines as 'pre-existing'.
These questionnaires may actually exclude you from coverage all together, should you have more conditions than the insurance provider feels comfortable insuring. In that case, the only option you have, is to get what is referred to as a medically underwritten plan.
These medically underwritten plans not only look at your age, the duration of trip, and whether or not you've had certain conditions but they take your entire personal health history, including things like height and weight into consideration, giving you a quote that is exactly tailored to your individual risk assessment.
The good thing about medically underwritten policies is that, although more expensive than the other plans, they allow you to get insurance for any of the existing conditions that you have. So, by advising the insurance agent about that condition you had 7 months ago, your premium will go up, but at the same time, should you suffer from the same condition or complications thereof, while on vacation it would be covered. (Important: please note that these are generic guidelines, each plan is different and may differ in the application of its coverage).
Some people may think that it's a wise idea to 'miss' disclosing the one or other condition or medication in an attempt to pay a smaller premium. Be aware that unless you want to risk not having any coverage at all, you should seriously refrain from lying. Any underwritten policy will become null and void, should your medical history (as per your home and vacation doctors) not match with the answers you gave to the questions.
Even if you weren't deliberately leaving things out, any discrepancy will result in freeing the insurance company from any payment obligation and leave you with all the bills. To be on the safe side, I suggest reviewing the answers to any questionnaires with not only your family doctor but also any other specialists (should your family doctor not have all the records). After all, you may not be aware of certain notes that he or she has made in your file that could cause a discrepancy between what you answered and what is documented in your medical history.
Spending the extra time or even few dollars it may take to have this conversation with your family doctor may be well worth the peace of mind or worse being left with having to pay for your hospital stay out of your own pocket.
Have a safe trip!
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