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Undiagnosed medical condition


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Desperately hoping someone can help (might need to cancel our upcoming cruises otherwise!)

 

My husband is awaiting an official diagnosis for a medical condition. It's pretty much certain that he has it, but the diagnosis has to come from a specialist consultant - we're waiting for an appointment.

 

There's a slim possibility that his condition could lead to a medical emergency / evacuation on the ship, so we need a travel insurance policy that covers it. However, we've spoken to several insurance providers that specialise in medical conditions and all of them say that until he's diagnosed they can't cover it.

 

Has anyone else been in this situation? Any suggestions for what we can do?

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Which cruise line and are you before final payment ? Check with your cruise line for insurance.

 

If you need medivac insurance , look into Medjet for evacuation insurance. They sell an annual plan for medical evaxuation any where in the world.

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Desperately hoping someone can help (might need to cancel our upcoming cruises otherwise!)

 

My husband is awaiting an official diagnosis for a medical condition. It's pretty much certain that he has it, but the diagnosis has to come from a specialist consultant - we're waiting for an appointment.

 

There's a slim possibility that his condition could lead to a medical emergency / evacuation on the ship, so we need a travel insurance policy that covers it. However, we've spoken to several insurance providers that specialise in medical conditions and all of them say that until he's diagnosed they can't cover it.

 

Has anyone else been in this situation? Any suggestions for what we can do?

 

If your husband is already sick - and he obviously is if he's being seen and waiting for specific diagnosis information - then at the least, *that* condition (whatever it turns out to be) would be exceedingly difficult to get insured.

That's sort of like waiting to see smoke coming from your house, even if no flames, and then rushing to get fire insurance... won't work.

 

IF you are before final payment, as suggested above, AND the cruise line insurance would indeed cover something like this (questionable), then that might be worth checking.

 

This is why it is so important to get the coverage *before* there are any "medical conditions".

Also, even the types of coverage that do not exclude pre-existing conditions... they'd typically require that one be "fit to travel" when the policy is issued, and it doesn't sound like that is the case for him. Would a physician write a letter that as of today, he is "fit to travel"?

 

Good luck, and hope the diagnosis is not serious!

 

GC

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The date a condition is officially diagnosed is not the sole determining factor as to when something becomes Pre-existing or not. Most plans have something such as this in their fine print:

 

"You, a traveling companion or family member are considered to have

an existing medical condition if you, a traveling companion or

family member:

• saw or were advised to see a doctor;

had symptoms that would cause a prudent person to see a doctor;

or. . . "

 

So the date the diagnosis was made probably would take second seat to the date you (as a prudent person) originally made an appointment to see the doctor.

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Thank you for the replies - much appreciated!

 

 

Kamsloop50 - Royal Caribbean. We're past final payment date for the first cruise and about two weeks away from it for the second one. If this isn't sorted by that date, we may end up cancelling. I wasn't aware that evacuation insurance existed, so will definitely be looking further into that - thank you!

 

GeezerCouple and cruiseco - You both make some excellent points - however, I'm afraid they don't necessarily apply to our situation. I'm trying avoid being 'outed' here, so I apologise for the lack of specific details in what follows... The diagnosis that we're pursing is for a genetic condition. The investigations my husband is undergoing were not prompted by any changes to his health - which appears to be excellent - this came about simply because I happened to stumble across some information about it and realised it described my husband to a tee. It's possible that my husband is indeed in excellent health, and we certainly hope that's the case - but the nature of the genetic condition is such that it significantly increases the risk of a couple of medical emergencies. Until the tests have been done, we don't know what my husband's individual risk is.

 

Obviously we understand the perspective of the travel insurance companies here, and we are more than willing to pay a high premium on the assumption of the worst-case-scenario level of risk. If we had the diagnosis of the genetic condition then we'd be able to do just that - even if the tests around the associated risks were still pending. But without the diagnosis, we're just getting a "computer says no" type response from everyone we speak to - very frustrating!

 

Thank you again for the replies so far - much appreciated.

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I deleted my true thought because they were not kind. But insurance is based on math and risk...and the OP is looking for insurance that would take a higher then ordinary risk. Its not likely to happen. Like many things in life we think the OP is going to need to take the risk.

 

Hank

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I deleted my true thought because they were not kind. But insurance is based on math and risk...and the OP is looking for insurance that would take a higher then ordinary risk. Its not likely to happen. Like many things in life we think the OP is going to need to take the risk.

 

Hank

 

Do tell your "true thought" - I assure you that I can handle it! If it's that we should have had insurance in place before booking the trip, it wouldn't have made a difference - given that we still intend to travel (it may have covered us for cancellation). The small print of every policy we've ever had says that we need to notify the insurers if our health changes and that they reserve the right to withdraw cover based on that information - which they would certainly do if the information was such that they would have been unwilling to insure us for it upfront.

 

Yes, it's based on risk. The key point here is that whether or not my husband has an official diagnosis makes no difference to his level of risk - it's nothing but a piece of paper - but it's that, rather than results of the tests that indicate my husband's level of health, which determines whether or not companies are willing to insure us.

 

In any case, I'm pleased to say that we have a resolution... I mentioned in my last post that the genetic condition increases the risk of a couple of medical emergencies. We managed to find a company that offered private scans relating to this, which showed that my husband is luckily fine is that regard (at least, for the time being). That eliminates any possibility of the genetic condition leading to a medical evacuation, so we are now comfortable taking out an insurance policy that has it flagged and excluded.

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  • 2 weeks later...

We had to cancel a cruise on Princess a while back because of changes in employment situation. We lost the nonrefundable deposit but had the rest of the funds that we had paid applied to another cruise with Princess that was down the road time wise. That might be a way to buy you some time to sort out what the diagnosis and condition means for travel.

 

I have a couple of chronic conditions that are stable so am able to purchase insurance. I have reluctantly accepted that a time likely will come when either the availability or cost of travel insurance with these conditions will prevent me from travelling outside Canada.

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