You are here

Travel insurance again!

It is ages since I posted. For those of you who remember me and/or my wife, Val, I can tell you that she is still stable on Imatinib 14 years after diagnosis. Now she is on a 200mg daily dose (half the standard dose) as recommended for her by the Hammersmith. All is good on that dose and the side effects of Imatinib are very much reduced. Good news for us, and I hope her long experience of CML can be an encouragement for those who are recently diagnosed for the first time.

Every year, I dread the travel insurance renewal medical screening. We insure with AXA (excluding cover for CML). They are using out of date and largely irrelevant questions about CML:  Has bone marrow (or stem cell) transplantation been performed? Have any relapses following treatment occurred? How long ago was the diagnosis made? Are you taking strong painkillers every day for this condition?

Yet again, my blood pressure went up as I tried to explain that the questions had little or nothing to do with CML and how treatment is now carried out. It is bad enough having CML without having to endure such ignorant questions. I suspect all of the wonderful doctors at the Hammersmith would be horrified by these questions and that honest answers lead insurers to refuse cover for CML.

So I have written today to AXA's head of Medical Screening explaining my views and asking them to review these questions and consequential cover. In the event that they use third party medical screening software, I have requested the name of the company so I can write to them directly.

I will post again when I get their response.

I do think a bit of militancy from us as group of affected individuals about this is well overdue!

David

Hear Hear!

Completely agree.  This always irritates me when I have to renew my medical declaration - I know what they will ask me and the questioner always apologises when I point out that the questions are now more than a decade out of date and really should be updated.  They ask me if I've had a BMT - to which I reply "thankfully I have not had to take that risk" (with a nod to all of those who have done so).  I know they won't cover my CML (despite having told me some time ago that if I was still clear after 5 years they would - when I was, they didn't!) but I have to go through the motions regardless because I know they are cheats and scoundrels and if I don't renew, they will try to deny coverage for any non-CML claim for some technical reason.

It does seem to be about time the insurance industry was taken to task over things like this as they are outmoded and outdated.  It ought to be caught by anti-discrimination legislation (but alas is not).  I think it's more important, though, that young CML patients can get useful and affordable life insurance: for travel insurance, I take the view that if CML is going to be a problem for me (and I consider it highly unlikely given my condition) I will know well before I come to book anything, so am happy not to have it covered.

Good luck.

Richard

Hi,

I agree the questions asked by most insurers are disappointingly out of date and raising the profile of our condition is a good thing.

I removed the stress of your annual predicament (excluding CML on the policy) by going with World First - pragmatic and relevant questions about CML and a sensible annual worldwide premium in return.

Pick your battles (and keep your blood pressure low :-)

Regards

Chris

Hi All,

As suggested if you call World First you will experience reasonable and sensible medical screening and a reasonable loading for the CML condition;forget AXA and all the other insurers that choose not to try to understand CML.

Regards

John

Hello all, I am a regular traveller and my child who has CML travels with me.

I heard about this crowd on bbc tv as the founder had breast cancer herself and she wanted to set up a company to help people in similar situations.

I haven't had any problems with getting insurance and it is very reasonable, for the 5 of us for a week in Europe it costs between 35 and 55 pounds depending on the package. You declare your medical condition and add your medication and number of questions arise based on risk algorithims, they ask about fbc, bcr abl, treatment and side effects. For anyone looking to travel it would be worth looking in to. They are called insurancewith. I hope this helps and kind regards to all