Today I wanted to share a post highlighting the importance of travel insurance for people with pre-existing illnesses such as HIV, diabetes, heart disease or other conditions that would normally be excluded from travel insurance coverage.
There are multiple news stories that show that travel insurance supplies don’t cover many medical problems with standard ‘out of the box” insurance policies…
From resource Travelling With HIV:
Bruce was travelling through South America when he was struck down with a respiratory illness so severe that he needed to be hospitalised. He was diagnosed with PCP and the doctors asked if they could test him for HIV. To his surprise, the results came back positive. “Don’t worry about the hospital bills,” one of the doctors assured him. “You have travel insurance.”
But it was not to be so simple.
The insurance company was quiet for the first few days after it was established that it was dealing with an HIV-related illness. It then took over a week to decide if it would cover the substantial cost of Bruce’s return to Australia. The company’s online product disclosure stated no cover for anything HIV/AIDS related — which didn’t bother Bruce when taking out the policy, as he was unaware of his status — but he was reassured by medical staff that he would be covered because it was not a pre-existing condition.
Bruce was devastated when the insurance company told him it would not cover his expenses.
Sadly I have heard many stories of insurance being refused while overseas due to undeclared medical conditions.
For this reason I do recommend insurance providers that make getting cover for existing conditions so much easier. For me one of the best has been Covermore.com.au who have an online system that is fast efficient and hassle free.
For people living with HIV cover can be done easily and you don’t require any documentation from your doctor. You just need to know:
- Your CD-4 count
- Your viral load
- And to share if you are on treatment or not.
You can see how straight forward it is with this walk through video:
As you can see it’s a very straight forward process.
So if you are travelling, please be sure to check you are 100% covered for your medical conditions before you leave.
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