[VickiParticipant]

Hi

Help with travel insurance please. We want to book a holiday desperately. Colin has got so despondent today. He had a quote of £400 plus pounds for two weeks, and that was from all clear selected from a list the hospital gave us and another company that’s not bothered to ring back!

Any advice, also when I looked online one of the questions was about prognosis, no room for explanation! Can you help. We would like to book in the next few days whilst we still have the courage. Any advice on what to say would also be greatly appreciated 🙂

Vicki and Colin x

[jmsmythParticipant]

Hi Vicki and Colin

I don’t understand what All clear are up to. That’s who we got insured with. Frank did it all, I, thankfully was not involved. I know they were sticky on “do you take powerful painkillers”. Frank doesn’t. His consultant wrote a letter saying about SCT and about tests PET scan and said “no detectable myeloma cells”.he doesn’t take any drugs at all. Other people on the forum have been insured with them and don’t think they had problems. I’m not sure about Colin, but Frank has no bone or kidney damage. Maybe that has something to do with it. I do hope you get something sorted. We have booked a cruise for May. Don’t like booking that far ahead. But…..

Hope you get something sorted soon. It will do you both good to get out of this awful weather

Love Jean x

[EttaParticipant]

Hi Vicki and Colin I have been insured twice by world first for travel to oz first was only 3 months after stem cell transplant, was under 300 for two of us for 5 weeks cover. And second time they have given us a yearly one even cheaper. Hope this helps regards Etta

[jeff605Participant]

I used a firm called Insure Blue, haven’t got their number to hand but can find it if you need it. They were the only company I tried that had a good knowledge of what Myeloma was, what the stages from smoldering through stages 1 to three. Perhaps not the cheapest, but reasonable. If you need the number let me know Jeff

[HelenRParticipant]

Hi Vicki and Colin and everyone,

It’s a real pain, isn’t it? Here’s my experience with AllClear, for what it’s worth: I got an annual multi-trip Europe policy with them last May. It cost me something like £250-350 but I can’t remember exactly – didn’t seem too horrific for a full year, bearing in mind the myeloma. At this point I was in remission. They only ask you about 4 questions which I can’t remember, but it includes any fractures in the last 12 months (I was ‘no’ for that) and annoyingly they ask you about kidney damage, which for me comes up as ‘yes’ even though I only had it for less than a week I think… they then put you down as having ‘chronic kidney failure’ but for me all the subsequent questions show it’s not so bad (haven’t seen a kidney specialist, not on dialysis etc etc). At the time I also had a possible blood clot in my heart (turned out it was one but went away with warfarin) and I remember the first company I called (possibly World First?) somehow wouldn’t cover me because I must have expressed it in a way that I had an undiagnosed condition which was a no-no. With AllClear it turned out that I could just not declare that and it was therefore not covered – but I wasn’t concerned it would cause any problems as I was already on warfarin for it, and at that stage they were pretty sure it was just a funny shape in my heart sticking out(!)

I’m now relapsing and due to start treatment soon. I had some free flights to use up (from being bumped off another flight in October back from the US) and decided to Carpe Diem and have a nice holiday last month to Cape Town to see a friend – free flights, free accommodation, expensive insurance…. I phone up AllClear. When I explained that I am no longer in remission, they cancelled my Annual Multitrip. I paid £260 for a one-off ‘Rest of World’ cover (think this excludes US, can’t remember). I think I called one other company and they didn’t pick up. I was exhausted and found it hard even to get the time to set it up so (more fool me) I didn’t shop around. I decided £260 for a 10-day holiday in Cape Town was pretty amazing.

Still, this time I did nearly have to use it – and to be honest it makes me realise I should read the small print or ask more questions and spend more time in future. Near the end of my holiday I started vomiting during the night and had a fever (went from about 37.5 up to 38.3 at most). I felt awful and kept vomiting the next day, so as you can imagine I began to get quite concerned. Probably just some sort of gastritis but…. In London I’d have called my hospital, quite likely gone into hospital by the afternoon, and quite possibly had blood tests, a drip to rehydrate me, maybe antibiotics, maybe stayed overnight: after all, I have myeloma and am relapsing currently so they tend to err on the safe side.

My South African friend rang around and found out that a clinic in Constantia would be the best place: they have haemotology specialists as well as A&E. We set off driving there around 2/3pm. I was actually just beginning to feel like I’d stopped vomiting – could hold down water – but didn’t know if it would last, and still had a temperature.

AllClear give you an emergency number to ring if you might spend over £500. That was fully possible if there were cautious, so I decided to do the right thing and call them to make sure I could claim etc. However, the phoneline which operates for AllClear (a medical line based in Ireland, can’t remember the name) firstly had none of my details which was just annoying when I felt so awful – had to tell them my address, etc etc, what my condition is – but secondly told me that I had to go to a PUBLIC facility first. They made it sound like I could just go to a walk-in clinic to get referred to another place – but in reality that just doesn’t make sense in a country/city where anyone of average means would go to a private clinic, especially when you’re a foreign national so not eligible for public healthcare.

As I was feeling OK rather than awful, we decided to try the A&E at the public hospital which is attached to UCT medical school (Groote something, again I forget the name!) My friend managed to drive me into the ambulance entrance but otherwise I’d have had a long walk. He then had to go off and park and was lucky to be able to talk his way in afterwards as formally you weren’t allowed anyone to accompany you. I sat in one place for a while, utterly bemused if it was the right place. It then turned out I had to go back to reception to get registered and get a file. When I was finally seen, and I had no South African ID but handed over my passport, the guy just looked at me like I was mad… He made it very clear it would be complicated for me to enter, said there was a fee which was 400 rand or more and that it would be much cheaper and faster for me to go to a private facility.

I decided just to leave, and we did try one private hospital en route back but it was about £150 just to see a doctor (and they had no haemotologist) which was more than the specialist place in Constantia – I was also feeling more or less OK and decided just to go home to bed. I was still sick once more that evening and had a fever, but the next morning I was fine, just washed out.

Sorry for the long saga but my point is that I’m now rather worried some of these insurances are utterly pointless: I would have been better off not paying £260 and accepting that if I needed medical treatment I’d have had to pay out of my own pocket. In practice maybe if I’d never called up and gone to the private clinic and been treated they’d have paid up… but maybe not! Worst case, you pay for insurance and then pay again for treatment. But of course it’s terrifying to think of the massive bills you could end up with from medical treatment, missing your flight home etc… and I for one don’t have any savings so it’s not really a risk I can take.

I also noticed that the other elements of the insurance (e.g. lost possessions, stolen items) were really rubbish and had really low limits per item and high excess.

Next time I would avoid AllClear and would probably try WorldFirst. Has anyone had experience of making a claim with them?

To end on a more positive note: I am VERY glad I went on holiday. Do go, it’s so important! I also found out that I was able to recover from a vomiting bug as quickly as any ‘normal’ person – so even if it’s more nervewracking, if you’re generally doing OK at the moment do remember it’s not that likely you’ll need any major medical treatment while away…

I do think I’ll stick to the European Union for the next little while though…!!

Helen

[PerkymiteParticipant]

Hi Helen, I read you post with great interest.

My wife has worked in Insurance for over 30 years, She has all the qualifications but now at nearly 70 just does the processing for a local company. She tried to retire but they would not let her, in the nicest possible way, and she does 10 hours, of her choosing each week. they need to keep her on the books for her qualifications LOL.

I did put a post up some time ago about taking out insurance. but it has probably got lost in the site change. Some points you touch on I would like to add my twopenney worth.

1, Before you telephone the Insurance Company go to your Doctor and ask for your medical record print out – they are duty bound to give it to you. Then discuss with him what you must declare to the Insurance Company. As soon as you make a claim the insurance Company WILL contact your Doctor and take a FULL history from him of any medical condition THEY think you should have been declared. Let say you had warts on your bum and you went down with a heart attack in SA. The fact you did not make a FULL declaration (i.e the warts on your bum) is enough to cancel your claim and leave you with the bill.

2. Insured or not. When you declare your problems the Insurance Company will in the first instance rate them as not included/covered and give you a nice low quote. YOU SHOULD ALWAYS GO FOR INCLUDED AND COVERED. Anything else is a complete waste of time and money and will land you with big bills not just medical but could be repatriation. Thousands of pounds. If you are not going to cover Myeloma you might as well have no Insurance cover at all because you are kidding yourself that you do.

3. I have several problems, Myeloma is just one of them and at the moment a minor one! So it is not quite fair but it will give you some idea. My wife and her colleges, in an Insurance Broker, tried to get me insurance to go France for a week. I have the EU card etc… fully covered, and on the understanding that I use the PUBLIC health card fist the figure quoted was £700. We decided, as one of the party was a fully qualified Doctor and my Son-In-Law, has a large people mover, and offered to get me back to England if I had a problem, to go without but we all knew and all agreed what we were doing.

I look at some of the figures quoted and often wonder what they will discover they really have Insured if push comes to shove. I just hope their luck holds and I do not see them on the evening news.

Kindest regard – vasbyte

David

• This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by  Perkymite.

[HelenRParticipant]

Thanks so much David for taking the time to reply.

It’s very helpful to know about the first point, contacting your doctor, and that if anything (even irrelevant) is not declared the whole thing may be void. I had not fully understood – but had worried about that. I remember reading about someone whose life insurance policy would not pay out as he hadn’t declared pins and needles (he had a type of cancer). However this was NOT made clear to me by the company who said I could just exclude the heart issues!!

My myeloma was declared, but I now realise many other things weren’t. I’ve had tons of other things, minor and major which I didn’t declare. So the £500-600 I’ve paid in the last year was fairly pointless. It did buy me ‘peace of mind’ because I hadn’t fully understood what I was buying, but not much else?

The especially tricky thing is when you are awaiting tests, or test results. This can be a lot of (or all of) the time. For example, last summer, I had this heart issue so I was taking warfarin with another echocardiogram in 6 weeks to check progress. I had checked with cardiologist and haemotologist and clarified that they felt there was no risk to me from flying and travelling. I’d even been sure to get this in writing in case I needed to travel for work (my employer self-insures so it’s a different process I have to go through). So in that sense, I wasn’t taking a risk as I saw it, I was trying to be sensible and minimise risks. Given the tough year I’d had, I was very keen to go on holiday (just 5 days in France, staying in my cousin’s flat last May was my first trip, so very low key). I thought I was taking extra precautions by getting travel insurance and declaring my myeloma. As you say, I’d clocked the fact that repatriation is very expensive and that in particular I wanted to be covered for. But now I just feel like I was being fleeced by a company set up to target people with health conditions… Maybe that’s unfair of me to say, but that’s what it feels like.

I suppose now in future I’d make sure to go through the process you describe, making sure I’d declared absolutely everything via my doctor, knew about the health facilities where I was going, knew whether I’d have to go to a public place first etc and which one I’d go to – and then, like you say, make the choice with my eyes open about whether to pay up the ££ or (based on other aspects like those you mention, who I’d be with, how I could get home etc) just take the calculated risk.

I hope I didn’t sound overly naive or like I don’t take my health seriously. I do, and while I was on treatment last time around I barely left my London borough for 6 months, didn’t get public transport, was very careful with hygiene, etc. But times like that made it even more important for me to do things while I could, in remission. I can’t minimise risks to zero and, well, as we all know with myeloma you don’t get the length of life you’d hoped for so it’s very important for me to keep living while I’m living. If I just stay home and watch TV for 5 years by myself it doesn’t seem worth doing all this nasty treatment. I know there are plenty of other ways to enjoy life than travel and holidays, but I’m someone who has always lived and worked overseas on and off, and many of my closest friends are out of the UK, so (although I love the UK) going overseas something I’m prepared to take the odd calculated risk for. I guess leaving the UK is unlikely to happen much if at all in the next 12-18 months so I’m very glad I made it to Cape Town while I still could.

Thanks again for writing and I hope you continue to do well in battling myeloma and the other various challenges. I always enjoy reading your posts!

Helen

[PerkymiteParticipant]

Hi Helen, I am supposed to be doing my Family tree but as I took Dex today I will be awake all night so will have plenty of time to catch up.

Holidays are important to us all and a great moral lifter which we sometimes need. I am a great admirer of Andy and his trips. We are in the processes of planning one trip to Spain this year. Other than that we go for trips to Cornwall, New Forest, Cotswold, there are plenty of lovely places in the UK. we normally go for a two/three day stop mid week. On the 4th March we are going to London for 3 nights. Day one travel, we are gong by train have not been on a train for some time – if they are running, day two, I have a trip to the Houses of Parliament, this is sponsored by my local MP and he has organised one of his researchers to give us a conducted tour; day three is Westminster Abbey and the surrounding area. There is a whole story about the hotel/club we are staying in all to do with our “honeymoon” 51 years ago. So there is more to this trip than meets the eye! Day four train home.

You cannot go wrong with insurance if you go to your Doctor First and then insist on Full Cover from the insurance Company – you might be shocked by the price but you WILL be covered and sleep easy in SA, warts and all LOL.

Kindest regards – vasbtye

David

p.s. Nearly forgot, it is just as important that any person who is traveling with you carry’s out the same procedure, if they fall ill you could have a problem and it could negate your insurance if not fully declared. Make sure the insurance company is aware of them and record telling them and who you told; make a note of the date and time. And, they must do likewise for you when taking out there insurance. Both use the same Insurance Company. If they tell you they are covered by their Banks Insurance, have a good laug,h and then take out insurance LOL.

[HelenRParticipant]

Haha, stop telling people about my warts David? 😉 And actually I’ve just remembered you may have an SA connection, hence the vasbyte?

A family tree sounds a great idea! I meanwhile am meant to be fast asleep so will keep this very short by my usual long standards – thanks for clarifying that it is still worth doing as long as I take those two steps!

Your London trip sounds great… I work near there so will think of you! Sounds like you’ll be having a great time reliving your honeymoon 🙂 If you end up with a spare hour, we had a work outing the other day and got the boat which goes from the London Eye – past parliament, up to Tower of London and back. If it’s a sunny day I highly recommend it! Cost £11 and I live here but I still enjoyed it… you just get a great – and different – view of everything from the river, including all the new crazy-shaped skyscrapers in the City – and you don’t have to walk a step! You can sit below deck nice and warm, but we were up on deck as it was a surprisingly nice afternoon in between all this rain.

Vasbyte!
Helen

[PerkymiteParticipant]

OK one last quick reply then off to bed you go and down to work I go.

You are right my brothers family live in Jo’burg. My Son and his SA Fiance, with my Son’s two children are in SA at the moment. They had a major family reunion the other night and are cementing connections to the SA family which is so so good.

This is our second trip to London we did the boat trip, London Eye, O2 Centre etc etc… last time, but we did not have time to see Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament hence this trip. By the way I was born in Putney, I think Cameroon might now live in my old house but it was slum in 1943!

Like you, we are well traveled and we know where you are coming from. Just see the Doc and declare it all.

A clue the first Honeymoon was a disaster everything that could go wrong did, we laugh about it now. I cried at the time I think LOL I have booked the top suit in the Club as surprise!

Kindest regard – vasbyte

David
GOOD NIGHT

[HelenParticipant]

Hi All
I’ve just been quoted £92 for single trip insurance to Europe with World First, I declared my warts and all! Husband was £38 with mild asthma I was £54 with MM! This is with stable disease following relapse and chemo within last 6 months, peripheral neuropathy and recent shingles. I also carry a £200 excess should I need treatment. I think I’m happy with this but even more interesting was the worldwide including America quote I got -£590 for annual cover for both of us as long as my disease stays stable, obviously if it changes I have to inform them and they will adjust the payment. I will carry an excess of £700 if I need treatment, I know it is a lot but it does mean America and New Zealand are still accessible to me.
Vikki and Colin…. Just get away ASAP!
Love Helen

[PerkymiteParticipant]

That sounds excellent Helen and I will definitely give them a go when I look for my Spanish insurance. I think the excess are very reasonable. When I first started down this path, 2009, I was getting that sort of quote but as things have progressed and I have added another incurable cancer to my collection it is just getting a little harder for me.

Warts and all is a good saying for us all when taking out insurance :-)))

I agree with Helen, Vicki and Colin …Just get away ASAP (warts and all)

kindest regards – vasbyte

david

• This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by  Perkymite.

[VickiParticipant]

Hi all

Thanks so much for the replies it’s been most helpful. Contacted nowicantravel and they were v helpful. Told them where we are in Colin’s situation and they were great. We got an annual multi trip for £198 (one trip was 126) so we thought we’d go on the positive! I have answered yes to all the questions where possible and printed it out for Colin to double check me.

I’m always worried about the cover…..I assume pre travel means when you haven’t gone yet? Where they say you can’t claim?

Anyway we have really bitten the bullet….going to mauritius for 2 weeks. Not bad since the
furthest we have gone is Cornwall. But we thought in for a penny. It does feel very weird planning for a holiday because life hasn’t been normal:-). I found it quite hard going through all the questions on the phone as it brought it all back,…..softie me, so had a few tears.

Hope you are all doing ok. I’m still tuning in regularly but done post sometimes as I had a job to log in.

Keep well and keep your fingers crossed for us. Xx

Vicki and Colin x

• This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by  Vicki.

[PerkymiteParticipant]

Well Mauritius has a nice Hospital in the centre of the Island, or they did in 1997 when we went there, if you need it.

Are you sure you are covered and Myeloma is INCLUDED not excluded?

Have a great trip.

kindest regards – vasbyte

David

[GreyParticipant]

Hello everyone,

First time at this, so probably succeed in getting lost soon.

I have travel insurance with a specialist provider related to sailing, I have been with them for 3 years now and I keep up to date with anything myeloma related as it happens during the year if its serious or review at the end of the year prior to renewal. This year I have renewed after having a vertebroplasty carried out on three vertebrae with a further two left untreated as yet. They endorse the policy so that I cannot claim for any costs related to further problems which may occur in this condition. But I generally take the view that all my blood results are good and proteins are decreasing at the moment so what can go wrong that will prevent me getting home within a day or two and disappearing into the welcoming arms of my hospital team. Breakages I suppose, but I have a nail in my left femur planted at diagnosis (a large hole but not broken) so not sure what else I could expect. I am covered for ocean and offshore racing on yachts anywhere in the world and also the ordinary travel trains and boats and planes with baggage and cancellations The latter is really the only insurance I expect, as most people seem to think the insurance companies are always keen to deny claims for this that or the other reason. Being airlifted off a yacht in the middle of a race seems like an expensive operation so I might try and avoid that as strongly as possible.

Just a word here to say that I don’t go crazy cavalier at these things. My family and I sit down and consider the dates and my current condition and whether I am heading for better or worse. That decides a holiday with my wife or a race off shore or ocean. I race with people that I know and that know me well, including my strengths and weaknesses. Holidays I am fortunate to travel with an excellent nurse, my wife.

Also as an extra bit of information, I looked at Silver account with RBS. It includes and annual travel insurance element within the subscription cost of the account. I raised the myeloma question with them and was asked questions about the blood results and liver and kidney function, then I was asked if the illness was terminal!! I said it was incurable so terminal would be a fair description to which I was asked again “no has anyone told you that the illness is now terminal” I replied no and was told fine. The same question was asked by Topsail too, same answer.

Premium: Topsail £85.00 per annum worldwide cover; and RBS an additional premium over and above subscription for the account (£12.00 pcm) £80.00 per annum.

A bit more background: diagnosed 2003 Auto and allograft 2003 received just about any and all treatments going. Developed Graft v Host disease 2009 treated for that too. Lousy year 2013 with no treatment and then fractured vertebrae. Currently new chemo, working a dream, dare I say and the spinal op has practically removed all of the pain and restored my mobility. So roll on 2014, looking forward to family holidays and some sailing. All after due consideration of course.

[Author]

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