Help - Urgent Medical Insurance Question!

I'm due to fly to LAS on Wednesday with VAA on a personal trip, and co-incidentally yesterday an ear infection flared up, which is now being treated with anti-biotics and ear-drops.

To cut a long story short, my travel insurance provider, Fortis, have said they won't cover me for any claims arising out of the ear infection as I'm flying within 10 days of it having occurred. Of course they WILL cover it if I'm prepared to pay a one-off premium of £360 pounds for this 1 week trip - the only option they offered to maintain the full insurance cover! The only alternative they offered will leave the rest of the insurance in place, but exclude anything arising from the ear infection.

I'd contacted them and explained my situation, as I didn't want to be travelling on insurance that could be compromised by a medical condition that I (potentially) hadn't told them about. It's a sort of catch 22 situation; tell them and they effectively withdraw (part of) the insurance cover unless a hefty premium is paid, or don't tell them and risk the policy being voided because of not informing them (which I chose not to do).

Any suggestions or comments on this?????

Thanks.

Nothing to do with the insurance, but do not fly with an ear infection if it hasn't cleared by then.

I think that if you present any insurance company with an opportunity to reject a claim they will take it. On that basis if you choose to fly and you want to maintain cover you have no choice but to pay up.

If it gets worse because of the flight not only will you have the potential of expensive medical bills to deal with but you may find getting home difficult as well.

Miopyk 8D

As Tinks says above, it is not advisable to fly with an ear infection.
The insurance company will be particularly concerned that you fly out and find that the infection gives problems on that flight, causing you to then have to cancel, delay & rebook the return. That could be very expensive to them - a £360 loading in these circumstances is not so high.

The other possibility is to present them with a worse alternative - cancel both flights as you are advised not to fly with an ear infection - they then have the full cancellation cost.

Insurance Companies - nothing but a legal protection racket!

Make sure you have it in writing from your GP that it is not safe for you to fly and the letter clearly states this and gives details of the examinations and treatments you had so something on the lines of

'Mr vizbiz was examined by me on XXXXX. I diagnosed an ear infection and prescribed XXXXXX.

In my medical opinion mr vizbiz is not fit to fly on XXXX and and for a period of XXX after this date.'

I used to be a GP practice manager and this sort of thing cropped up all the time but the worst patients to deal with were the ones who came months after they cancelled but still demanded letters for the insurance company. Even worse were the ones who hadn't even been seen at the time so they got short shrift from us despite the screames of 'you cost me money'

What kind of ear infection ... depending on that answer I'd have no compulsion in flying, two to three days after commencing antibiotic treatment most ear infections will flare down pretty well.

Fortis, aka cover for the likes of the post office etc..
Very good at hiding behind minor clause wording etc.. and have proved less than amenable to us on a couple of occasions. Check you policy info with care..
Tend to agree with the above, but also suggest have a good think of who provides your cover going forward..

Per Slinky's comments, with some anti-biotics etc the ear seems to have calmed down.

The thing that irked me was that as the problem flared up over the weekend, I had to call the out-of-hours ThamesDoc service and they told me to go to their out-of-hours surgery at Epsom hospital. As a result, Fortis abitrarily concluded I had seen a "specialist" and at a stroke they wouldn't offer me the contracted cover as I had "seen a specialist within the last 3 months", and therefore wanted another 360GBP for flying with cover.

If I had seen my GP at the weekend, or waited until the Monday to see somebody, then I would have been fine from an insurance cover perspective apparently. Daft. Apparently, Fortis class anyone who is NOT a GP as a specialist - a great loop-hole for them to try and wriggle through whenever they choose.

To cut a long story short, I argued the toss with the call-centre agent, then did the same with her supervisor, who eventually said he'd talk to the underwriters and call me back. Well, he did call back, and said the underwriters agreed with my argument and they wouldn't need an additional premium, and yes they're wording in the policy was probably not clear enough, and yes I probably had no option other than to see someone other than my GP at a weekend.

Couple of lessons I learnt from this;

1) Read your insurance documents small print VERY carefully.
2) Don't be put off by the call-centre agents - talk to the managers/supervisors.
3) Common sense can still prevail if you're prepared to talk in detail with insurance supplier, and don't give in.
4) I'm off to buy some Earplanes this morning just in case...

Glad all sorted but Fortis was wrong and it would likely have been a GP you saw at the weekend. GPs are defined not by location or even job but by certification. (Some of the academic types would argue that we were specialists in General Practice but by and large we just send them off to conferences and keep them out of the way)

Anyway the general out of hours stuff (not A&E) is delivered by certified GPs, not certified consultants.

Depends on the ear infection whether a good idea to fly or not. Most will be OK. Worth mentioning in general at the time though. There is only so helpful we can be on the forms and many are quite clearly looking for ways to get out of paying.