Regulator steps in as cancer patients quoted sky-high travel insurance fees
Cancer charity PLANETS is working with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to try and make one-size-fits-all policies more accommodating for people living safely with cancer.
But PLANETS said the industry needs to work with cancer specialists to have a better understanding of the level of risk different conditions have.
Cost of travel insurance for people with cancer
NimbleFins previously reported a cancer-sufferer was quoted £7,000 for insurance for a two week trip to Canada, while another was quoted £1,000 for a holiday to Spain. The two patients had neuroendocrine tumours which are slow-growing and often stable.
NimbleFins compared the five cheapest quotes for a 65-year-old with various conditions and found the average price for a single trip anywhere in the world was £2,329 for breast cancer recently treated and spread to lymph nodes.
Lung cancer patients treated one to three years ago would have to pay nearly £1,000 for the same policy.
These policies were not even available for those wanting a multi-trip deal, whether around the world or excluding the US and Canada.
And a new survey of representatives from more than 100 cancer charities found 83% said their patients had problems finding reasonable insurance for foreign travel. Half had to modify plans and almost two fifths (38%) cancelled the trip.
About a quarter (23%) said patients travelled without insurance and 43% sometimes did. The majority, 73%, had often paid the excessive premium just to get away.
Southamptom-based PLANETS gathered 132,000 signatures on a petition demanding the travel insurance industry reviews its procedures which the charity co-founder Neil Pearce called a "scandal".
Mr Pearce, who is a retired consultant surgeon specialising in pancreatic, liver and neuroendocrine tumours (NETs), said the main problem was that even if the FCA makes recommendations, the industry works to guidelines rather than laws, so cover is at the discretion of companies.
He said: "I would imagine it is hard for insurance companies to quantify the risk without specialist knowledge and an experienced judgement which requires a clinical opinion.
"We know the bottom line is these companies will be interested in easy-to-assess, low-risk insurance which is simple for them to make a judgment on and quantify risk - and the easy solution is to say all cancer is high risk.
"Therefore it is priced in such a way as to make it commercially safe for them and financially unappealing for customers to take out and, this way, they avoid a difficult-to-quantify risk which might be associated with a high payout if they get it wrong."
PLANETS’ work has seen it asked to work with the FCA and Association of British Insurers (ABI) to help review practises and put forward proposals to make the market fairer for cancer victims.
Meanwhile the FCA has issued guidance to insurers to signpost those with underlying conditions to directories of firms who cover more serious conditions. Money Helper has a directory of travel insurance providers who cover a number of conditions.
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