People all have the same reasons for wanting to travel: to see new places, meet new people, experience new things, visit someone or somewhere they love, to work, or just to relax. Even if you haven’t been affected by cancer, your motivations for going away are likely to be the same as someone who has been, and more often than not those fighting cancer often bring forward trips as a way to experience something they always wanted to, or as a chance to get away and recover. For someone who has been or is ill, getting away from the routine of check-ups, doctors and medical care can be an ideal chance to recover somewhere relaxing and different. Read more
The story of Greig Trout’s journey around the world with the aim of helping those who are still or have experienced cancer, has already been the focus of two previous posts on the Insurancewith blog, and we’re proud to still be sponsoring Greig as he continues ticking off things on his list whilst inspiring so many others. Our last 101 blog post left Greig following his check up in San Jose, Costa Rica, with the rest of South America ahead of him. Read more
Insurancewith are proud to announce that Insurance Times have presented us with the Broker Innovation of the Year 2013 award! Below is a video interview of us. It was filmed shortly after winning the award.
Read more
Back in July I wrote a blog about Greig Trout and his 101 Things to do when you survive challenge. Well he is now over 3 month in to his challenge so I thought I would update you on his progress.
I am so pleased to report that Greig has been ticking off a good few things on his list over the last 3 months. He started out in Costa Rica volunteering for Raleigh International. He worked on a couple of projects. The first one was in Guayabo National Park, which is a national monument in Costa Rica. He was building fences and clearing old aqua ducts, which are over 3000 years old! The next project involved building a community centre in a remote village in northern Nicaragua. The work Greig and the rest of the volunteers did was hard and manual. But, as he reported, exhilarating.
The Raleigh aspect of Grieg’s trip finished in September. He headed off to San Jose in Costa Rica to have his bloods checked for his 6 month check-up. He was understandably a bit nervous. Firstly, he had to explain his complex medical history in Spanish.
That coupled with the usual nerves I and many of my cancer travel insurance customers experience before the dreaded checkups. However, he needn’t of worried. His bloods were great and Greig is now celebrating 3 years clear of cancer. What an amazing place to do it in.
After the 3 months of hard work on Raleigh International, Greig is now kicking back, relaxing and carrying on his travels through South America. I for one am very jealous! However, I look forward to and thoroughly enjoy the video updates of his travels.
To find out more about Greig and his trip visit his web site 101 Things to do when you survive, you can have a look at his list and see how many of the items he has already ticked off. I find what he is doing so inspiring and I hope you will too.
If you have taken out an Insurancewith policy for cancer travel insurance this year, you may have come across the term 1-2-1 medical screening.
You may have wondered what exactly this is. Like most products on the market, we use a bespoke medical screening programme driven by a computer. This offers travel insurance for those with pre-existing medical conditions. However, experience tells us that many of our customers do not fit neatly into little tick boxes. The outcome may not always be a fair reflection of the risk presented for cover.
We have given this careful thought and set up a new method of assessing the risks related to travelling. This is for those who are living with a life limiting medical condition. There will always be some combinations of duration, destination and medical risk which are regrettably unacceptable to our underwriting team. However, there are also those who are currently stable despite a serious illness. They may be finding it difficult or very expensive to obtain travel insurance for that all important holiday.
Now when they are screened certain questions instead of just saying “No” to cover, will suggest a 1-2-1 referral to a medical underwriter instead.
Also if you feel that the questions you have been asked are not apt for your particular condition then you can ask if you can speak to a medical underwriter.
How does this work? Well, whether you have asked for a quote online or via a call centre, you may be advised that you need a 1-2-1 screening. This may happen if your situation does not quite fit the tick-boxes. All you need to do is give us a contact telephone number. You can also provide some preferred dates and times. A medical underwriter can then call you to discuss your medical history with a view to offering a quote.
There is no obligation to take up this offer of an individual quote if you would prefer not to talk about your medical history. We understand that some may find it distressing. Often, a little more detail can help. This may include what treatment you have had recently, any test or scan results and your lifestyle. Underwriters will then have more information about your health during the planned trip. They may be happy to cover you. We do not charge you an additional fee for this unique individual service. So far, most of our clients have been positive about the process and pleased with the outcome.
Thank you to Tricia Pearson-Tietema our Head of Medical Underwriting for this blog.
