Is it age discrimination Red Pennant
Is it age discrimination Red Pennant?
Have being a member for 40 years.... and had a number of touring holidays in France & Spain, always taking red pennant insurance (Last time 2019)
So was planning the cost perhaps of one last trip, opps shocking ferry cost Poole to Cherbourg threefold increase But that life with fuel cost I suppose.
However I find that Red pennant price over the top.
Let me explain I’m 76 in good health and fit, my wife has just turn 80 has no medical conditions and fitter then me. A 36 day trip cover is £776.70 however if she was one year younger? The cost would be £340.30 that’s £435.40 mark up.
Now I understand that any insurance cover has to be base on health risk, and a completion of a declaration of medical form out lining know medical conditions, is fair way of ascertaining the risk, but just to base it on age seem wrong!
Bob Reynolds
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You try getting motor insurance with a new company once past 80!
You outlined it yourself, it’s based on risk. That’s not necessarily the risk you pose but averaged across the population based on claims records. The insurance industry is a money making business and not there solely to help policy holders🙄
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Try someone like Staysure for the personal part of the insurance. Haven't used Red Pennant for years. Can you still just take out the breakdown and accident to units separately?
Just as an aside, my, then 85 year old, Mother-in-Law was added to our Nationwide holiday cover for an 8 day trip to Europe with OH and it cost the grand sum of £12. She wasn't on any meds then so they did actually underwrite it based on herself.
TW is right though that the vast majority are based on the population in that demographic as a whole.
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I'm afraid insurance is based on risk, the older you are the bigger the risk for the insurance companies. I have reached the dreaded 80 and my car insurance shot up as has travel insurance. Shop around and good luck - watch the small print through.
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We used Red Pennant for many years, main reason was that medical insurance and breakdown insurance where coupled together and although we never made a claim it seemed this would be the most convenient method of having insurance in the event of an emergency,
however, it was very expensive and we moved to Barclays travel plan June 2022 £12.50 per month for medical and breakdown insurance (RAC) within the EU and UK, it was a very good deal as we were to find out, in Nov 2022 whilst we were in Spain with the caravan my OH had a stroke, will not bore you with all the details, but, an estimate of the cost to ship my OH home, air ambulance, private ambulance Within Spain to take us to the airport, private ambulance to meet us at Southampton airport and take us to hospital, approx £60k.
This same insurance has now risen to £14.50 per month, have not spoken to Barclays re a possible additional premium if we should consider going abroad, which is now highly unlikely, due to increased ferry costs etc, and not sure we could go through all that trauma again, but the doctor i spoke to who came with us in the air ambulance said she did at least 3 flights per week into the UK from all over the EU, not saying all these would cost £60k, but it does put into perspective just how much money insurance companies pay out.
I am 77 OH 2 years younger, Barclays Travel plan will not insure you after the age of 79 so at best i might get 2 years of insurance but then at age 80 you have to start looking at what is available and just how comprehensive or not some of the policies are, and we know just how much fully comprehensive meant to us.
our GHIC card payed for hospital treatment in Spain but after 10 days when they decided my wife needed to enter a re-habilitation programme, then talk of £1k per day was mentioned, this is when the insurance company stepped in and decided best course of action was to repatriate.
p.s. my OH is now 99 pct recovered thanks to some sterling work by our NHS , just some minor problems with left foot.
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Rufs
I expect your unfortunate experience with your wife probably illustrates why many would prefer Red Pennant as its an all in one policy. I assume your car and caravan was shipped back via the RAC? We had always used Red Pennant from 1987 to 2016 (with the odd gaps when we didn't go abroad) In 2017 we wanted to go to Europe again but Red Pennant refused to insure Margaret as she had started to use insulin for her diabetes. It did seem strange to me and even to this day I am not sure if it was a misunderstanding on the part of the person doing the assessment or whether Red Pennant don't do insulin, I am inclined to think it was the former? That episode put an end to our overseas touring as I didn't want the bother of going to multiple insurers as I had been well served by RP over the years. I do have some sympathy with the OP as it appears to becoming more difficult, at least in term of cost for anyone over 70 to have the freedom of travel they had at the same age some years ago. I do have to have a rye smile to myself when I hear the PM say they have inflation under control when my car insurance went up by a third, my motorhome insurance nearly doubled and my house and contents also went up by a third! OK I was able to do some re-negotiation which did bring them all down but still well about the highest headline rate of inflation. Unfortunately for the OP there is no re-negotiation on the price of Red Pennant!
David
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"I expect your unfortunate experience with your wife probably illustrates why many would prefer Red Pennant as its an all in one policy. I assume your car and caravan was shipped back via the RAC?"
no we did not take this route, we have a daughter who is a Spanish resident, and thankfully speaks very good Spanish, mine is very rusty, although i did do Spanish at school, but that is another story, so we left our car and Rufs (dog) with our daughter, the caravan we left on site as we had paid for the pitch until 3rd Jan 2023 and the site owner was happy for us to do this, my daughter and friends went to the site before xmas and thankfully packed away the awning etc so when i returned 29th Dec all i had to do was hitch up and drive to Santander ferry which was booked for 8th Jan, our Spanish daughter travelled with me, and of course Rufs, as far as Burgus and then returned by train so all good, but not an adventure i would want to repeat.
final note...the insurance (Aviva) via Barclays travel plan, was just brilliant, but prior to all of this i have spoken to campers down in Spain (elderly) who had no insurance, just winging it, would never do this.
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I think RP has become more flexible over the years, certainly when considering size of outfits. I have used them in the distant past but they became more difficult and expensive when I got a larger vehicle. I could never get a quote on line. Out of interest, I tried again recently. Not only could I get an online quote, but I was staggered at how the cost had come down considering the increases in both my age and that of my motorhome. However, while now much more reasonable, I can still better it elsewhere for the cover required.
peedee
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Years ago Red Pennant had a clearly set series of fees which were published in the RP booklet. It set out a series of options by length of stay and age of vehicle. As far as I recall the only age restriction was that over a certain age they would only insure you for a certain length of stay, albeit quite generous. There as no need for "Quotes" as it was all clearly set out and transparent. I am sure medical screening was still required but in those days we were free of the encumbrance of medical conditions and medication!
David
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"but in those days we were free of the encumbrance of medical conditions and medication"
were'nt we all, and i am sure there are not many over 70's who are not on some kind of medication even if it is only for cholestral/blood pressure, i have taken pills for these conditions since i was late 60's, but be very careful when you go thru the screening process to declare everything including recent visits to doctors or appointments you have outstanding, our insurers made it perfectly clear when we had our little episode, that although we were "covered" , as a result of our episode they would go and check our medical records to see if there were any discrepancies and if any were found they would hold cover but reserved the right to claim back any monies given to provide assistance.
AllClear seem to be very big in the market just now and a friend who used them said he had no problems getting cover despite him being high risk due to many health issues, but he did pay £1k+ for annual insurance.
He is 720 -
Thank you all for your comments.
But it does seem that age alone without any requesting of a declaration of medical assessment of known aliments brings a chance to load the premiums. ( in this case over £400 on top of normal cost)
In other words as Victor Meldrew would say a 78 year old person with half a lung and history of heart attack is not considered a high risk?
LOL Bob
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Bob
I think there was a major change to the age acceptance some years ago now, well before Covid. Previously the only restriction seemed to be the amount of time they would let you stay but even that was still quite generous. Then came the change and older members suddenly found themselves paying significantly more over a certain age. Whilst the Club design the policy they still use underwriters and it is probably them that dictate the T&C's . We, of course, as members, are never privy to the information that backs up such major changes?
David
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