Caravan Club Insurance, Beware changing medication

We had the same situation last year and ended up cancelling our holiday abroad. The way Red Pennant do the medical side is quite generous compared to many but there seems to be a lack of common sense with changing medication. Margaret was on a reducing regime of a certain medication for a Rheumatic condition, so hardly life threatening but because the medication changed every month they were unable to cover that condition. The downside of going elsewhere is that whilst they may cover the condition they will also charge you for every condition so the price can be very high. When you have several conditions it really mounts up. At least will Red Pennant, if they are prepared to cover you, they don't charge extra. I think there could be some extra flexibility with RP with such things but that would mean the price going up.

David

Oneputt

I do agree that it would be useful to have some information direct from those that control/design the policy. I suppose the problem is because they only ask a handful of fairly simple questions if flags up a difficulty when you can't make a positive answer. When I was speaking to them they did contact the underwriters who were the ones that refused. They did offer a phone number of another insurance company that would cover us but I didn't follow it up as I imagined it would have been even more expensive than Red Pennant and I would have still needed the breakdown cover which on its own is only about £40 cheaper so the chances are I would have ended up paying nearly double. They would have covered us for all the other medical conditions but it would seem complete folly to me to travel with only partial cover. Whilst perhaps unlikely how would you know in advance whether the condition not covered might contribute to something else and you end up having an argument about payment for treatment. Perhaps one way round this issue would be for Red Pennant to cover such conditions as changing medication but only under the Plus cover?

It would be very interesting to know how many claims are made under the medical cover for people with no declared medical condition compared to those that do. One would have thought that there are a lot of people taking medication for common conditions who are in a better position than those of people who have no idea whether they have such conditions. It always surprises me that one of the questions is not "Do you have regular medical check ups at your doctor."

David

Unlike most travel insurance quotes where you have to list the conditions and then answer a quite comprehensive questionnaire Red Pennant just asks four or five general questions like have you received any treatment for certain conditions in the last xxx, has any medication changed in the last two weeks. There are a couple more questions but generally if you can answer no to all the questions they will insure you without and further drilling down into the detail. So if you have conditions like high blood pressure which is being controlled by regular medication which has not changed in the last two weeks they don't want to know any more detail.

David

Hannah

Thank you for providing a reply on this topic. As I mentioned up post like the OP we also had our holiday plans ruined because the lack of flexibility. I would be the first to praise the ease in which RP go about looking at medical conditions. For those with stable medication it is a boon compared to other insurers. I have no idea how many people this situation applies to but I would have thought rather than having to refer members to an alternative insurer Red Pennant should be flexible enough to cover such occurrences even if an additional premium was required. Looking at it from a business point of view if people have to go elsewhere because they feel the Club have let them don't it's unlikely they will be back at a later date especially if they have found a good alternative elsewhere. 

David

In the Red Pennant brochure I have it clearly states that

" You must advise the Clubs Administration Department if any of the above questions apply between taking out this insurance and booking your trip or date of travel. Failure to do so may result in your claim being refuse"

The questions being the ones you were asked originally. I tend only to take out RP no more than a month before the holiday but I tend to use Club Card points for Eurotunnel which I imagined are not covered by RP?

David

Hi Val.

That's lots more than it costs us with our Nationwide Flexplus - just over £100 extra per year with a couple of fairly common conditions. Ages 68 and 72. Of course there's the monthly fee but that reduces to around £70 / year if we keep £2,500 in the account and for that we get the excellent EU-wide Britannia breakdown cover.

Apart from the situation with the changing medication not being covered  which I think RP has to address I have always found Red Pennant to be reasonable value compare to others I have tried. Our days of spending months and months away are probably over but we live in hope that we can still get the odd month or two away every now and again. I would be tempted to use Nationwide cover as we have a Flexaccount  but unfortunately for our conditions they load the extra premium so much that there is little if any difference. I also like the idea of a joined up policy that RP offer.

David