Travel insurance with pre-existing medical conditions

Travel insurance with a pre-existing medical condition works differently from standard cover, and the difference sits in one word: declaration. Insurers usually will not cover a medical condition you had before you bought the policy unless you tell them about it and they agree to include it¹. If you do not declare, the insurer can void the policy, refuse the claim, or pay out less than the full amount².

The good news is that cover is generally available. Depending on the insurance company, you may be able to take out travel insurance if you have a pre-existing medical condition, but it could cost you more, or the company might only pay out for certain things³. There are insurers and brokers that specialise in exactly this market, and there is a rule that forces firms to point you towards them when they cannot help⁴. This page explains what has to be declared, how screening works, what it costs, and what to do when an insurer says no.

What counts as a pre-existing medical condition

There is no single legal definition that applies to every policy. Each insurer sets its own, and the wording matters because it decides what you have to declare. One example from a Virgin Money travel policy shows how specific the definition can be: a pre-existing medical condition is any medical condition for which, in the five years before purchasing the policy, you have had symptoms or suffered from, or received medical advice or treatment for⁷. The same policy also treats a condition you are aware of and have sought, but not received, a diagnosis for as a pre-existing condition⁷.

That second point catches many people out. You do not need a named diagnosis for something to count. If you have symptoms, are waiting for test results, or are under investigation, that can fall within the definition. Independent guidance for people with genetic conditions describes the same pattern: applicants are normally asked about their current health, previous health problems and any major health problems in the family⁸.

The scope is wide. Any health conditions you have, including a terminal illness, are known as pre-existing medical conditions when you take out travel insurance³. Mental health conditions count too, which is covered in more detail below. Even undiagnosed conditions can matter: if you have an undiagnosed condition, some policies may offer cover but exclude claims linked to that specific issue⁹.

In practice, the safest approach is to work from the policy's own definition, not from your own sense of what is serious. A condition that seems minor to you, or one you consider fully recovered, may still fall inside a five-year look-back window. When a definition is unclear, declaring is the lower-risk option, because the consequences of not declaring are set out in the next sections.

Cover is not automatic: conditions must be declared and agreed

Buying a policy does not, by itself, extend its medical cover to your conditions. Insurers usually will not cover pre-existing medical conditions unless they have been declared and added to the policy¹. In most policies, pre-existing conditions, meaning conditions you had before insuring your trip, are not covered unless they have been declared¹⁰. You must declare any pre-existing medical conditions or you may not be covered¹¹.

The declaration is a two-step process. First you tell the insurer about the condition, usually through a medical screening process described below. Then the insurer decides what to do with that information: it may cover the condition at no extra cost, charge an additional premium, exclude the condition from the policy, or decline to insure you at all. Only when the condition has been declared and the insurer has agreed to cover it does the policy respond to claims connected with it.

This matters for every part of the policy, not just the medical expenses section. Travel insurance typically covers medical cover, cancellation, baggage and personal belongings, personal liability and delays¹¹. A heart condition that forces you to cancel a holiday is a cancellation claim, but it is a cancellation claim arising from an undeclared pre-existing condition, and the insurer can treat it that way.

It is worth keeping a record of what you declared and what the insurer agreed. If a dispute arises later about whether a condition was disclosed, or what the insurer said it would cover, a copy of the screening result and the policy schedule is the evidence you will need.

What happens if you don't declare a condition

The consequences are serious and are stated plainly across independent and official sources. Failure to declare pre-existing medical conditions can void your policy, or result in your claim not being settled or not being settled in full². If you do not let the insurer know and then need to make a claim, your policy may be invalid and the company may not pay⁶.

This is not a rare risk. In a survey of travellers with pre-existing medical conditions, a third admitted they would not declare all of their conditions when buying travel insurance¹². The temptation is understandable: declaring can raise the price or lead to a refusal. But the insurer investigates the medical history when a claim is made, and an undeclared condition connected to the claim, however indirectly, gives it grounds to reject or reduce the payment.

Two situations deserve particular care:

• Waiting for investigations. If you make a claim and the insurer later discovers you were waiting for medical investigations when you bought the policy, it may refuse to pay out, even if the claim seems unrelated⁹.
• Undiagnosed conditions. Some policies may offer cover but exclude claims linked to that specific issue, so an unexplained symptom you have been aware of can still affect a claim⁹.

The Financial Ombudsman Service, which handles disputes between consumers and insurers, notes that insurers need to be told about medical conditions even if you have recovered, and that its travel insurance complaint work includes checking what the insurer needed to know about past or current health issues¹³. The ombudsman's approach to non-disclosure complaints is not mechanical: it looks at what the consumer was actually asked, what a reasonable person would have understood, and whether the insurer's response was fair in proportion to what was left out¹⁴. That is a backstop, not a safety net you can rely on. The reliable protection is declaring properly in the first place.

How insurers screen your medical history

Medical screening is the mechanism by which you declare. It is usually an online questionnaire or a phone conversation that asks structured questions about each condition. Applicants are normally asked about their current health, previous health problems and any major health problems in the family⁸. For each condition you name, the screening asks follow-up questions: when it was diagnosed, what medication or treatment you receive, whether there have been recent changes, hospital stays or specialist referrals, and whether the condition is stable.

The screening produces one of several outcomes. The insurer may cover the condition with no change to the premium, add a loading to the price, exclude the condition, or decline cover altogether. The result is recorded against the policy, and it is the record, not your memory of the conversation, that decides whether a later claim is covered.

Screening is not always straightforward, and the scale of the difficulty is measurable. In a March 2023 survey of 2,458 policyholders with a medical condition or a history of one, 36% reported problems buying cover¹⁵. The problems range from screening systems that do not recognise a condition, to questions that are hard to answer accurately, to prices that jump sharply once a condition is entered.

If a screening question does not fit your situation, it is better to call the insurer than to guess. A question you answer wrongly, even innocently, is still a wrong answer on the record. The ombudsman takes a view on whether questions were clear and whether the answers given were reasonable¹⁴, but a claim is far easier to defend when the screening was accurate from the start.

Why cover can cost more, and what affects the price

A pre-existing condition changes the risk the insurer is taking on, and the price reflects that. Travel insurance can become more expensive as you get older, especially if you have a medical condition or disability¹¹. Depending on the insurance company, you may be able to take out travel insurance with a pre-existing condition, but it could cost you more, or the company might only pay out for certain things³.

What drives the extra cost is the insurer's assessment of how likely the condition is to lead to a claim, and how expensive that claim would be. Medical expenses claims abroad, including repatriation, are among the largest a travel insurer can face. A condition that raises the chance of needing treatment, or of cancelling a trip, raises the premium. The same logic applies across insurance: a policy that covers a pre-existing condition carries a higher premium¹⁶.

Mental health conditions follow the same rules but often with a different outcome. Diagnosed conditions of any kind need to be disclosed, including conditions relating to your mental health⁵. Where conditions are stable, well medicated and considered mild forms of mental health illness, there is often no additional premium, or very low amounts of additional premium added⁵. There is no reason why travel insurance should not be available to you, with many providers offering comprehensive cover⁵. By contrast, you may have to pay more because of a pre-existing medical condition even without a diagnosis, after seeing a doctor for symptoms¹⁶.

The price also depends on where the condition sits in the insurer's appetite. Some insurers price competitively for common, well-controlled conditions and decline rarer ones. This is why quotes for the same traveller and the same condition can vary widely between firms, and why it is worth getting several quotes rather than accepting the first. The rules on how insurance premiums are worked out and on what to do if a claim is rejected are covered elsewhere on the site.

Packaged bank account travel insurance and medical conditions

Many packaged bank accounts include travel insurance as a perk, and many account holders assume it covers them automatically. It does not. These policies often come with strict rules, such as age limits, exclusions for pre-existing medical conditions or short maximum trip lengths, and winter sports, cruises and gadget cover are often missing¹⁷.

The pre-existing conditions exclusion is the one that matters here. The travel insurance that comes with a bank account is a real policy, with a real insurer behind it, and it applies the same rules as any other travel policy: conditions must be declared and accepted. If the account's policy excludes pre-existing medical conditions, or if you never went through its screening process, a claim connected with your health may not be paid.

If you have a packaged account, the steps are the same as for a standalone policy:

1. Find the policy documents, which are usually available in the banking app or on request.
2. Check the definition of a pre-existing medical condition and the look-back period.
3. Contact the insurer behind the account's policy and complete a medical screening.
4. Get the outcome in writing, including any extra premium or exclusion.

Be prepared for the answer to be no. Some packaged account policies cannot accept certain conditions at any price, in which case a standalone specialist policy for the medical risk, alongside the account's cover for baggage and delays, is one option people take. The dedicated page on insurance in packaged bank accounts covers how these accounts work and what to check.

One related point: the Global Health Insurance Card, and the European Health Insurance Card it replaced, cover treatment of a chronic or pre-existing condition if the symptoms flare up during your holiday, and routine medical care for people with pre-existing conditions that need monitoring¹⁸. That is state healthcare, not insurance, and it does not replace travel insurance, but it is relevant to travellers with ongoing conditions. The page on whether you need travel insurance with a GHIC explains the limits.

Specialist medical travel insurers and brokers

When a standard insurer cannot help, a market of specialists exists. Independent guidance names several firms that focus on this area. MIA offers travel insurance for people with pre-existing medical conditions and has no exclusions for psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder¹⁹. AllClear Travel provides medical travel insurance for people with pre-existing medical conditions, including mental health conditions¹⁹. Avanti provides travel insurance for people with pre-existing medical conditions, including mental health conditions¹⁹. Insurance Surgery helps people with pre-existing medical conditions find competitive life insurance and travel insurance¹⁹. JustTravelcover.com provides a way to compare travel insurance cover for pre-existing medical conditions, such as mental health or for people who are over 65¹⁹.

A broker is another route. MoneyHelper, the government-backed guidance service, notes that a broker can help if you want to insure something unusual, giving the example of finding travel insurance that will cover you despite a pre-existing condition²⁰. A broker searches the market on your behalf and can explain which policies fit a particular set of conditions. The page on using a broker or buying direct explains the difference.

Independent advice for travellers with health concerns points to a consistent method: use a specialist medical travel insurer, call the insurer before buying, check policy exclusions and compare policies carefully⁹. Specialist does not mean expensive by definition; because these firms price for medical risk every day, they can sometimes quote less than a generalist insurer that loads heavily for a condition it rarely sees.

Cruises deserve a mention here. Specialist cruise cover is suggested because cruising presents particular challenges to medical care, for example access to shore treatment². Travellers with medical conditions taking a cruise should check both that the conditions are covered and that the cruise itself is covered. The page on whether standard travel insurance covers cruises explains the difference.

Turned down or quoted £100 or more: the medical cover directory

Since 2020, the Financial Conduct Authority has required travel insurers to signpost customers they cannot help towards firms that can. The rule sets out specific trigger circumstances. It applies when a firm:

• declines, or otherwise does not offer, a consumer a quotation due, wholly or partly, to a medical condition
• cancels a policy due to a medical condition
• offers a policy with a medical condition exclusion which cannot be removed
• offers a policy with a medical condition premium of £100 or more
• offers a policy where the medical condition premium is not known⁴

The £100 threshold is a consumer protection against firms pricing people out instead of refusing them. Before offering a policy with a very high medical condition premium, the firm should take all reasonable steps to consider whether the screening process is insufficient, whether the premium signals an unwillingness to accept the risk, or whether the condition falls outside the insurer's risk appetite or target market, and may instead decline to quote and provide directory details⁴.

The directory itself only lists firms that provide or arrange travel insurance policies that cover more serious medical conditions⁴. So if a mainstream insurer turns you down or quotes a medical premium of £100 or more, ask it for the directory details: it is required to provide them, and the firms listed are there precisely because they take on the risks others will not.

Health changes after you buy: tell the insurer before you travel

Travel insurance differs from most insurance in one important way. Once travel insurance is bought, the insurer has to be told about any changes in health or condition during the policy period⁶. Guidance for travellers with mental health conditions makes the same point: insurance providers expect to be told both when a quote is obtained and, just as importantly, during the policy period, if health status changes⁵.

This is not how other policies work, and the contrast is worth understanding. For many types of insurance, if something changes after the policy has started, the customer will not usually have to tell the insurer about it until they renew the policy¹⁴. Travel insurance is different because the policy is short-lived and the risk being insured, your health while abroad, can change between buying the policy and travelling.

What counts as a change worth reporting includes a new diagnosis, a change in medication, a hospital admission, a deterioration in a condition, or new symptoms being investigated. If you do not let the insurer know and then need to make a claim, your policy may be invalid and the company may not pay⁶.

The page on changes you must tell your insurer about mid-policy covers the wider rules, and the page on misrepresentation explains what happens when information given to an insurer is wrong.

Claims, complaints and where to get free help

If you need medical treatment abroad, contact the insurer or its emergency assistance service as soon as you can. The Financial Ombudsman Service does not think a customer's claim should automatically fail just because they did not contact the insurer first, where the policy requires the policyholder to make contact before incurring medical expenses²². That is a useful protection, but it is not a reason to skip the call: the assistance service can arrange treatment, direct you to a suitable hospital and agree costs upfront.

If a claim is refused because of an alleged non-disclosure, or you believe the insurer has treated you unfairly, the process is:

1. Complain to the insurer first, in writing, setting out what you declared and why you think the decision is wrong.
2. Give the insurer the time it is allowed to respond. The page on how long an insurer has to respond to a complaint explains the deadlines.
3. If the complaint is not resolved, take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which is free for consumers. Its travel insurance work covers policy disputes, medical expenses and repatriation complaints, and non-disclosure and misrepresentation complaints¹³.

The ombudsman looks at whether the questions asked were clear, whether the answers given were reasonable, and whether the insurer's response was proportionate¹⁴. Its guidance on travel insurance complaints also notes that insurers need to be told about medical conditions even if you have recovered¹³.

For free help understanding your options before anything goes wrong, MoneyHelper offers free, impartial money and pension guidance, backed by government²⁴. Its support and guidance are free, and it can explain how to find a broker or check a firm. The page on complaining about an insurer and the Financial Ombudsman Service sets out the full complaints process, and the page on making a home or travel insurance claim covers the practical steps of a claim.