Part 1 – Budget Travel Insurance Providers

There could be as many as 3.7million people living with diabetes in the UK and type 2 diabetes accounts for 90%- 95% of all UK cases according the figures released by the Department of Health and Diabetes UK Patient Education Working Group.

Type 2 diabetes is when the body still produces insulin but not enough to control blood sugar levels. Once under control type 2 can often be controlled just through diet and exercise.

I am not an expert on diabetes and I don’t suffer with it. I just know several people who do have it and we were recently asked a question about travel insurance by someone who has it. What I thought would be interesting would be to compare travel insurance quotes for someone with type 2 diabetes and the same person but without the condition. It is not reasonable to expect anyone to apply for tens of insurance policies to see who gives the best deal, so we have done it for you.

All of the quotes in the investigation were based upon a 20 year old man, non smoker, type 2 diabetes which is under control and has not been hospitalised in the last 12 months and has no other pre existing medical conditions. Our test subject is called Eric.

This is a relaxing week Eurocamping

Eric is going to France for one week on August 20^th and returning on t 27^th. This is a relaxing week Eurocamping so Eric is not taking any dangerous sports cover and only needs £500 of cancellation cover. Eric does have a Kindle and ipod so he needs at least £500 of baggage cover.

What I want to look at is not only the bottom line price for Eric and his adventures, but I wanted to compare the travel insurance application process. Just how intrusive was the application going to get once you tick that box saying pre existing medical conditions.

The cheapest basic quote on our travel insurance comparison table for a single trip policy is Direct Travel Insurance at £5.06 for the week. Lets see how they do..

Once Eric has told them where he is going and the dates and his age there are five yes/no questions about his medical status. Direct Travel Insurance do not cover pre existing medical conditions on their budget cover, so answering the relevant question about prescribed medication means that he needs to purchase standard not budget cover. That is the only difference. The final quote is for £6.53 and Eric has more cover for that money as well. Overall score 9/10.

The next three cheapest polices do not meet the cover requirements for Eric. So we say good bye to OUL, Travel Insurance Web and Ignite. Next we come to YourTravelCover.com. The basic price is £6.79 for the eight days. The very first step after selecting your policy is a great big disclaimer which says that they will not pay any claims for pre exisitng medical conditions. On the page they refer anyone with a pre existing condition to goodtogoinsurance.com so we follow the link and start again. This time we tell them the destination and the dates and we are taken to a simple four question screen going from ‘Have you been prescribed medication” to “have you been diagnosed as terminally ill”. Eric is prescribed medication so we answer yes and proceed. The next step asks us to add our medical condition and type 2 diabetes is there as an option. We then have to ask diabetes specific questions, do we take insulin, how many hospital admissions and some general health questions about high blood pressure and Cholesterol. Finally we get our quote. £11.54 nearly double our first price and we have been sent all over the net to get the quote. Score an inefficient 5/10.

The last suitable provider in this round up is Insurance Bookers. The base price is £8.79 and gives less cover than the Direct Travel Insurance standard cover quote we already have. We proceed anyway and after the dates and destination we are told we have to phone a special phone number if we want to declare our medical condition. So much for the easy of buying online.

All of the providers have penalised Eric in some way or another. The cheapest is Direct Travel Insurance and the extra they are charging is only £1.47 and for that they are offering substantially better insurance protection. The best cover also appears to go to Direct Travel Insurance while we are looking at the budget end of the market and at the moment they are our provider of choice for Diabetes sufferers.

Department of Health http://www.dh.gov.uk/

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