Cancer Survivors are Over-charged for Travel Insurance

A Money Mail investigation has revealed recently that many cancer survivors have to pay 25 times more for travel cover than they should pay. What is more, the specific research presents cases where travelers had to pay more than £2000 for a two-week holiday, when in reality the actual cost was about 90!

There are several insurers and companies who are accused for over-charging travellers and not taking into consideration factors such as stability of their situation and current health conditions! Sometimes, the price is so high that makes it impossible for them to travel or the insurance is more expensive than their holiday costs! Expensive prices sometimes make cancer survivors or cancer patients to hide their health condition as the cost is horrendous.

A key problem is that many insurance companies do not take into account recent researches that show that 4 out of 10 people with cancer survive and are able to live a normal and healthy life. They are over-charging people for treatments and services that there is a huge possibility that they might not need them.

Another major problem is the fact that insurance companies generalise when it comes to disease. There are more than 200 different types of cancer and, each patient responds to treatment very differently. Many patients also find problematic the fact that are treated as sick persons. Also, they believe that insurance companies do not ask the right questions and put all the cancer or ex-cancer patients at the same basket.

Only in UK there are more than 2million people living with cancer and 400.000 people that are clean for at least 20 years. However, they still have to pay a large amount to buy insurance while travelling and many of them find it difficult to buy insurance that covers them for a long period of time. Also, the research presents cases where insurance companies denied to offer cover for more than 90 days.

With no doubt, insurance companies should take into account that their high prices make lots of people unable to travel and some of them to risk their health, as they prefer not to buy travel cover.