A pre-existing medical condition* for you, your travelling companion, a relative or another person is:
If you fall into any of the above categories, and your condition is not automatically covered, you will need to disclose your medical condition before you purchase your single trip or annual travel insurance.
If you already have a Frequent Traveller policy and have developed a medical condition, see our FAQs for more information.
*Please note, that this definition is a summary.
Please read the Policy Wording for a full explanation of pre-existing medical conditions.
Below are common pre-existing medical conditions. Click on the name of each condition to find out everything you need to know.
| Common Pre-existing Conditions |
|---|
| Asthma You’ll need to disclose your asthma if you’re over 60. |
| Arthritis You’ll need to declare your specific type of arthritis, eg. osteo, rheumatoid, psoriatic. |
| Cancer You have to disclose this, even if you had it many years ago and you are in remission. |
| Diabetes Generally you will need to disclose this unless you you are under 50 and don’t have any other complications. |
| Heart Disease Any history of any type of heart condition needs to be disclosed (including past heart attacks). |
| Hypertension/High Blood Pressure Generally this will be covered, if you meet all the necessary pre-conditions. |
| Hip & Knee Replacement You’ll need to disclose this unless you meet all the necessary pre-conditions. |
| Mental Health Including depression and anxiety, even if you aren’t taking medication. |
| Osteoporosis All grades need to be disclosed, even if you’re not taking medication. |
| Sleep Apnoea Generally, this condition is automatically covered. |
If your condition ISN'T in the table below, you will need to disclose it.
The pre-existing medical conditions listed in the table below are automatically covered by our policies, but you MUST meet all three criteria:
If your condition is listed below and you meet all the criteria, then you don’t need to disclose your medical condition when you’re purchasing your policy.
| Automatically Covered Pre-Existing Condition | |
|---|---|
|
1. Acne |
2. Allergies Only the following conditions are covered: rhinitis, chronic sinusitis, eczema, food intolerance, hay fever. You also can’t be anaphylactic and you can’t carry an Epipen. Please disclose your condition if your allergy does not meet these conditions. |
|
3. Asthma You can’t have any other lung disease you must be less than 60 years of age at the issue date of your policy. Please disclose your condition if you don’t meet one of these criteria.Find out more here. |
4. Bell's palsy |
|
5. Benign positional vertigo |
6. Bunions |
|
7. Carpal tunnel syndrome |
8. Cataracts |
|
9. Coeliac disease (gluten intolerance) |
10. Congenital blindness |
|
11. Congenital deafness |
12. Dry eye syndrome |
|
13. Diabetes mellitus (Type I & Type II) Providing you are under 50 at the issue date of your policy, you were diagnosed over 12 months ago, have no eye, kidney, nerve or vascular complications, and you don’t also suffer from a cardiovascular disease. Please disclose your diabetes if you do not meet these conditions. |
14. Epilepsy Providing you have not had any seizures in the past 12 months, and you are less than one anticonvulsant medication. Please disclose your epilepsy if you do not meet these conditions. |
|
15. Folate deficiency |
16. Gastric reflux (heartburn, indigestion) |
|
17. Goitre |
18. Glaucoma (increased ocular pressure) |
|
19. Graves' disease |
20. Hiatus hernia |
|
21. Hypercholesterolaemia/high cholesterol |
22. Hyperlipidaemia (high blood lipids) Only if you don’t also suffer from a known cardiovascular disease. |
|
23. Hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) Including Hashimoto’s disease. |
24. Hypertension (High Blood Pressure) Provided you do not also suffer from a known cardiovascular disease and your most recent reading is less than 165/95. If you don’t meet these conditions, please disclose your hypertension. |
|
25. Impaired glucose tolerance (glucose intolerance, pre-diabetes). Providing you are under 50 years of age at the issue date of your policy. If you are not under 50 years of age, you’ll need to disclose your condition. |
26. Incontinence |
|
27. Insulin resistance |
28. Menopause Provided you do not also have osteoporosis. Find out more about osteoporosis. |
|
29. Nocturnal cramps |
30. Pernicious anaemia |
|
31. Raynaud’s disease |
32. Sleep Apnoea Find out more here. |
|
33. Trigeminal neuralgia |
34. Trigger finger |
|
35. Vitamin B12 deficiency |
|
If your condition is listed in the table, but you do not meet the three conditions for automatic coverage (listed above the table), you can still apply for travel insurance, but you will need to disclose your condition.
Please note that travel insurance won’t cover any routine treatment or management of your approved pre-existing medical conditions (eg. blood test and prescription renewals).
If we don’t have a full picture of your health before you travel, then any claims that you make can be reduced or rejected, or your whole insurance policy might become void. Additionally, if something happens to you and it’s a result of your medical condition, we can’t cover you if you if we didn’t pre-approve your condition.
The process is simple and quick. You don’t need to call us and you don’t need to provide doctor’s certificates or other documents. You’ll be asked if you have pre-existing conditions when you purchase your policy online, and if you select ‘yes’, you’ll need to fill out a simple questionnaire.
Once you have completed your medical assessment online, you’ll find out whether:
If we are able to cover your condition, we can only cover events that were not expected/unforeseen at the time we agreed to insure you.
If we can't cover your condition, it means that anyone under your policy would not be able to claim for any costs arising from, related to, or associated with your pre-existing medical condition/s.
If, when you purchased your policy you were not aware of your condition (you had no signs, symptoms or investigations), your policy would automatically provide cover for unforeseen complications or issues that may arise from your newly diagnosed condition provided that your doctor has deemed you fit to travel.
In this case, your Frequent Traveller cover will apply to trips you had already booked or part-paid for prior to your diagnosis. For any trips newly arranged after your diagnosis you will not have a provision to claim for any incidents that arise from or related to your condition - unless it’s an automatically covered condition - as this would be classed as a pre-existing condition when you arranged the trip.
If we can’t cover you at all because of your condition, you will find out during the medical assessment.
If your condition isn’t approved, we may still offer you the option to purchase travel insurance, but you won’t be covered for claims that are the result of your pre-existing condition. This is called a pre-existing condition waiver.
Even though you’re not able to take out cover for claims related to your existing condition, you’ll still be entitled to lodge claims for cancellation, lost luggage and even medical claims so long as they aren’t related to your condition.
There may be cover available for travellers who experience a serious mental health problem for the first time, before they travel.
Cover for certain pre-existing mental health conditions may be available subject to our medical screening and the payment of an additional premium (where required). To find out if your mental health condition can be covered, simply get a quote and complete the medical screening at step four.
Pregnancy is not considered a medical condition unless you have complications. We offer certain pregnancy-related cover as standard up to and including the 24th week for single pregnancy and up to and including the 19th week for a multiple pregnancies. Find out more about pregnancy and travel insurance.
No, you cannot apply for cover for a medical condition once you have left home. Terms and conditions, limits and exclusions apply. Please see Policy Wording for full details.
Your policy may be invalid if you do not declare your pre-existing medical condition, or the claim amount you get back may be reduced.
No, pre-existing conditions need to be declared separately, even if you have senior’s travel insurance.
Assessments are processed instantly. Completing your assessment, depending on your condition/s and time taken to answer, can take anywhere from 1 to 20 minutes to fill out.
Cruise travel insurance can cover pre-existing conditions, this would be determined with an online medical assessment. Get a Quote for the destinations your cruise is taking you to and select the Cruise Pack follow through to the next steps and you will be prompted to disclose any pre-existing medical conditions.
For single trip policies, a condition is classed as a pre-existing condition if you were aware of the condition prior to purchasing the policy (ie. you had signs, symptoms, investigations or a diagnosis).
If you developed a medical condition and you didn’t have any signs, symptoms, investigation or diagnosis prior to buying your policy, your condition won’t be considered a pre-existing condition because it happened after the policy was issued.
If you buy your policy for travel, for example, six months in advance of travel, and then you develop a brand new medical condition between purchase and travel, you’d still have provisions to claim for unforeseen issues that arise due to or related to the condition as it was not a pre-existing condition when you purchased your policy.
However, if we’ve insured you before your travel date, you need to obtain a letter from your doctor stating that you’re fit enough to travel.
You would need to disclose the condition on any future policies.
No, you are not able to disclose pre-existing medical conditions from overseas. If you have an Already Overseas policy, you’ll only be covered for automatically covered conditions if all the conditions related to automatically covered conditions are met.
In some instances we may be able to offer cover if you have had cancer, but you would need to disclose this as a pre-existing medical condition when you Get a Quote. We will provide you with instant feedback after your assessment.
If your policy has not already started, you can call our Customer Care Team to carry out an assessment for your condition.
Please be aware that depending on the outcome of the assessment you may need to pay an additional premium.
All terms, conditions and limitations will apply in the same way as if you had declared the condition when you purchased the policy.
Providing you are under 50 at the issue date of your policy, you were diagnosed over 12 months ago, have no eye, kidney, nerve or vascular complications, you don’t also suffer from a cardiovascular disease.
You can find out more about diabetes here.
It’s important that you have all the right vaccinations before you travel. From malaria to meningococcal, find out what you need to know about vaccinations and travel insurance.
Repatriation is the process of returning a person home after a medical emergency or at worst case death. Being covered for repatriation is important so read the ins and outs.
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