We recently came across our first stumbling block with Reuben’s heart condition.  Our little boy Reuben has a heart condition called pulmonary stenosis.  It’s not something we ever notice as he seems perfectly healthy on the outside.  He’s had two operations so far and will need another at some point. 

Once he’s an adult he’ll need a valve replacement in his heart, so for now it’s a case of keeping the pressure in his heart to a safe level until he’s a fully grown adult.  We’ve had several check-ups to monitor the pressure in his heart, in fact we had one last week.  Luckily the pressure hadn’t gone up for six months so this time they’re happy to not see us for another year, which is brilliant news.  One year is the longest we’ve had between appointments.

Affordable travel insurance for existing medical conditions

As you can’t tell Reuben has heart disease from the outside, we really do forget about it until each check-up rolls around.  This was until I had to book us some annual travel insurance recently.  We’ve been to Germany a few times with Reuben to visit my husband’s family, but we’d not got travel insurance before.  In the next year we are going on our first beach family holiday abroad to Fuerteventura as well as a UK holiday, so I thought it best to get travel insurance to cover us for any accidents and emergencies. 

I always assumed the European Health Card would cover us for injuries, but this isn’t always the case.  In my blog post 6 important things to do once you book a family holiday abroad - A checklist before you board that flight I explain how my Grandad hurt his ankle when abroad this year and the hospital he was taken to didn’t accept the E111 card.

Yikes!

Luckily he had travel insurance and was able to claim back the costs of the medical attention he received.  Another reason to always have an emergency fund saved too as he had to pay upfront for the care he received and then claim it back later.

So, as I would usually do for insurance, I set about filling in my details on comparison sites such as Confused.com to find the best quote.  I’d never thought about Reuben’s condition affecting anything before, but I was so surprised to discover we couldn’t get a comparison quote because Reuben has a pre-existing medical condition.  Quite crazy considering it’s not even something that affects his day to day life!

Thankfully a quick internet search pulled up some travel companies that do travel insurance for pre-existing conditions and one that stood out was Get Going Travel Insurance.  Their whole ethos being you should just be able to ‘get going’ on your holidays and not have any stumbling blocks because of any conditions.

I also checked my favourite cashback site and we were able to get 22% cashback on a new Get Going policy by clicking the link via Top Cashback here!

Perfect!

As a family of four we were able to get an annual policy to include all of Europe (interestingly policies cost more if you want to include Spain, Cyprus, Turkey & Malta, which we needed to) for £44.12.  Plus we’ll get 22% cashback, so really our policy was only £34.41, just £8.60 per person for a whole year’s worth of travel.   As this takes into account Reuben’s medical condition too, I don’t think it’s a bad price at all.  I’m pretty sure as a single adult I never got a year’s policy this cheap before.

Thankfully getting a policy wasn’t the palaver I thought it was going to suddenly be.  I also realise Reuben will always be faced with the question of whether he has a heart condition for so many activities in his future life.  I’m so used to ticking ‘no, no, no’ on all the forms I fill out about my own health I barely read the questions and skim through.  Reuben will no doubt have a lifetime of ticking yes in places and then forever explaining his condition to people!

Luckily we now have insurance and are raring to go on our 2018 holidays.  I’m going to write a blog post soon sharing our travel plans and travel wish list for next year.

If you’re struggling to get a policy because of a medical condition, click to Get Going today!