Does any know of a travel insurance company that will cover medical expenses related to coronavirus currently? My partner is coming from indonesia and I've suggested for her to buy travel insurance, just incase of infection, her treatment here could be covered.
Thanks
No chance, why would they do that.
Yeah, most travel insurances also state you need to do your best to avoid a claim, and given the current warnings it's difficult to argue still travelling is doing your best.
Also your partner will need to quarantine for 14 days on arrival to Australia.
TID started excluding coronavirus claims since January 31st.
This cut-off of cover now also extends to travel to and/or from all other destinations for policies purchased after:
6.00am AEDT on Friday, 31 January 2020
https://www.travelinsurancedirect.com.au/travel-alerts/novel…
https://www.choice.com.au/travel/money/travel-insurance/arti…
https://www.creditcard.com.au/coronavirus-and-credit-card-ov…
I'd say it's too late to buy travel insurance now, expecting to covered for a pandemic.
I would still ensure she buys travel insurance anyway, as she'll be covered for all sorts of other medical events that may arise.
This has been discussed elsewhere. Until proven otherwise, there is only one company that "claims" to not exclude coronavirus as of today - Covermore - but they are being extremely suspicious in their wording. And the PDS can be updated in an instant (they removed their Cancel for Any Reason policy just a few days ago).
https://www.covermore.com.au/coronavirus/faqs#suspend
http://policy.poweredbycovermore.com/cmau/files/documents/pd…
*‘Overseas Medical Expenses’ and ‘Additional Expenses If You Become Sick’ are covered by our policy.
It is a condition of the policy that you must take all reasonable steps to prevent or minimise a claim.
We expect the public, to be aware of the widespread news coverage regarding coronavirus, and to keep themselves updated with the Australian Government travel advice.
Claims will be assessed in accordance with your policy taking into account the circumstances of your claim, when you purchased your policy, where you are travelling to and the dates of your trip.
People with underlying health issues are more at risk for severe infection of coronavirus. Customers with pre-existing medical conditions need to complete a health assessment with us to ensure that they are fully covered for their pre-existing medical conditions. See the Travel and Health section of the PDS for information.*
They have Australia inbound plans for people up to the age of 69, with medical coverage up to $10 million. But let's see how greasy they get in the future regarding "being aware of the widespread news coverage" and "all reasonable steps to prevent or minimise a claim".
Coronavirus rep:
"You knew we had coronavirus in this country and you still travelled here so you didn't prevent or minimise!"
Saw that but their wording is unclear so I wouldn't rely on them, to cover Covid19 related issues.
Wording is confusing but suggests they do cover 'medical assistance', whatever that means in their PDS.
Does Cover-More have a general exclusion for epidemics and pandemics like other insurers?
A ‘general exclusion’ is where a scenario or event is excluded under ALL sections of the policy.
The vast majority of our policies do NOT have a general exclusion applying to all sections for epidemics and pandemics but some of our sections do not cover claims arising due to an epidemic, pandemic or outbreak of an infectious disease; Sections such as Cancellation, Travel Delay and Missed Connections.
There is cover available for medical expenses under many of our travel insurance policies, if a customer travelling overseas contracts the coronavirus — this is in line with Cover-More’s focus on high-quality emergency medical assistance for Australian travellers overseas.
Yeah, I have 2 main concerns based on every other insurance company's action over the past few weeks.
(1) They'll claim her partner visited an "epidemic zone" or epicentre based on some news report, making it a "known event" (e.g. north-west Sydney). This way they won't have to use a pandemic clause (which they don't exclude for hospital treatment), since they'll instead claim precautions weren't taken.
(2) They'll perform an independent medical examination to prove she has hypertension or some other condition that pre-disposes her to a poorer outcome, should she be hospitalised.
Is your partner an Australian resident? If not, now might not be the best time to travel.
Yeah no. Besides corona treatment seems pretty simple.its just the flu
A friend went to Thailand today and forgot to buy travel insurance asked me to purchase it but wanted to know which insurance covers if they get sick from the virus
As I mentioned above, Covermore is possibly the ONLY company that even claims to provide Covid-19 cover, and I don't think they provide "Already Overseas" travel insurance. Make sure you at least buy "Already Overseas" insurance to cover eveything else (which even then, often only applies after a cooling off period of a few days).
There is a thing called Expat Medical Insurance in Thailand but that's even more research you'll need to do (regarding Covid-19 coverage).
It’s foolish of them to travel without insurance and even more foolish to travel in these times.
Thanks for the responses. I will give covermore a call in the morning to confirm things.
Maybe look for overseas visitors Health cover. It's not a travel insurance but I believe provide cover in public hospitals.
No travel insurance company will cover that as it is a pandemic.