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Thank you. Now, who can define "pre-existing condition"?

 

Trying to answer my own question and learned that high blood pressure is a pre-existing condition so, and I quote here:

 

"This was known as a pre-existing condition exclusion. ... For example, if your excluded pre-existing condition was high blood pressure and you had a stroke as a result of your high blood pressure, the health insurance company might refuse to pay for your stroke treatment.May 5, 2017"

So, this effectively rules out people with high blood pressure. Assume that this means that it is a pre-existing condition - even if you take medication and your blood pressure is no longer high and hasn't been for years. Is there any wonder that I question insurance?

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Insurance companies are notorious for getting out of paying for things due to pre existing conditions. I once had a patient who had a slightly abnormal Pap smear which was resolved antibiotics. Years later, Blue Cross tried to get out of paying for a hysterectomy done for a totally different reason due to her “pre existing condition” . I fought it and won but not without a lot of effort.

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Insurance companies are notorious for getting out of paying for things due to pre existing conditions. I once had a patient who had a slightly abnormal Pap smear which was resolved antibiotics. Years later, Blue Cross tried to get out of paying for a hysterectomy done for a totally different reason due to her “pre existing condition” . I fought it and won but not without a lot of effort.

 

While I don't disagree with the fact that insurance companies use the terms and conditions to only pay for covered items, it pays to fully read the Chase terms and conditions and DEFINITIONS which also are clearly provided in the document I linked to. Looking elsewhere for a contract definition is useless and a waste of time.

 

Here is the definition of pre-existing condition that Chase must use and Rachel's issue is for sure interesting, it is not applicable to Chase's definition as follows:

 

Pre-Existing Condition – illness, disease or Accidental injury of you, your Traveling Companion, your Immediate Family Member or the Immediate Family Member of the Traveling Companion, for which medical advice, diagnosis, care or treatment was recommended or received within the 60-day period immediately prior to the purchase of a Covered Trip. The taking of prescription drugs or medication for a controlled condition throughout this 60-day period will not be considered to be a treatment of illness or disease

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Sheila:

 

Thank you for starting this post since it has opened my eyes to something that I have somewhat swept under the rug in the past. We have taken cruises with and without additional insurance beyond coverage provided by our AAdvantage credit card. However, comments I've read in this thread led me to look at AAdvantage's fine print and we are now more knowledgeable in what's covered and will certainly ensure we have additional insurance for three upcoming Regent cruises to so we are fully covered. Well done.

 

Z and TB

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While I don't disagree with the fact that insurance companies use the terms and conditions to only pay for covered items, it pays to fully read the Chase terms and conditions and DEFINITIONS which also are clearly provided in the document I linked to. Looking elsewhere for a contract definition is useless and a waste of time.

 

Here is the definition of pre-existing condition that Chase must use and Rachel's issue is for sure interesting, it is not applicable to Chase's definition as follows:

 

Pre-Existing Condition – illness, disease or Accidental injury of you, your Traveling Companion, your Immediate Family Member or the Immediate Family Member of the Traveling Companion, for which medical advice, diagnosis, care or treatment was recommended or received within the 60-day period immediately prior to the purchase of a Covered Trip. The taking of prescription drugs or medication for a controlled condition throughout this 60-day period will not be considered to be a treatment of illness or disease

I would check with Chase or any insurance company to make sure that a refill of a prescription (which involves contact with the doctor) is not considered. Just thinking out loud.

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I would check with Chase or any insurance company to make sure that a refill of a prescription (which involves contact with the doctor) is not considered. Just thinking out loud.

 

Good thought tnr. Since most ongoing prescriptions come with refills no doctor contact there and have also just had the pharmacy contact the doctor for refill so no problem there and if ongoing like high blood pressure pills there is no status change in the doctor's records, pretty sure not a problem but, contact is a great idea.

 

Several months ago the topic of combining Chase Sapphire Preferred with Chase Sapphire Reserve benefits thus doubling the coverage to $80K per year by simply making partial payments with both cards since unlike Amex Platinum the policy is coverage is there as long a part of the fare is paid with the card, no amount specified. Quite a bit of discussion and people contacting Chase but, different conclusions. I saw where people were not asking the questions correctly so contacted Chase myself and have it in writing that yes, should you book high priced cruises, having both cards and using both of them for payment, you combine coverage and double the benefits so contacting Chase is a great idea as long as the question is correctly phrased.

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[quote name='Travelcat2;54251621

"This was known as a pre-existing condition exclusion. ... For example' date=' if your excluded [b']pre[/b]-existing condition was high blood pressure and you had a stroke as a result of your high blood pressure, the health insurance company might refuse to pay for your stroke treatment.May 5, 2017"

 

 

Quoting myself here - wish that I had noted the source of the above quote but it does bring into question how an insurance company would know you had high blood pressure if prescriptions were ignored. Anyone can ask their physicians for a printout of their history. The ones that I have seen/requested clearly state the reason why a prescription was prescribed - in this case - high blood pressure. I would not want to argue with an insurance company about whether it was controlled by medication or not as they could argue that the medication was not being taken, etc. If there is a loophole, insurance companies will find it (regardless of what well meaning credit card companies write in their documents),

 

Still suggest speaking with the insurance company directly and perhaps getting in writing that something like controlled high blood pressure would not be considered a pre-existing condition if you had a heart attack or stroke on your cruise.

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Good to see that they have a fairly clear definition of pre-existing, though I am sure an insurance adjuster would try to find loopholes. (Not against insurance adjusters. My daughter-in-law is one, and that is their job.)

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It was unclear on the Oceania board but the fact that there were difficulties with the insurance company that they used was brought up. As has been mentioned, insurance for a WC is several thousand dollars. We knew the gentleman that passed away and knew that he was conservative with his money which may have played into his insurance decision. Sadly, he was scheduled to be on the WC the year before but the ship (Nautica I believe) had a fire so many passengers delayed their trip until 2016. He passed away approximately a month into the cruise. He also sailed on Regent and was on CC quite a bit. We still miss him and his posts (his was a voice of reason - like yourself, Bill and Keith).

 

My advice would be not to take the least expensive insurance unless you have evidence that they do pay and there are others that can recommend them.

I had been away from the O board for a while and saw a post that mentioned his passing some time later. At that point I did not want to express my condolences so late and resurrect the thread. I still regret that. I had the pleasure of cruising with them both. He was a lovely man and the board was been poorer since his passing.

 

I did not see the post on O about his widow having insurance issues, have no knowledge of what they were.

 

He wrote he had trouble finding coverage on the first attempt because of the length of the cruise. But did get policy. As I recall when considering re-booking the first, interrupted sailing, when trying to get the insurance company to transfer the policy (and some don't), he learned that the original underwriter no longer covered cruises of that length. Compared with usual cruises 180 days is a very long time with limited data to assess risk so it is understandable.

 

And cancelling the cruise meant unusable insurance. IIRC he paid ~$16k. That is not inexpensive especially if it is unusable. However, also IIRC, eventually the underwriter agreed to transferring a credit to the following sailing and extend coverage to the 180 days.

 

So it seems to me that if he did not have the correct coverage it was missed on the first policy or dropped on the second when they made this exception.

 

I might have all / some of that wrong but without more information I would not want to imply that there was not sufficient coverage because he was "conservative with his money".

 

I am to a certain degree in the "you get what you pay for" camp and agree that buying insurance based on price alone is not wise. For something like this I take advice from a professional and licensed insurance agent.

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We need insurance with a pre-existing condition/ongoing treatment for upcoming Explorer cruise in April. TA found it via TravelEx. I fully disclosed medical condition to TA and she was able to find what we needed.

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  • 2 weeks later...

"Insurance is something one never needs till one needs it." I recall words to that effect with our TA a few years ago. It's been several years since we last cruised and haven't visited these boards for a long long time.

 

Am now on brink of putting money down for a November 2018 visiting of the Amazon and I see "Regent Care" was included on the invoice. :confused:

 

We've always bought insurance the TA recommended but I don't recall it was from Regent. And these boards have always been useful for learning things we didn't know we didn't know.

 

No fancy credit cards for us. We use the Citi Visa Costco card in breathless anticipation for the rebate check in February 😂. We have massive miles on United but as we haven't gone abroad lately, that Chase United Visa card just sits mostly unused. I feel prompted to go credit card shopping ... but to do it just to get a better deal on a cruise vacation, is that a good idea? Aaaugh!

 

I found a list of sites for travel insurance. I should start there, right? I like that explanation of what MediJet does 👍🏼.

 

Lastly. I was scrolling this thread and was stunned to see Don Horner passed. I do know I enjoyed his posts enormously for his good humor and steady voice. Online communities can get so crazy sometimes 🤦🏻*♀️ . I just wanted to mention that even though I've not met most of you, or if we sailed together on the same ship and never met, I feel as if I know you.

 

Thank you all for your help.

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Yes please remember a pre-existing condition is something that was treated/or talked about by a doctor and is in your medical record. It doesn't matter if you didn't know about the condition. Also the insurance company does look medical records and RX records.

 

Rick

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Even better IMHO is Steve at www.Tripinsurancestore.com

I previously used insuremytrip and found their comparisons were helpful, however once I used Steve I am very pleased. I have found that having a regular contact that knows your profile is helpful. He also has an informative website. He is generally my first call after I book a trip.

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A good thread. I might add that coverage for Canadians got tougher several years ago, with several major underwriters no longer covering Canadians. I did manage to find coverage through the Canadian office of Travelguard, but other insurers like CSA.

 

We recently did another trip on the Paul Gauguin, without the cruise being insured. I insured our plane flights, but not the cruise. It is nervous-making I admit, at our ages.

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Reading through the thread so far it appears that most responders indicate that they don't use the insurance option from the cruise line themselves due to cost or coverage issues. Be interesting to know if those using the cruise line own insurance did OK in claims other than cost/coverage of original policy. I would like to think that even the cruise like's own insurance would be reasonable easy or easier than through outside carriers. But it seems like other carriers if you are careful is the way to go in order to get the exact package of coverage right for your own situation and health.

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Believe most, if not all cruise lines self-insure and since cruise lines have gone bankrupt in the past, would you want to be insured for bankruptcy with the bankrupt company putting you in the unsecured line to get any money back?? Also their risk is spread over a much smaller number of customers than the big insurers making the costs much more expensive.

 

We'll stick with the better rated insurance companies and not even think about taking the cruise lines insurance which also, can't be modified to cover air, hotels, and other over and above cruise fare costs.

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Another point to consider is the look back period for pre existing conditions. In our experience the cruise lines such as Regent have a look back period of 6 months. Trip Insurance store has found us policies with much shorter periods for covering pre existing conditions. This is an important issue for us.

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  • 4 months later...

Last year we upgraded our United Explorer Visa card which includes trip cancellation insurance as a free included benefit (up to $10,000 per person per year). My husband is over 75 now so the insurance prices leap. We had booked a Adriatic cruise last fall with Regent and had to cancel at the last minute due to our daughter's surgery. We filed a claim with the credit card company (lots of paperwork), and it has taken 5 months; but the check is in the mail to us- full reimbursement of $18,000.





We had obtained medical insurance (including medical evacuation through Travelex) which cost about $59 when you put $0 in for the cost of the trip. So overall, a great way to go.

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