FCA proposals to help people with medical conditions with travel insurance are well intentioned. But the road to hell is paved with those

The regulator wants insurers who discriminate to point people in the direction of specialists who may offer a better deal. With Brexit bringing an end to reciprocal medical cover, this matters

Getting travel insurance can be a nightmare for people with medical conditions (Getty/iStock)

Thanks to the Conservative Party some 14m people may find travel to Europe much more difficult if not impossible after October 31.

Those people are those of use with pre existing medical conditions.

Even with the reciprocal health coverage we currently enjoy thanks to the UK's memberhip of the EU, it’s still wise for us to take out travel insurance. A no deal Brexit would make it essential. And that can prove very expensive.

The Financial Conduct Authority waking up to the issue is therefore timely.

It is proposing a series of reforms to a market in which it currently is legal to discriminate against those with disabilities in a way that it is not against, say, male drivers. The statistics show that those of us with a Y chromosome pose more risk of an accident, which used to be reflected in our premiums. However, the EU put paid to that and you won’t hear many complaints about its decision from the usual suspects.

If you have a pre-existing medical condition the same protection does not apply. You’re likely to pay more, and potentially so much more that it makes travel impossible, or get hit with exclusions, which can severely limited the effectiveness of travel insurance policies.

The watchdog is proposing to address this by mandating that insurers point customers to a directory of alternatives who might be prepared to do better when they load their premiums or demand exclusions.

There are specialists out there which can offer improved deals and policies for we who have pre existing conditions. They still charge more - I pay more than the rest of my family put together - but they can be an improvement on what mainstream insurers offer.

A good innovation? I have to admit to being in two minds about this.

It may help people get cover who might otherwise be stuck. A couple of years ago Scope, the disability charity, highlighted the case of Samantha Renke, an a 31-year-old actress and disability campaigner, who was quoted £500 for a two-week trip to Mexico.

She has osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bones, but had had her spine straightened with rods, which would have significantly reduced the risk of her having to claim as a result of her disability. The insurers she tried appeared unwilling to take this into account.

At a time when underwriting is becoming increasingly automated, with artificial intelligence playing a progressively greater role, I expect this to happen more and more often.

The FCA’s plan might have helped address the issues she faced. She would have been referred to the directory. I imagine the same thing would happen to me.

But I worry that what the watchdog is doing is pushing 14m Britons into an insurance ghetto, allowing what you might call mainstream insurers to wash their hands of us, rather than making them treat us fairly.

So the plan is not without thorns. Here’s another: It is suggesting providing information to “help consumers understand the implications of travelling with exclusions, and how factors such as country of travel can impact medical costs and therefore travel insurance premiums”.

This could also be seen as problematic because it says someone like Ms Renke should stay close to home. That’s something I do because travelling is a massive pain in the neck. But those with a more adventurous disposition really ought not to be put off because of insurers’ knuckle headedness.

The watchdog is due to publish an update on pricing later this week, which will look at the way vulnerable consumers are treated. Travel insurance for those with medical conditions or disabilities won’t specifically be part of that, but perhaps it should be.

In the meantime, it should be said that it has good intentions here. But as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with those.