Skiing on avastin

[ShazD]

Hi. I remember someone mentioning on here that they had been skiing on avastin. Who was your travel insurance with? I am booked to go to La Plagne on 10th March. I have stage 3 c and complete my initial course of chemo on 22nd Feb. My recent CTand MRI show no measureable disease. I will be on avastin 3 weekly via my portacath until Dec. Insure and Go will not cover me and Insure Cancer do not cover winter sports. I have contacted Insure With and gone through a very detailed medical history and need to wait a week for their medical underwriters to assess my condition before I can get an idea if they will cover me or not. Any other insurers that anyone could recommend?

[Purple-iris]

Hi

Went to Florence whilst on Avastin but not skiing and had insurance with insurewith .

Hope you get sorted and enjoy your skiing .

Love and best wishes Kim x 💜

[Yoshbosh]

Someone on another forum I’m on recommended Boots medical travel insurance. It’s not one I’m familiar with, but might be worth a look?

[ShazD in reply to Yoshbosh]

Thanks. I will give them a call.

[SarahsJourney in reply to Yoshbosh]

I’ve used boots each time albeit not for winter sports and found them pretty good x

[Ossett]

It's because insure with like you to be at least 3 weeks clear of chemo for normal insurance so I can only think it's because you are going skiing.

Trish x

[ShazD]

Oh ok. Thanks for that.

[koffeekat99]

Hi. I used Insurance With for my ski trip to Italy last year. It was the only one that came back with a price that was affordable. After ringing around a few places I was told that the issue is not the ski-ing, the issue is more around the location that you travel too. So I found that Europe was a lot easier to cover, but for Canada and the US the travel insurance quote was more than the cost of the holiday. It would have been the same regardless of whether I was doing winter sports or not.

Apparently it's to do with how their health system works. If you have any pre-existing condition they insist on doing extra tests to try to 'prove' whether it was a contributory factor or not. So even if someone else skies into you causing you to fall and break a bone they will still do a load of tests connected to the cancer. This all costs more money which means that insurance companies cover themselves up front and charge you on the assumption that you'll be subjected to a load of additional tests. It put me off going to Canada. Partly because of the cost of the insurance, but also because of this attitude that you would end up having a load of unnecessary tests and you would not be able to reject them being done without invalidating your insurance claim.

I am not having active treatment but am 3b, still have cancer and am classed as incurable.

If you find another company I'm interested in knowing as I am just about to ring Insurance With for a quote for this year (annoyingly, even though absolutely nothing has changed in my circumstances since last year it seems that I have to ring them and go through the extensive questions again).

[koffeekat99]

I find getting travel insurance incredibly frustrating.

I think I was more of a liability before I was diagnosed. I went on a ski holiday and felt absolutely dreadful. I couldn't turn properly, I was wheezing, etc. Now I've had diagnosis, treatment, regular monitoring, am able to ask the doctor if she thinks I'm ok to go ski-ing, etc. I have a medical history with notes which presumably would make it much easier to see what's going on with me if anything did happen whilst on holiday. If I felt even half as ill as I did before I was diagnosed then ski-ing wouldn't even be an option to consider, never mind going on a holiday for a few days.

Although it's all to do with risk I honestly think I was a greater risk before diagnosis than I am now. So just frustrating. Grrr. Rant over.

[Alifit]

If you put Travel Insurance Moan into the search facility on this page, you will probably find my lengthy post. I went skiing last year, on Avastin and was insured by Boots. They charged around £40 - I was completely honest about my other ailments - acid reflux, asthma etc. This year I had a very difficult conversation with them, an hour long, which brought back all the lows of the last couple of years. My current state of health is ‘stable’,but they won’t accept that and even decided that ovarian and Primary Peritoneal we’re different cancers - they’re not. They have instructed their medical team to contact me - I am still waiting. I am disappointed to say the least.

After reading all the responses to my post, I phoned Eurotunnel Insurance and they have quoted about £100 for me and my husband for European travel for the year. They don’t ask any medical questions, but if a claim is made they have to have confirmation from your specialist that you were told you were fit to travel.

I can’t find a reason for not believing them, and I am a known cynic of financial organisations.

The other similar choice was using a company called Open Travel Insurance which is specifically for members of the Women’s Institue.

Don’t let them get you down and try Eurotunnel first to see what they say.

eurotunnel.com/insurance

Sorry if that’s not an actual link - having a bad iPad day today!

Good luck with your hunt, do look at my post, there is lots of support and good ideas.

Enjoy La Plagne, we’re in Cessana in Italy this year - can’t wait!

Best wishes, Ali x

[ShazD in reply to Alifit]

Thanks. I was phoning around all morning and became quite despondent and panicking I won’t get cover. I will try the ones you mentioned. The thought of being at the top of a ski slope and just letting my skis run and flying along with that sense of freedom has been the one thing that has kept me going through all my diagnosis, surgery and chemo. Enjoy Italy.

[Alifit in reply to ShazD]

My good friend Fran used to come skiing and horse riding with me - she had breast cancer for 20+ years and towards the end she just went without insurance - she would say ‘what’s the worst thing that could happen?’ Well we know the answer to that don’t we, so she just had fun until she died. Ironically, she broke her collar bone on the dry ski slope in Birmingham!

Ali x

[ShazD in reply to Alifit]

Thank you. You have made me laugh re the broken bones on the dry slope. That is Sod’s law .I have been so depressed after spending the afternoon phoning around. Still have a couple of companies to phone but some of the quotes were £700 for 7 days.! They were asking about my height and weight. One said they needed GP to say I was fit to travel rather than oncologist. One would not even speak to me until I had completed my chemo and had a clear scan despite me having one clear scan. One asked me to add up how many spots of tumour were on my organs post surgery! I will phone the others tomorrow and see what they say.

[Alifit in reply to ShazD]

They have no idea do they.

Not only did my friend break her arm, but her wig flew off too - we weren’t sure what to rescue first!! This was a woman who built a snowman outside a bar in Val Thorens then decided to let it wear her wig - the look on the faces of the young people in the bar was priceless ⛄️.

Love Ali x

[bibs73]

I couldn’t get insurance to cover the OC as well as winter sports so I opted for insurance to cover the winter sports and not the OC. The way I saw it was I was fine, my OC is low grade so slow growing so unlikely that something would change dramatically in a few weeks and my ca125 was falling, (I left it late to book the holiday ). I was more concerned about broken bones and lost baggage. I used an insurance broker, can’t remember who but I found it through “yes to life” charity website.

I’m doing the same this year, in fact we’re heading off skiing on Friday to Norway.

Insurance it’s my biggest bugbear good luck in your search and let us know how you get on.

Mxx

[Lyndy]

I don’t want to be a party pooper but they may have good reasons as well as bad ones for not wanting to insure. I had a dexa scan while on Avastin and it showed low bone density...a nurse friend said it was pretty normal for someone who had recently completed chemo.

I do still ride horses but I wear a body protector and I’m very careful. I hope you do find a way forward but don’t forget to take good care of yourself xx

[Alifit in reply to Lyndy]

Hi Lyndy,

Yes, the calculations are mosty done by a computer which will have been programmed for all eventualities - it gives you a score based on the answers to the questions, then either agrees to insure you for a price or turns you down. They ask height and weight to calculate your BMI which is presumable a general gauge of your fitness (!).

My original gripe was not only about the cost which seemed to have quadrupled in a short space of time, but the way it made me feel, the impersonality of the questions and the time I spent (wasted) only to be turned down.

I’m still enjoying riding every week - and will ski as I usually do - very slowly zig-zagging across the slopes, looking at the scenery and having a ‘snack’ every time I get to the bottom of the slope!!

Take care Lyndy, Ali x

[harpist_UK]

Yes - I went skiing on Avastin last January! At that time I think our insurance was an annual policy with World First, who covered the cancer but there was a £400 excess if we cancelled because of the cancer. When we renewed their policy had gone up, so we changed to Eurotunnel, who say that as long as your doc or onc says you're fit to travel they will cover you. Go skiing!

[ShazD]

Thanks. Euro tunnel and world first were the ones I had not managed to get through to yesterday. The trip is booked for 10th March as my husband needs the holiday after all he has been through with me in the last 4 months. I don’t intend to go crazy but I would like to be able to do a couple of red runs!

[harpist_UK in reply to ShazD]

We downgraded to mainly blue runs and long lunches - worked up to a few reds later in the week! Hope you have fun. x