On the 21 April
2007 H.M. The Queen bestowed the country’s highest corporate honour
‘The Queen’s Award for Enterprise’ on
InsureCancerandMedi
Travelcover Ltd. in recognition of:
“Pioneering
insurance underwriting innovation for those affected by cancer.”
Press Release
23 April 2007
London
InsureCancer & MediTravelcover Ltd.
Farnham based InsureCancer, a specialist provider of
travel insurance to individuals with a diagnosis of cancer has been
honoured by H.M.The Queen. The country’s highest corporate honour,
The Queen’s Award for Enterprise was bestowed in recognition of the
company’s insurance underwriting skills and unique contribution to
the lives of those affected by cancer.
With the sole purpose of providing travel insurance
to those affected by cancer
Medi
Travelcover is the only specialist cancer insurer in the UK.
The company is able to offer cover to individuals with active,
metastatic, relapsed or terminal cancer travelling to all
destinations worldwide. In early 2007
Medi
Travelcover adopted the trading style
InsureCancer.
The lack of availability of travel insurance is the
source of great frustration to cancer patients seeking to take a
therapeutic holiday break. Two national charities, Breast Cancer
Care and CancerBackup[1]
have campaigned and published reports in 2006 highlighting the
difficulties experienced by patients in finding travel insurance. In
July 2006, 59 MPs signed an Early Day Motion[2]
calling on insurance companies to help this
sector of our community. This matter was again raised by the Shadow
Health Secretary in the House of Commons in November 2006.
In this challenging context,
Medi Travelcover has
developed a pioneering insurance risk assessment and underwriting
methodology enabling the provision on travel insurance to
individuals on active treatment for cancer including
chemoradiotherapy. This innovative underwriting technique is
responsive to all cancers and enables risk assessment by each
treatment stage of the different chemotherapy protocols.
InsureCancer Director
Dr. Krish Shastri said, “We are very proud that our commitment to
help a very deserving sector of our community has received the
endorsement of H.M.The Queen. Our ability to help most cancer
patients is the result of an extraordinary partnership between
insurance professionals and oncology clinicians. My thanks to the
InsureCancer team and
the consultants, nurses and clinical staff at the many oncology
centres around the country who have shared our commitment to be
different and to make a difference.
Fact sheet
Medi Travelcover Ltd.
was established in April 2002 with the sole purpose of providing
travel insurance to individuals with cancer. The company adopted
the trading style
InsureCancer in early 2007 to
better reflect its specialist services.
InsureCancer’s
underwriting methodology is based on clinical fitness to travel and
all patients must be travelling with the consent of their attending
oncologist. The aim is to closely align insurance risk rates with
clinical risk factors and the stability of the applicant’s condition
by taking into account the applicant’s diagnosis and current
clinical status in the context of the destination and duration of
the planned trip. Hitherto, conventional approaches to underwriting
individuals with cancer have been based on automated underwriting
systems in a call centre environment. Please refer to ‘Recent
cases’ on our website for a better understanding of the range of
cases we are able help.
In November 2005 Medi
Travelcover Ltd. was voted ‘Insurer of the Year’ at the
International Travel Insurance Conference in Seville, Spain.
InsureCancer has
relationships with over 200 hospitals in the UK and Ireland
including adult and paediatric cancer centres in the UK. Although
InsureCancer receives
many enquiries from cancer patients worldwide including the USA,
Australia and Europe, due to regulatory constraints
InsureCancer is only
able to offer travel insurance to the residents of the UK and
Ireland. Medi Travelcover Ltd.
is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
In the UK there are over 1.2m people living with
cancer and more than 5,000 people are diagnosed with cancer each
week. One in three people will be affected by cancer and a quarter
of all deaths in the UK are due to cancer.
There are more than 200 different types of cancer
each with its own treatment. Lung, breast, bowel and prostate
cancer account for more than half of all new cancer cases with over
three quarters occurring in those over the age of 60. Although
cancer in children is rare it affects about 1 in 500 children under
the age of 15 and in the UK about five children are diagnosed with
cancer each day. With rapid progress in the cancer research 70% of
all children diagnosed with cancer will be treated successfully
compared to only 30% forty years ago.
Copyright
© 2007-2008 Medi Travelcover Ltd.