Cancer and travel health insurance: What coverage do you get?

Squaremouth is a useful resource for filtering plans:
https://www.squaremouth.com
We found type 1 diabetes to be the hardest disease to get covered.

No one doing any travelling here? Would be great to hear of others who have tackled this dilemma. Personally looking at overseas prostate therapies…Much appreciated out there. Cheers

Not the answer to the question. But for me, right now there is not a chance that I will be traveling to far from my home. I understand my center is not only one out there but I don't feel comfortable enough to travel. Side note, last year during chemo treatment, my wife is asking the doctor if I can fly, I'm standing behind her waving my arms and shaking my head at the doctor. Best to all.

I was terrified about travelling to Europe for two weeks last June (my first overseas trip since 2019, before the Pandemic).

What if I'm tired all the time? What if there's an airline stoppage and I run out of cancer meds? What if they confiscate my meds at airport security? What if I need urgent medical care? What if I'm in extreme pain sitting in an economy airplane seat for 8 hours? What if my bladder-control problems come back and the seatbelt sign is on?

None of that happened. It was wonderful. Now you could barely hold me back from taking my next trip.

I had the same issue. After researching dozens of plans that cost almost as much as the trip, I decided to roll the dice.

Great post. I was part of 2 successive global organisation meet ups in the US. My office in Australia encouraged me not to go both times because of the insurance problems. First while I was under treatment and next when I was in remission (NED) from incurable stage 4 appendix cancer. Extremely difficult to get cover (we couldn’t find it) and I wasn’t prepared to go without cover with the risk of self funding any hospital visit in the US. My oncologist helped me decide not to risk it. Australia is a long long way to fly home!!

For Europe, healthcare is for non-residents *relatively* affordable -- if something goes wrong, you'll be out thousands, not hundreds of thousands (as happens to Canadians and Europeans travelling in the U.S. without insurance; they can get billed $50-100K just for treating something like a simple fracture).

The danger is if you need to get medevac'd home, and that applies even if you're in your own country. I have a co-worker who was visiting Hawaii with her elderly mother when the mother suddenly became very ill. They wanted to get her home to California, but she was too sick to sit up on a commercial flight, and a medevac would have cost at least $150-200K. She ended up dying in Hawaii.

To: @northoftheborder :

That is wonderful. I wish you many more memorable trips. The crazy thing about insurance is that you can be completely healthy but be ineligible for any contingency if you as much as go to another country to get a CT scan, have an office consultation, or a blood test. It is truly bizarre. For those with pre-existing conditions in Canada you can get coverage through MediPac, I believe. However, it is only for ordinary travel. I believe only international medical insurance (which is annual) would pay for procedures in the country(ies) for which you have coverage. Very expensive
From my limited experience, insurance coverage, or lack thereof, present one of the greatest barriers to those seeking care in another country.

CAA offers travel health insurance for pre-existing conditions, at least for people living in Ontario. I haven't gone into the details yet:
https://caaneo.ca/blog/travel-insurance/what-you-need-to-know-about-travelling-with-pre-existing-medical-conditions/

Yes CAA Covers pre-existing conditions . I travel on it regularly , HOWEVER .
My son who is a lawyer and handles "Insurance Claims Denied " , says . Insurance is a feel good thing , until you have a MAJOR CLAIM . The first department this claim goes to is the one with the DENIED STAMP . Now you need a lawyer , We read about it all the time -- especially Canadian snowbirds , with major claims from the USA .
There vare an SMALL CLAIMS under the USA health system .