Best Travel Insurance with Pre Existing Conditions Ireland

If you take medication for high blood pressure or have ever been treated for something more serious, buying travel insurance can feel like navigating a maze designed to catch you out. Most standard policies will flat-out refuse to cover you — unless you declare your conditions upfront. For Irish travellers, a handful of specialist providers have built their entire offering around covering people with medical histories. Here’s what actually separates the useful policies from the ones that leave you paying hospital bills abroad.

Providers covering pre-existing conditions: InsureandGo, JustCover, Chill · Common requirement: Online medical screening · Declaration needed: For all major insurers · AA policy exclusion: No cover for undeclared conditions

These providers represent the core options available for Irish travellers with medical histories who need specialist coverage.

Best travel insurance with pre existing conditions

When your medical history includes anything beyond the occasional headache, mainstream travel insurers treat you as a liability. Specialist providers, by contrast, build their underwriting around your health profile rather than excluding it. The three Irish-focused names that come up most often in this space are InsureandGo, JustCover, and Chill — each taking a different approach to the same problem.

InsureandGo coverage

InsureandGo offers an online medical screening tool that processes your health details and returns an instant decision on coverage. The platform reportedly covers nearly any pre-existing condition, provided you complete the screening honestly. No separate medical questionnaire gets mailed to your GP; the whole thing happens digitally at point of quote.

JustCover options

JustCover takes the broadest approach to condition coverage among Irish specialists. The provider explicitly covers over 1,300 medical conditions — including terminal diagnoses and chronic conditions like cancer and severe mental health issues. The trade-off is strict enforcement of the declaration requirement: fail to mention a condition and your claim gets refused. Full stop.

Chill medical screening

Chill positions itself on the simpler end of the spectrum, with a quick online declaration process that takes a few minutes. The provider offers pre-existing cover as standard for those who complete the screening — but does not advertise the same breadth of conditions as JustCover.

The catch

All three providers require you to declare conditions during the quote process itself. This is not a checkbox buried in the terms and conditions — it’s woven into the application flow. Leaving something out, even accidentally, can void your policy at the worst possible moment.

The pattern across all three is consistent: declaration is not optional, and the cost of skipping it is total policy voidance at the moment you need coverage most.

Cheapest travel insurance with pre existing conditions

There’s no single cheapest provider for pre-existing conditions — the price depends on your specific medical history, age, destination, and trip duration. What is clear from the market is that specialist coverage costs more than standard policies, but that gap narrows when you factor in what standard policies actually pay out when you make a claim with an undeclared condition.

Price comparison factors

Premiums for travel insurance with pre-existing conditions vary based on condition severity, treatment history, and how recently you received care. Providers like MoneySavingExpert recommend buying cover as soon as you book (ASAB) for pre-existing conditions — both to lock in coverage and to enable cancellation protection for any non-refundable deposits tied to your trip.

Budget specialist providers

Among Irish-focused specialists, InsureandGo often appears in budget comparisons for its straightforward online offering. JustCover commands a higher premium for its broader condition list, which makes sense for travellers with more serious health histories. Chill sits somewhere in between, appealing to those who want pre-existing cover without paying for maximum breadth.

Standard policies as a false economy

Standard travel insurance often excludes pre-existing conditions entirely unless declared — and many mainstream providers charge significantly higher premiums when they do agree to cover you. According to MoneySavingExpert, minor conditions may not affect your price much with mainstream providers, but serious conditions like heart problems or diabetes typically trigger either refusal or steep loadings. Specialist insurers exist precisely because mainstream providers cannot price this risk affordably.

Best travel insurance for pre existing conditions Ireland

For Irish residents specifically, repatriation to Ireland is the key medical benefit that separates the useful from the inadequate. Specialist providers like Staysure, JustCover, and InsureandGo all include repatriation to your home country as a core benefit — not an add-on. Generalist or non-specialist policies often cap medical expenses abroad at amounts that would not cover a flight home, let alone hospital treatment.

InsureandGo.ie

InsureandGo.ie operates the same online screening platform as its UK counterpart, adapted for Irish travellers. The platform covers repatriation to Ireland as part of its standard medical benefit package. Quotes are generated instantly after the medical screening.

JustCover.ie

JustCover.ie covers over 1,300 medical conditions and explicitly includes repatriation in its emergency medical benefit. The provider also maintains a 24/7 emergency helpline staffed for Irish travellers. Cancellation cover kicks in from the date of purchase — meaning if you buy cover and then need to cancel a trip due to a medical issue, you’re protected from day one.

Chill.ie

Chill.ie offers a streamlined declaration process and provides repatriation cover as part of its standard offering. The provider is less transparent about specific condition coverage than JustCover, but its quick-declaration approach appeals to travellers who find lengthy medical questionnaires off-putting.

Staysure Ireland

Staysure covers most pre-existing conditions including asthma, COPD, diabetes, cancer, epilepsy, and mental health conditions. The provider tailors policies via a medical questionnaire for more complex health needs, with cancellation cover up to €5,000 and baggage cover up to €2,500. Staysure’s Comprehensive policy also includes optional winter sports cover for up to 21 days.

For Irish travellers heading to Europe or further afield, Staysure explicitly covers repatriation if a medical emergency requires returning to Ireland. This is the benefit that matters most when things go wrong abroad — not the headline medical limit, but whether the insurer will actually get you home.

International travel insurance with pre existing conditions

Heading outside Ireland or Europe changes the risk profile — and the coverage requirements. Global travel from Ireland means you’ll want a policy that covers medical expenses at local rates in your destination, emergency evacuation, and repatriation. For travellers with pre-existing conditions, the declaration requirement follows you everywhere.

Global coverage options

Specialist providers like JustCover and InsureandGo sell policies that work worldwide. The key limitation is that some providers exclude travel to specific countries regardless of your health profile — AIG Ireland, for instance, excludes travel to Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Crimea alongside its pre-existing conditions exclusion. Before buying, check that your destination isn’t on the insurer’s excluded countries list.

Declaration requirements abroad

Declaration requirements don’t change based on destination. The same conditions that need declaring for a trip to Spain need declaring for a trip to Thailand. What does change is the stakes: medical treatment in countries without public healthcare systems can cost tens of thousands of euros, making adequate coverage — and honest declaration — even more critical.

The implication

High-limit policies like LV Premier (offering £10 million medical repatriation and £5,000 cancellation per person, as recommended by MoneySavingExpert) are worth considering for longer trips or higher-risk destinations where medical costs are steep. The premium difference is marginal compared to the potential out-of-pocket cost of an under-insured medical emergency.

The implication is clear: travellers with pre-existing conditions heading to expensive healthcare markets need both high medical limits and honest declaration — one without the other leaves a dangerous gap.

Travel insurance with pre existing conditions covid

COVID-19 introduced a new wrinkle into pre-existing conditions coverage. If you’ve had COVID-19, been treated for it, or experienced ongoing symptoms, how does that affect your travel insurance?

COVID as pre-existing

The practical answer depends on whether COVID-related treatment or symptoms fall within each provider’s definition of a pre-existing condition. For providers like Compareni, which define pre-existing as treatment or medication in the last 12 months, a recent COVID infection could qualify if you received treatment. For JustCover, with its two-year lookback period, the window is wider.

Current policy stances

Most specialist providers do not treat a prior COVID-19 infection differently from any other medical history — meaning you declare it if it involved treatment, and coverage applies subject to standard terms. Standard travel insurers may be more restrictive. Squaremouth notes that best-selling plans for Ireland travellers in 2026 continue to offer pre-existing condition waivers where COVID is declared appropriately.

Declaration for related costs coverage

If you’re buying travel insurance specifically because you’re worried about COVID disrupting your trip, check whether the policy covers trip cancellation due to illness — including your own illness. Many comprehensive policies include cancellation cover from the purchase date, but the specific triggers vary. Declare COVID-related treatment to ensure you’re not caught out if you need to cancel.

MoneySavingExpert recommends buying cover as soon as you book (ASAB) for pre-existing conditions, and this advice applies double when COVID is a factor. If you book a trip, cancel it due to long COVID symptoms, and haven’t yet bought cover, you’ll have no recourse.

What this means for travellers with COVID history: the same declaration rules apply, but the stakes of non-disclosure are higher because long COVID can strike months after you thought you had recovered.

Provider comparison

Three Irish-focused specialists and one major non-specialist show different philosophies on pre-existing condition coverage.

This comparison highlights how fundamentally different the four providers approach pre-existing conditions — from JustCover’s broad embrace to AIG’s total exclusion.

The contrast is stark: JustCover and InsureandGo design their products around your health, while AIG treats pre-existing conditions as a reason to decline coverage entirely.

Policy specifications

Beyond coverage breadth, policy limits and benefit structures vary significantly between providers.

This specs table lets you benchmark Irish specialists against UK reference products that MoneySavingExpert recommends for high-risk travellers.

Related reading: Short Term Car Insurance: UK & Ireland Differences · Best Day Trips from London: 15 Top Picks and Hidden Gems

Providers like InsureandGo excel for Irish travelers with heart conditions or diabetes, as this Insure and Go review details for those over 60.

Frequently asked questions

“You must declare all conditions. If you don’t, your policy can be invalid and claims refused.”

— Martin Lewis, MoneySavingExpert Founder (MoneySavingExpert)

“We cover more than 1,300 medical conditions, including those that are terminal.”

— JustCover (JustCover)

“Our insurance policies do not cover pre-existing medical conditions.”

— AIG Ireland (AIG Ireland)