The increasing cost of health insurance both in Canada and the United States is persuading a growing number of the country’s snowbirds to falsify information on applications for travel health insurance in order to score a better rate, a new report reveals.
The survey, conducted on behalf of the Travel Health Insurance Association of Canada (THIA) revealed that 14 per cent of people falsify information, with half doing so to get a cheaper rate. The most common source of lying is misrepresentation of a medical condition, such as a respiratory or heart issue.
THIA President Alex Bitner is hesitant to label this action too harshly, however.
“Lying is a strong word,” Bitner told the Toronto Star. “Let’s say they’re intentionally making a mistake.”
It’s hard not to sympathize with the applicants’ motivations, however. Thanks to the declining worth of the Canadian dollar and the rising cost of health insurance in both the U.S. and Canada, travel health insurance is growing more expensive.
This confluence of factors is particularly troubling to the roughly 500,000 Canadians that spend the winter in Florida homes. According to THIA, these policyholders can expect to pay roughly 10 o 12 per cent more for travel health insurance than they did a year ago.
“When you factor in medical inflation and the currency hit, premiums have to go up,” Bitner said.
Producers working with snowbirds or other travelers would do well to remind clients that while falsifying information may lead to a less expensive insurance rate, it will come back to bite in the event of a claim, which could be rejected if pre-existing conditions are discovered.
Falsified applications also hurt the market as a whole, as they create artificially low rates for these policies.
