Weight loss injections have become widespread across the UK, with around 3 million people now using them to help manage their weight.
However, if you’re planning a trip abroad and currently taking your Mounjaro or Wegovy jabs along with you, there’s an important question you might not have considered: whether you need to declare it on your travel insurance. Researchers at Which? contacted 48 UK insurers to find out exactly what’s required, and the answers varied considerably. Here’s everything you need to know before you book your next trip.
Whether you need to declare depends heavily on which insurer you choose.
When insurers were asked whether someone taking a weight loss or weight controlling drug, without any other underlying medical condition, would need to declare it, 26 out of 48 said yes. Their reasoning was straightforward, insurers generally want to know about any prescribed medication or recent changes to what someone is taking.
Among the remaining insurers who didn’t require disclosure, the picture still wasn’t entirely simple. Some allowed customers to voluntarily declare the treatment even though it wasn’t strictly required, while others took a different approach entirely, treating obesity itself as a medical condition that needed declaring, even if the specific medication didn’t.
Declaring these drugs can push up your premium.
A mystery shopping exercise using a major comparison website tested exactly how much declaring weight loss injections actually affects the cost of annual European travel insurance. For a 42-year-old traveller, the ten cheapest quotes averaged £16 before declaring anything at all.
Once weight loss injections were declared, that average rose to £18, an increase of fifteen percent. The difference varied considerably between individual insurers too, ranging anywhere from no change at all up to an extra £8.21, a jump of 69% on some policies.
Declaring obesity made no additional difference to the price.
The same test was also run declaring obesity as a medical condition on its own, and again with both obesity and weight loss injections declared together. In both scenarios, the average premium came out at exactly £18, identical to declaring the injections alone.
It’s important to remember that this specific test involved a traveller with no other underlying conditions that GLP-1 drugs are sometimes prescribed for, such as high blood pressure or diabetes. Anyone with additional health conditions alongside their medication could see a different outcome entirely when getting their own quote.
Medical cover is vital for anyone travelling abroad.
Medical claims make up around 30% of all travel insurance claims submitted, yet account for a striking 56% of the total amount insurers actually pay out. This shows just how important medical cover is compared to other, smaller parts of a typical policy.
Most policies simply won’t cover pre-existing medical conditions unless they’ve been properly declared beforehand. This means understanding exactly what needs disclosing before you travel isn’t just a box ticking exercise, it directly affects whether you’ll actually be covered if something goes wrong.
Failing to declare could leave you without cover entirely.
If you don’t declare a relevant medication or condition and then experience a medical complication linked to it, such as a bad reaction to a weight loss drug, it’s unlikely your insurer would cover the cost of any resulting treatment. That could leave you facing an expensive medical bill entirely on your own while abroad.
Research from a major insurer found that millions of customers currently don’t disclose relevant medical conditions, putting their own cover at risk without necessarily realising it. Around a quarter admitted to knowingly withholding information specifically to keep their premium lower, while many others simply weren’t clear on what actually needed declaring in the first place.
How to make sure you’re properly covered before you travel.
Given how much confusion exists around this topic, the safest approach is always to be fully upfront with your insurer about any prescribed medication, including weight loss drugs, regardless of whether you think it’s strictly required. A quick phone call or online declaration costs you nothing, but protects you if something unexpected happens during your trip.
Comparing several different insurers before booking is worth doing, too, since the cost of declaring the same medication clearly varies significantly between providers. Taking a bit of extra time now to get this right could save you from a far more stressful and expensive situation later if you ever need to make a claim.
