Advice on work car and travel insurance

New diagnosis and before diagnosis
1

First post so please pardon any ignorance about MS

i have had a brain MRI and it’s found some nerve damage suggestive of MS, I now have a lumbar puncture booked to aid diagnosis. Obviously just coming to terms with the possibility that I have it and the impacts.

my question is I drive a company car and travel internationally for work, I believe if I get diagnosed I need to let the travel and car insurance know. At the same time I don’t wish to tell the company as I am not involved in any activities where it is a risk, heaviest equipment I operate is s laptop and with my current management it would kill my career.

Has as anyone had experience of this or a similar situation and could give some advice/ guidance on how to deal with it.

thanks

Mark

2

Mark,

This must be a worrying time for you. In my opinion until you get a diagnosis , you are the judge of if there are circumstances that require you to tell anyone. I was diagnosed in 1991 but carried on working/driving and travelling until 2010. I did inform DVLA who exchanged letters with my doctor to ascertain if I should drive. It is our personal responsibility to keep ourselves and others safe. When I told my employer they were great and made sure that if & when adjustments were needed there were options to take. It depends very much on your job & relationship with your employer. I ended up doing lots more admin work from home, us techies hate admin but at least I had a job & an income. If you get a diagnosis but do not inform DVLA and your employer it could get messy (disciplinaries invalidated insurance etc) if you have a problem.

Fingers crossed for you. Good luck.

Mick

3

Hi, I travel abroad for work. I had to advise work of my diagnosis so everything remained covered. If I had travelled for work, taken ill in a foreign country I may not have been looked after. You need to tell your HR department in my opinion. I have also told the dvla, they are writing to my Neuro and I’ll probably go onto a 3 years licence. My company have been fantastic, once diagnosed you are under the disability at work laws so your company have to do anything they can reasonably di to assist you. I hope your diagnosis is good news and you don’t have to go through all this.

4

I am not a driver, but I still think you need to tell them, and it’s not just a matter of personal discretion whether you choose to or not, as their insurance may not cover you if you had an accident, and it turned out you had an undisclosed medical issue.

I do not believe you will be barred from driving the company car, or that the company will be charged more for your premiums, as either would be discriminatory.

I had a similar situation when it came to claiming critical illness insurance. My cover was provided through work, and the claims procedure was…through work.

Which, in my view, was wrong, as it meant I did not have the option of choosing to maintain privacy concerning my diagnosis - not if I wanted to collect the money, that is.

Overall, I do think it’s better that work know, especially once you have a confirmed diagnosis - which I appreciate is not the case for you. Without them knowing, you do not have the full protection of anti-discrimination legislation.

However, although I would almost certainly have told HR anyway, I did object to the fact I didn’t get a choice about it. There was an awful lot of money at stake - money I could not realistically afford to pass up on a point of principle.

Unfortunately, sometimes, you can be put in the position (however unintentionally) that there isn’t really a choice. I suspect this may be the case with you and the company car.

Somewhere, there is probably a company car policy, and an H&S policy, one or both of which sets out the responsibilities of the employee regarding disclosure of any medical issues for insurance purposes. I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t set down in writing anywhere. Whether you can get your hands on it without tipping them off why you want it is another matter…

Tina

5

Sorry didn’t phrase it very well. I understand I need to tell the insurance both motor and travel, just curious if anyone managed to do it without involving their manager. Wondered if I can tell HR and prohibit them from sharing that information without my express permission?

6

HR should respect your wishes for privacy and not tell anyone without you permission. They should only tell someone if they feel that without them knowing it will have a detrimental affect on the business, other staff or you.

7

Thank you all, I now feel a bit more comfortable about what I will need to do and how to go about it if the diagnosis goes against me. Been browsing some of the other areas and greatly impressed with the friendliness support and candour I’ve seen, helps make it feel slightly less frightening a prospect.

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