To be sick of people starting to fund me pages when they go on holiday without travel insurance and can’t afford medical bills when they end up in hospital?

Border / Country Entry requirement - proof of insurance 🤷‍♀️
No insurance no entry

I have more sympathy for young healthy people as the thought of falling ill or having an accident on holiday probably never crosses their mind. Their insurance may be cheaper but they are also likely to have much less money. Risk taking is also more likely in the young than in the elderly.

This woman was obviously a serious, life-threatening illness waiting to happen. She could afford to pay for a 4 week holiday at Disney in Florida for 3 adults and 1 child, having been to Florida 20 times already. She could have reduced the duration of the trip to be able to afford this essential health insurance. I feel very sorry for her daughter, who has had to fly out to Florida, despite not going on the holiday and she is the one trying to raise the money to bring her mum home. I have less sympathy for her mum who took a calculated risk and lost.

Yeh but it doesn’t affect your life does it…I just don’t read further into an article ….but it doesn’t offend me that they are doing it🤷‍♀️

A friend died while on a business trip abroad (totally unexpected, she was a healthy woman in her mid 30s). Luckily she had travel insurance . It meant that a relative could go to the country she was visiting, identify the body, deal with the authorities and arrange repatriation of her body to the UK.
In a similar vein people chose not to spend money on buildings and contents insurance and then suffer a house fire and set up funding pages to get their belongings replaced.

Dd has a long list of pre existing health conditions inc blood clots. I recently paid £255 for three weeks in Canada for insurance for her. A friend has always said to me buy an annual plan and I resisted thinking no way would it be affordable. Well just had a quote of £190 worldwide travel inc Canada and USA.

maybe insurance for copd for this woman would be more (just seen it was 3k) but I agree if you want to holiday that’s the price. I know someone recently who paid 5k insurance for two weeks in the USA! She paid it. Said she wouldn’t have gone without it. I do understand though that it’s shit when your health makes things unaffordable/more expensive.

dd probably couldn’t afford the insurance, her “holiday” is actually travelling to see her boyfriend who lives in Canada. I pay her insurance for her as her health isn’t her fault. Not everyone will have someone who can pay for them though. I’d guess that Dd would maybe take a gamble if I wasn’t paying.

Surely she should just have started a Go Fund Me for the insurance premium?

As I've explained upthread that would be pointless in cases like this as having travel insurance policy isn't the same as having a travel insurance policy that will pay out as you actually get sick. In order for any policy to actually be valid when push came to shove you have to declare the state of your health. So anyone who doesn't want to pay the real cost of insuring themselves would just take out a cheap policy and travel regardless.

But as above- this only captures some travellers, and why should airlines ensure that passengers have insurance if it’s not a legal requirement of the landing country?
what about people who travel by road, boat, foot? Who continuously cross unmanned borders?!

and ask I asked above- if i.e. puru are happy to let uninsured tourists in, what can the uk government do? Why would they even want to do anything?!
what about borderless countries accessed on road or foot from other countries? Who makes sure a British person passing from Russia to Mongolia by foot has travel insurance then?

Why would it be the police to check and enforce??? Police only deal with criminal law, not civil law.

Existing travel laws, i.e. passports, visas, etc are enforced pretty much by airline and airport staff.

It need only be something as simple as having to put in your insurance policy number on the system when you do the check in for your flight. No policy number would mean no flight tickets would be issued.

I’m no expert so please excuse me if I’m being totally ignorant but I wonder if it’d be a possibility that when booking flights you have to supply confirmation of travel insurance to be issued your boarding pass? Only wondering because when I’ve travelled to the US I have to supply ESTA information at the stage of entering the pre-travel info shortly before the trip? Could this not be done with insurance info too?

I did a few roadtrips in the US with a travel company in my early 20s and we had to show the guide proof of insurance before we were allowed on the bus or we’d be refused boarding, which was stipulated in the terms when booking.

"Luckily " for the family they aren't liable for her medical bills, but the hospital may well come after any assets she has, and will certainly do so if she lives.

Who’s law though?? As above the British government have no influence on the entry requirements for other countries.

if puru are happy to let uninsured tourists in, what can the uk government do? Why would they even want to do anything?!

what about borderless countries accessed on road or foot from other countries? Who makes sure a British person passing from Russia to Mongolia by foot has travel insurance then?

it’s a nonsense, which is why it doesn’t happen

I have more sympathy in these circumstances. This woman took a calculated risk knowing she couldn't afford the £3k travel insurance and she wanted to spend a holiday with her grandson at Disney before her health got too bad. Shes then got seriously ill because of her preexisting conditions. Not smart but I can see the temptation to take the risk.

I still wouldn't donate though but I do have some sympathy.

I don't have any sympathy for young healthy people where the travel insurance is cheap and they still don't bother getting it then end up breaking a leg abroad.

If anything I’d say that someone who has been able to afford to travel to Florida twenty times has quite the tower of privilege herself there.

Quite.

I rather thought that might be the case 😁Oh well I've had my three score years and ten so anything now is a bonus. As other posters have said it is not just a case of a £20 policy but (as in my case) £2000+ to cover everything.

She/ her family claims it was going to be her last trip abroad - but who knows if she would’ve pushed her luck in another couple of years had it not been for this incident? Maybe that’s the cynic in me though lol

I would agree though it’s not a nice position for anyone to be in. I hope she gets back home somehow and I hope others learn from this.

Like people who are disabled should 'suck it up' and just don't deserve the same little things, joys, a once in a lifetime experience or luxuries occasionally in life that other people are allowed. Selfish of them? Pure ableism from the tower of privilege that has never had to live with long term disabilities. oh come on. A 20th trip to Florida which must have cost about £20k at least is hardly someone living one of life’s little joys. Let’s at least be real here.

I have a disability as well as a heart condition and I am in the process of being listed for a heart transplant. I can’t imagine that I’d get a cheap run on travel insurance should I choose to be stupid enough to board a plane to the states.

When my SIl was in the last stages of her illness they decided to go to Disneyland Paris instead of Florida because of the stipulations of insurance to go there.

If anything I’d say that someone who has been able to afford to travel to Florida twenty times has quite the tower of privilege herself there.

I think that as a society we shouldn’t allow travel or medical insurance to be priced based on pre exciting conditions - because it does discriminate against those with disabilities. Although that will mean that the price for the healthy will go up. It would seem fair though.

Agree that it’s part of the cost of the holiday though. Campaign to change the law, uses, but be insured in the meantime.

Personally I have a high ceiling in my travel insurance, but also a high excess. If I have to spend £500 I can risk that, but I never want to be bankrupted for a medical transport back to the uk

I think it should be law that you have to have insurance

Who on earth uses travel agents in 2024?

why do the people who keep suggesting how easy it is to make travel insurance a legal requirement not answer the obvious questions around how the British government can make other countries refuse entry to non insured people?!?

Sadly, a lot of vulnerable people are persuaded to do a lot things.

I don't understand their strategy now. They could have had her travel back with support, covered with the gofundme and credit cards. Shed be home now.

Instead, she was left in hospital with Rach day costing much more than what they'll ever get via gofundme. That was always going to be the case and quite obvious.

She now has caught pneumonia and probably at the stage where she could only come back via special flight which they'll never be able to afford. They missed the opportunity.

Sadly, it's likely she will not make it back home, and the estate will be liable to pay the debt before anything else.

I see your point absolutely. It was stated that the trip was going to be her final ever holiday so I guess I’m just considering in that scenario that it perhaps felt worth the risk to her as a bit of a goodbye to a place she’d loved so much. I completely agree that it was a foolish decision though - just that I have a degree of sympathy for her.

YANBU. Stupid is as stupid does. 76-year-old woman, obese, COPD, atrial fibrilation, wheelchair user, in other words extremely vulnerable should she get Covid, flu or any other respiratory disease, all of which are rife at this time of year. So she gets on a plane with hundreds of other people and then goes to an extremely crowded place on holiday and surprise, surprise, she gets Covid!

The flight home on its own is quoted at £30k and god knows how much the hospital bill will be. She's been in there since 23 Nov, so that's 20 days already. Utter and total stupidity. I wonder if the hospital will come after the family to pay the bill if she dies?

The problem is, a lot of vulnerable people are persuaded into doing so.