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?

To be perfectly honest, I’m sick of the whole go fund me concept. Raising money just because someone’s family member died? Why? Raising money for people’s funerals? When my parents died we had to pay for the funerals ourselves, we didn’t get help from anyone and we didn’t expect it either!

I have zero sympathy - the woman (and her family) are idiotic.

But I suspect that a quote of $3k for a 76 year old woman, for 4 weeks, in expensive USA, wouldn't even have included her pre-existing respiratory conditions in the cover, so they may have had to resort to the bank of GoFundMe even if she had taken out insurance.

How do you know whether you agree or not if you don't look?

Do you care about anything in the World that doesn't directly affect "you and yours?"

Mumsnet would be a boring place if people didn't have an opinion on a wide variety of subjects.

Our neighbours are in their 80’s, they travel loads - family in Australia and Europe. They don’t take out insurance as it’s expensive. Bit different as they would be staying with family but I think its a big risk, they say at their age they've nothing to lose!

@LikeWhoUsesTypewritersAnyway I can see mine being £3000, I've not looked into it
That bad is subjective - I'm immunocompromised but day to day it doesn't affect me - however I can't get life insurance or critical illness cover

I was diagnosed age 32 so from that you mean I shouldn't ever go away again?

It would seem simple enough.
Probably will never happen though as no other person is affected by not having insurance. The reason motor insurance is so important is not for the driver but injuring others.

Why do you care? It doesn't affect you. If you don't agree with them, don't look and don't donate.

Worry about the things that affect you and yours.

Exactly !

If you can afford to go away on a very expensive holiday for FOUR WEEKS without buying travel insurance then you can afford to go away for two weeks with travel insurance, or go to a less expensive destination that its easier to get back from (e.g. Disneyland paris)

It's not like going to Disney is a human right ffs.

Makes you wonder doesn't it

I've just been reading about this. My husband has AF which is one of the conditions this woman has, and we've decided we won't be going away until he's had the surgery that he's on the waiting list for. Even with insurance I wouldn't want to risk it in case they found a way of getting out of paying

I can't even imagine just going anyway without any insurance

It’s ridiculous.

I go on holiday with my elderly father who has multiple health conditions. His insurance often costs more than the holiday but no way would we go without as the cost of treatment would be far higher.

I see it as part of the cost of the holiday and if you can’t afford it then you don’t book the holiday.

This what I think too. Holiday insurance shouldn't be seen as some sort of add on. It's part of the cost. Maybe she should have set up a Go Fund Me page for the cost of the insurance. A sad face and a list of her medical conditions might have elicited a few donations. I feel sorry for her because she is unwell abroad and that must be very stressful. But she's still a plonker.

I know it's not health related, but many years ago DP and I had our apartment broken into on holiday in Spain. I had pretty much all of my stuff stolen. I'm not sure why they didn't take DP's threadbare socks and ancient shorts, but hey ho😆 We were able to claim for all the stolen things, which was at least some compensation for a totally ruined holiday. We had only been there 2 days when it happened. Also DP's dad slipped and fell coming out of a shop while on holiday in New York. There was a trip to the hospital, a couple of scans, a prescription for painkillers and it added up to thousands, even though there was, thankfully, nothing broken and no hospital stay. The holiday was ruined as he was in too much pain to do the sight seeing they had planned. Again, at least insurance covered the expenses. Shit happens. Never assume it won't.

Raised four children as a widow. claims no benefits even disability allowance in spite of having COPD and Atrial Fibrillation, needing 3 inhalers and a wheelchair. yet this was her 21st holiday to the USA.

My late parents both had conditions which killed them (cancer and heart disease) and insisted on taking holidays without declaring the full conditions to insurers.
I tried and failed to get them to see sense but, knowing they were in borrowed time, the thought of one last holiday in the sun trumped everything in their eyes.
Luckily they came home as intact as they went, but it certainly added to my worry.

but ! she is still in this awful condition anyway, collapsed in the toilet,
why take such a monumental risk, now look what has happened to her,
her grandchildren seeing her like this must be frightening for them, with
the possibility she won’t be leaving that bed anyway - even with insurance
she is still in this parlous state, will her family stay with her or fly home,
a terrible state of affairs, bearing in mindinsurance does not protect you
whether you have it or not

Don't go to the US if you can't afford the insurance. Take personal responsibility. To be honest, I wouldn't contribute to GFM for this kind of thing.

I can't see this woman on the GoFundMe page..can you send the link op ?

perhaps you could view the pictures of her in a hospital bed - she isn’t sitting up smiling - a reckless uninsured ill, hardly mobile tourist now out of it, that’s why

TBH £3k to insure a chronically sick 76 year old to go to Florida for a month sounds approrpriately risk priced to me.

By contrast we, two healthy adults in our 40s, were charged £56 for 7 days in the USA earlier this year.

If course it could have been a "fuck off quote". Sometimes insurers don't want to insure you at all but rather than saying that they quote a very high price in the hope you will go elsewhere. As people have said specialist brokers are the answer to high risk travel situations.

Agree. Fools with more money than sense, that’s for sure.

Donating just encourages more of this reckless type of behaviour.

Exactly.. why are people begging for money to help relatives who are too senseless and ignorant to take out insurance.
I feel like saying..' listen love..she's your relation..sort it out between you. '

But in that circumstance you have done your best to get insurance even if the company did try and “worm out of it”

These people haven’t. And why shouldn’t they be held to account and judged? They didn’t want to spend their own money now they want others to spend theirs.

I think like mortgages it was a case of being forced to purchase the company's own insurance if you wanted the deal and this was rightly deemed uncompetitive, but the downside is people end up with no insurance or unsuitable insurance.

@Nicknacky I'm very sorry for your loss and I'm really glad you were able to spend that time with your mum. I do agree - some insurance companies take the time to go through everything but it is still an incredibly grey area that I believe they would try to worm out of if it came to a pay out (ie, if you broke a leg it would have 'nothing to do with cancer' but anything to do with immunity, heart etc, I guarantee it would be an incredibly drawn out and stressful process to try to claim). Of course insurance should be the first port of call, I'm just asking people to consider the position of others before judging so very quickly and harshly.

‘suspect that poster meant a requirement of travel. Like a visa. You need to evidence your valid travel insurance before you fly. It would be difficult to set up and I don’t know if it’s a plausible option but I actually think it is something that could be explored at government level.’

years ago when you booked a package holiday it was essential to have travel insurance or they would not accept the booking. You could either buy theirs, or provide your own; if the latter, you had to enter your policy number.

I suppose they don’t do that any more, because it would be ‘unfair’ or something.