To think that it should be illegal to go abroad without travel insurance

No you dopey doris! Churchill are an insurance company!

It already is a legal requirement for some people, before I had a British passport I had to prove I had insurance to go to a few places on holiday.

It could be like care insurance, self insurance still legal, but that money is ringfenced and held until the person returns home.

I have pre-existing conditions so mine is a little bit pricier than most, its still affordable, and as I don’t lie when I take it out when I have needed to use it it has always been smooth sailing.

Where are these go fund me pages that are causing so much stress to people, surely you just ignore them, I have seen the odd sad face in the papers but not these pages, do you have to seek them out.

We have joint annual worldwide cover via bank account it's something like £15 per month then we have to pay an extra £35 a year because my husband is an insulin dependent diabetic with arthritis and a bowel condition. So chronic conditions don't necessarily add a huge amount.

another problem is insurance companies not paying out. People find out they have brain tumour but because they had a blood test for menopause and didn’t declare it - they are denied cover!

I have annual insurance, wouldn't travel without it, but I have zero trust in it.
I'm going back a few years, so things may have changed (though I doubt it), I had breast cancer, mastectomy, chemo, radiotherapy etc etc
A year later, planning a short break, I took out travel insurance
I declared it all, every snuffle, operation, investigation - you name it, it was declared.
I got cover, no problem, but they excluded any issues relating to my breast cancer diagnosis.
Knowing there would be nothing immediately life threatening, I went ahead.
I fell off a bus when it jerked forward as i was getting off, and broke my ankle. Thanks the Gods for insurance and cracked on with life.

My claim was rejected by the insurers, because they claimed my bone debsity/strength had been depleted by the treatment I had received for cancer, and therefore was more prone to breakage than the norm. As it was 'related' to my cancer, it was excluded from cover.

Now, right or wrong, would you have expected that?

Screwed my finances ☹️

I'm well over the outrage now, but every time I renew my insurance I resent the money suckered.

So you'd be forcing them to accept the responsibility for their own choices - glad to hear it. Now if everyone would just do that, then there would be no need for the ridiculous concept of forcing everyone to pay higher insurance costs, just to save some people from the consequences of their own, easily foreseeable actions.

Ignore it is exactly what I'd do. I certainly wouldn't be contributing to someone else's medical bills because they couldn't be arsed/were too tight to pay for travel insurance for themselves.

Provided that family member is aware of the risks and the costs and is able to cover those costs and not then expect donations. Fine by me.

I don’t think it should be illegal per se but people should be able to cover the costs themselves in these eventualities. They could run into the millions! Not many people can say that they can cover that!

My child has a long term medical condition and can get cover. It costs a fortune, more than a holiday to go long haul, less so if we stay in Europe. We pay it.

They wanted to know about any recent investigations. So we told them.

As are people who have been taken ill/had accidents on holiday and are insured. You don't generally get all your care in your holiday destination and once you're home the cover doesn't continue. If you need surgery abroad or break a limb etc then your follow up and treatment of any complications will still almost certainly be done by the NHS.
And for things that are going to be long term, in my experience insurers are usually keen to repatriate as soon as possible. I've been on the receiving end of quite a few repatriations from ICUs in other countries over the years and although repatriating a ventilated patient is very complicated and extremely expensive it's not as expensive as several months further ICU care and rehab. The insurers are usually pushing to get expensive patients off their hands as soon as they can. Plus of course insurance has limits. It may sound like policies provide a vast amount of cover, but end up on ICU in, for example, the USA and it will get eaten up at quite a rate.
Not that I am condoning not taking out insurance, but both the insured and uninsured are likely to end up back in NHS care when they get home anyway.

That's a bit weird that you would get that quote when it's not something you have to declare

We were quoted £5k for a week's insurance to go to Greece at one point. The reason? Dh had seen the dr recently due to a spate of nose bleeds. He had been prone to them as a kid. All was investigated and put down to a combination of having a heavy cold at the same time as hayfever. So nothing hanging over him which could have been sinister - he'd just got a cold plus hayfever. A few nosebleeds would have cost us £5k.

We ended up not going (family reasons which became apparent before booking) but that quote sticks with me.

Edited to say £5k, not £5, at end of paragraph.

Because nobody has to pay in to a go fund me. If you do, you are taking responsiblity for their choices, not them.

Why is it seemingly so hard for people just to ignore this? So bizarre.

Well, yeah? I can't afford to travel abroad at all, but if I could I'd get travel insurance because I'd be scared not to. Travelling isn't essential, although it's a nice thing to do.

It would be unwise to travel abroad. I've been told everyone can get travel insurance. Perhaps at a price though.

How are they taking responsibility for their choices when a Go Fund Me page has been set up begging for other people to pay their medical bills? 🙄

A lot of the suggestions in this thread remind me of the adage that "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong".

It should certainly be illegal for insurers not to pay out for spurious reasons.

If they want to travel abroad they make sure the funds are there to pay for healthcare by some other means. Expecting others to pick up the tab is both entitled and pathetic.

Why, did he go to a private doctor? He would have had HSE cover in ROI, and maybe paid for the trip to A&E only which was €100 last time I had to use it. Plus €80 a day if you stay in hospital, max €800 a year.

They are whether the person is taking an insurrance or not. Once back in the U.K., theyre back into the nirmal system. The insurrance won’t cover anything then.

Seems like there is a GoFundMe for everything these days! It’s non stop.
I wouldn’t contribute to this … a decent level of travel insurance can be found quite cheaply and there really is no excuse not to have it.

It still exist and there is no reason for not taking it!!

It doesn’t mean it would all be free. But you certainly shouldn't need to pay for everything

Also the UK is treating people for free