Do you think holiday insurance is a necessity or a luxury?

Absolute necessity and I won’t even pretend to hide that fact that I think anyone who travels without is an absolute idiot.

For older people who have medical conditions the cost can be shocking. And leads to people taking a risk. And thinking about probability etc.

The scandal is the cost for those with medical conditions. And frankly, the incompetence of the insurers who do not even have any sort of grasp of the conditions and risk they pose.

If you can’t afford insurance you shouldn’t be going on holiday, end of.

Absolutely this. It’s such a selfish and idiotic thing to do unless wealthy enough to pay for care and treatment.

Policies are so cheap that it never makes sense to me why someone would travel without it (yes, I understand that pre-existing or ongoing health conditions complicate things, but it’s still an essential cost of a holiday).

My mum had an accident last year on holiday that required a hospital stay, surgery, and not being given fit to fly clearance for about 4 weeks after. I can’t even imagine how that would have gone if she had no travel insurance.

Absolutely a necessity!! I hate it when I see it, had an accident aboard etc and now need 1000’s! Sorry but travel insurance is relatively cheap.

Having travelled with two people in the last two years who needed expensive medical treatment while we were abroad (a broken limb requiring surgery in one case, and a stroke in the other), I would not even travel with someone who didn’t have insurance. It was stressful enough dealing with the situation and, as it was, I had to put some of the immediate medical costs and additional accommodation and flight costs on my credit card as it took a while to get approval from the insurance company. Luckily I wasn’t travelling with people selfish enough to assume that I would pay out for that without hope of reimbursement.

I’d be very angry if one of my close relatives went abroad without insurance and left me in the position of deciding whether I had to sell my house in order to continue to pay for ICU treatment for them or let them die.

I'm astounded by how common this is. I've always travelled with insurance even when I travelled in the uni hols as a poor student!

It's just madness not to. I actually work in property damage litigation and you would not believe the amount of people who also don't insure their house and contents, just to save a grand or so a year. More understandable if you're living hand to mouth but one of my cases involved a £2.5m property which completely burnt down and wasn't insured. The owners said they "just hadn't got round to it". These were people of "boomer" age so I don't think it's a generational thing.

Some people are just irresponsible about insurance and think it's a waste of money as it's unlikely to be needed. There's a current thread about two people swapping cars for a week and only having third party insurance. One was a 2024 range rover! Neither seemed to have given a thought to who would cover the loss if it got written off.

My dd is 18 and travelling in Asia, and absolutely knew she needed to get travel insurance that covered all the activities she was planning. She's had a few health scares while there so I'm very pleased we have the assurance of insurance.

DD 21 went away with her BF for the first time (he’s 24) and refused to go with him if he didn’t have insurance!

Insurance is for events where the maximum cost might be over and above what you can afford. That absolutely applies to going abroad on holiday and therefore I buy insurance.

Those are all tiny costs compared to things like medical repatriation by air ambulance or getting helicoptered off a mountain side if you break your ankle.

I saw a YouTube video in which a man had been charged about $1500 after insurance paid the rest - for five stitches on his finger for a cut!

True, but I'd consider getting a bag nicked to be more a nuisance than a disaster, as I never take anything massively valuable abroad with me. I'll happily take a big excess on loss of property to keep costs down.

I wouldn’t go without insurance. That said, main of the go fund me type things are from people whose insurance has refused to pay out over loopholes and technicalities. There can be tens of pages of small print. The last holiday went on, I did a family activity that wasn’t (IMO) dangerous (and nothing bad happened). I later found out when switching insurers that we weren’t covered for it.
my PILs on their last few holidays went without insurance knowingly because of cancer and other illnesses and gigantic costs. They just said, look if we die abroad, just forget about us, we know the risks.

Necessity. Insurance during a trip to US saved us 50k in hospital care costs for a broken arm!!!

Its definately a nessesity! Most hospitals abroad won't treat you until they've see the insurance documents. Its sheer madness going without insurance unless you can afford the medical care which can run into thousands.

This
💯

@UltimateSloth your GHIC card doesn’t cover being mugged and having your bag stolen, or the airline losing your luggage, or you developing appendicitis the day before your holiday.

I wouldn’t consider going on holiday without insurance

Idiocy

@EvilNextDoor The only thing you need to consider in the UK is consequential loss, really - say if you're travelling by train to a concert or something, and you miss it due to a lengthy delay. You'll get your train fare back under Delay Repay, but not the cost of hotels, tickets etc. It's worth getting insurance for things like that, if you're forking out a lot of money.

I think maybe the way holidays are booked these days has an impact. I’m nearly 60, so when I was young (and potentially stupid enough to travel without insurance), holidays were booked at a travel agent. I seem to recall them just adding the insurance on, barely asking if we wanted it or not. It was a given, and I never questioned it.
Now people book their trips online, it’s a step they can easily ignore if they choose to.

Depends how rich you are. Treatment in the USA is very expensive, but treatment in some countries is affordable by UK standards or covered under the European card.

Travel insurance quite often is extortionate or unavailable for people with pre existing conditions or who are waiting for a diagnosis. I would probably risk it for a short European break if the insurance was a rip off and I had plenty of savings to cover unexpected costs.

I might not bother in the UK, as home insurance / NHS would cover it. Necessary abroad.