Holiday insurance.. why don't people get it?

[15February1960]

Reading so much lately about people going abroad on holiday without insurance.. then setting up Go Fund Me to help.. Then people even in the UK having to cancel holidays because of illness etc leaving them or friends out of pocket.. why don't people think to get insurance even if you live in the UK and are holidaying in the UK? I have annual insurance that covers abroad and the UK..

Because some people like to gamble - they can’t bear the thought of “paying something for nothing” so they take the risk thinking nothing too awful will happen to them.

Then the shit hits the fan and the world needs to step in to rescue them.

Because they are idiots. Or ignorant. Or both.

I think travel insurance should be mandatory when booking a holiday. I have complex medical issues and wouldn’t dream of going away without it.

Stupid isn't it? If you can afford the holiday.. surely you can afford bit extra for insurance.. l remember one time having to show insurance along with your boarding pass when boarding.

Sime people really dont understand insurance. Its an industry ive worked in forever and especially life insurance, they deem it unnecrssary until something happens to someone they know and they decide they need cover and guess what by that point they have age risks and illness so they lie and kick off when there isnt a payout...
Holiday insurance- seems like people genuinely think the risk of something happening to them in holiday is too low to worry about.
Personally my dc needed an operation due to an accident abroad. Id never be without it!

It's very difficult to get insurance if you are waiting for a diagnosis for something so don't go to the GP about that dodgy mole just before a holiday or you will be scuppered

As someone who actually did have to cancel a fully booked and paid for holiday due to the sudden and unexpected death of a parent I always, always take out annual holiday insurance.
Obviously at a terrible time like that the cost of the holiday pales into insignificance but i think it's still worth doing - one less thing to worry about, just one phone call to the insurance company in the first instance, followed up by a posted copy of the death certificate a few days later.

That just isn’t true. Staysure and Allclear are very good at covering things like this, you just need to let them know everything- and I mean everything. It doesn’t even add much onto the premium (one thing I added with Staysure only cost me the £15 admin fee). Lots of people like me are continuously waiting for results / tests etc, it doesn’t mean you don’t get insurance, you just shop around and make sure you tell them everything.

Some of them will have insurance but not declared "something" or gone on holiday for a procecedure and taken ill,

I have mine with my bank account and it covers the kids if they travel with friends/school trips which is worth it in my opinion.

My eldest must have spent an hour or so looking for insurance before xmas, it was only mentioned in conversation but she was getting stressed after goggling reviews and finding one off policies not paying out due to loop holes etc. She's now ever so grateful she doesnt have to worry.

This isn't true i have a 2 pre existing conditions and get holiday insurance fine,

That is different from waiting for diagnosis for something unknown, you know what it is.

I don’t understand it either OP. If you’re an averagely healthy person, it costs about £20. We took a big trip to the US several years ago with a relative who has complex health conditions. It cost £300 but was still worth it - the thought of something going wrong in the US and ending up hundreds of thousands in debt was too much to contemplate.

Somebody local to me has died and they are CF for his return. Lots of comments about how he was young and so shouldn’t expect anything to happen so that’s why he didn’t buy it.
Except my BIL broke his arm as a teenager, he had insurance. If he hadn’t it would have been a fortune to sort.

DHs insurance is very expensive. You suck it up. It’s not always that you might become very unwell, you might just trip over.

It is literally a life saver. My friend's mother was visiting us in Washington years ago . Happily sitting at the bar having a cocktail when her mother slumped forward and collapsed on the floor. Emergency ambulances , police escorts to hospital. She had had a heart attack . Open heart surgery , recovery two weeks and extra hotel stay of another week before fit to fly . All covered by comprehensive insurance . The bill showed that the cost was almost a million dollars ,$ 850 + . First thing they asked about arriving at hospital.

Insurance is all about appetite for risk. I think some insurance is for people who aren't careful (e.g. fully comp vs third party car insurance, accidental damage insurance for phones etc).

But some insurance is worthwhile. Travel insurance is one of them because it's not about being careful or not. It's for things outside your control.
Repatriation after a medical emergency is really expensive. In my 20s I might have not worried about that element, but when you get older, and have a family, the likelihood and impact increases so much.

Do bodies have to be returned though, can't they be disposed of abroad like an unattended cremation.

I think this is true. I am quite a stickler for detail and small print and the last time I took out insurance spent far too many hours going through the often 20 plus pages of information they expect you to read and understand. There is no easy or failsafe way of comparing one against the other.

I think the insurance industry needs to improve but cynical me thinks that it can suit an insurance company very nicely not to have to pay out.

Even on this thread - so my understanding was that you were basically uninsurable if you are awaiting tests - importantly for anything that could happen to you related to the thing you’re having tests for. I wouldn’t do that unless something I was absolutely certain wouldn’t create or be associated with a need to claim. But I see a PP say that is possible so I’ve learned something new there!

Last year a friend was looking for insurance and I helped her with the online form where she listed her many conditions. Yes a quote popped up but guess what, it excluded all the conditions that could potentially cause her need to claim. I know people have to be responsible and check, but at first glance it was fine and the payment box popped up.

When my parents were very elderly but fit, albeit as expected with some health conditions, I did wonder if I was supposed to declare old parents because for sure I would have cancelled had they become unwell, or wanted to return home early.

It’s all a real minefield in my view and whilst I agree no excuse to have nothing, the complexity, time it takes, exclusions, lack of consistency in being able to compare products and prices, makes it sort of understandable in certain cases.

A lot of people don’t realise that they need it.

Then some think they might, start looking and it gets complicated so they stop.

Then some think it doesn’t pay out anyway so there’s no point.

With healthcare arrangements in the UK, plenty don’t realise that that’s not the same abroad or that your UKHIC doesn’t cover what you’d get at home. They also vagueky assume that the embassy will sort out getting dead people home, or if you’re seriously injured.

I’m not sure the pop up reminders help. They tend to talk about peace of mind and delays (which many people are happy to risk) not what if you’re hit by a bus…..

It’s a faff though. Nearly two hours on the phone to get ours sorted because of various dull ongoing health issues. Wrist issues pending formal diagnosis couldn’t get cover for, so that’s excluded but did manage to confirm that something else on wrists would be.

Repatriation doesn't just apply to bodies. A friend (mid 40s, no previous health issues) was taken ill on holiday in the UK requiring emergency surgery and had to have a private ambulance to the airport, be accompanied by a nurse on the flight, needed first class for the space and a private ambulance to a hospital inheritance home country. Total bill was over £10,000 and that was 11 years ago. She was insured thankfully so it was covered.

I have said that if I die abroad I am perfectly happy to be brought home as cabin baggage in an urn.

I think you still have to check that the insurance offered by the bank will cover pre existing conditions etc.

They’re idiots or freeloaders. PP used the example of ‘someone who went abroad for a procedure and taken ill’. Thats clearly in the idiot camp.

My PILs used to go on holiday without insurance. They were both old, fil had cancer and mil also had health conditions. Insurance would have been more than the holiday. Yhey said to us, look if we die, just leave us there, it doesn’t matter.

The thing is that Insurance and GoFundMe both operate on the same general principles - the idea that if some terrible misfortune strikes one individual then it's humane and reasonable for all the people who have not been so afflicted to share the burden of that misfortune.

Some people do this by paying an insurance premium. If nothing disasterous happens to them, then that money goes towards compensating the people who bought insurance and who DID suffer a disaster. If they themselves are unlucky and suffer a disaster, then money from other people's premiums will be used to pay their expenses.

With people who use GoFundMe the same general principle applies but is administrated after the event rather than arranged in advance.

However, this only works if each person is wholeheartedly acting on one or the other of these principles.

Therefore anyone who buys holiday insurance for themselves should never contribute to a Holiday-Disaster GoFundMe, and anybody who goes on holiday without holiday insurance should regularly contribute to the GoFundMe appeals of other people who do likewise. In this way there is approximate equality in what you pay - neither type of person saves much money and both are paying broadly the same for broadly the same benefits. The unethical CF freeloaders are the people who go on holiday themselves without insurance, counting on their own luck, and who never contribute to those who do the same and are less fortunate. If you buy insurance yourself, feel free to ignore the GoFundMe appeals, your contribution to sharing the burdens of misfortune have already been made.

The one thing I would refuse to do is go on holiday with someone who did not have proper insurance cover. They can take the risk but I don’t want to be the fit and healthy companion sorting everything out!