Don't bother with travel insurance.....

[HeCantBeSerious]

Go in on your lovely exotic holiday. Take advantage of all the dangerous activities. When you have an accident and are in a coma/break every bone in your body the rest of us will club together to pay the tens of thousands of pounds of costs to bring you home through the magic of crowdfunding. No no, no need to get travel insurance before you go. What sort of fool does that?

[just been sent the third begging email this week for an eye watering amount needed to bring what's left of a foolish and reckless youngster home from the third world country he decided to risk his life in.]

They get stabilized and then discharged, Bengal. That's all they have to do. About 1/10 Americans is uninsured now I believe - it's got better with Obamacare. I live in the US. Healthcare bills are the biggest cause of bankruptcies. The prospect of being uninsured is terrifying.

The statistics are pretty shocking - 20% of 18-24s don't ever have insurance. www.travelsupermarket.com/blog/would-you-go-on-holiday-without-travel-insurance/ This is also the age group most likely to be getting drunk, falling into pools, having road accidents and falling from balconies.

There's also a lot of misunderstanding about EHIC (used to be E111), people think it will get them free treatment anywhere in Europe (it won't) and certainly won't pay for getting them home from Greece or Spain with a broken leg.

We never travel without insurance, it's just not worth the risk.

I got a phone call from my adult son from a hospital in Paraguay last year - "good job you made me take out travel insurance, mum" - well, yeah . I am slightly obsessed with travel insurance and with declaring anything and everything.

My friend's parents were hit by a car on holiday in USA. Both seriously injured. Medical bills came to nearly a million dollars. Thank God they were insured.

A friend of a friend went on a J1 student working visa to America. She outstayed her visa by a few days, thereby negating her insurance. While crossing the street she was hit by a motorcycle and desperately injured. She lost her leg and nearly her life. Her whole community in Ireland fund- raised like mad for her - this was before crowdfunding - and raised over half a million pounds. This should have gone to modify her house, buy her a good prosthesis and an electric wheelchair. Instead, it went towards a hospital bill in excess of a million dollars. She has a wooden leg and a basic wheelchair, and shoulders like a shotputter.

I think we are really lucky in this country to have our wonderful NHS and I'm not a biased employee

However, I have been all around Europe this year without insurance. The trips were 3/4 days at the most and I didn't think about it. I would definitely get it for USA though.

LunaLoveg00d, I agree there is a lot of misunderstanding about EHIC but it goes both ways. I have heard people say they wont bother with getting an EHIC card on the grounds they have insurance. They dont realise that European travel insurance assumes that the emergency treatment is covered by EHIC: the surgeon, the operating theatre, the xrays. Your travel insurance covers the care.

user "However, I have been all around Europe this year without insurance."

Well next time I would. My trip was meant to be 3 days. And the ambulance wasn't even covered by an EHIC.

We have always had it and have claimed on it several times in the last 16 years - once in the USA for medical care. It's always paid out!

So glad we had it.

I think Most sports can be covered with high risk policies? we get high risk medical travel insurance coverage for one of our DC.

I have a friend who climbs frozen waterfalls and he can't get insured for that though.

user - it also seems so mean that if you die abroad, you lumber someone else with paying to recover the body.....I am not sure what happens if no one will pay though. Presume wherever you are will just cremate you and try to recover cost from your estate - also seems unfair on whoever is dealing with that, if there is one.

I always remember this story in terms of travelling without insurance, I think someone sent me the crowdfunding link and I just thought "meh"

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/02/british-couple-new-york-hospital-bill-early-birth

I used to live in Vietnam and the expats were always getting emailed to help with some tourists hospital costs, mainly young men who had rented a moped or motorbike and got into accident. Some of them did have insurance, but what lots of people didn't realise was that driving a bike without a Vietnamese driving license was illegal and without one, any insurance was invalidated. One poor Canadian mum spent every penny she had and borrowed hundreds of thousands more to keep her son alive in a Vietnamese hospital and then to transport his body back to Canada when he eventually died. Horrible :(. I totally agree that insurance is absolutely vital, but so is checking the ways in which you would not be covered.

I can't understand it either. We pay a good price to cover a wide range of activities and it is a minimum requirement for us that it will pay for helicopter medivac in remote areas. We care more about that than lost things cover.

Mind, when you go anywhere that the foreign office suggest you perhaps might want to think twice about you pay £££ but it's a choice you make!

This thoroughly pees me off, too. It happens time and time again - and there are frequently financial complications regarding deaths abroad, too.

There was a family in our local paper wanting people to give £56,000 to bring the body of a relative back home (foreign hospital wouldn't release the body until the medical bills were paid). £56.000!!!

Whilst I am truly sorry for their awful loss, why should other people be expected to fork out to bring back a corpse? Plenty of people have to come to terms with having relatives buried overseas - some don't even know what has happened to their loved ones due to the circumstances of their death. These people would probably love to have grave to visit, too, but accept that it isn't possible.

Personally if I were donating cash it would be to the living - and to the living who hadn't brought the problem on themselves by being too tight to get insurance at that.

2kids, in terms of bringing back a corpse, the thing is it's not the fault of the people who have to deal with it.

I can't imagine finding enough sympathy to crowdfund someone who wasn't prepared to take out insurance but I might find it in me to help out someone who was trying to bring back the corpse of a loved one.

hopefully this thread will make some people pause for thought.

YANBU

I am always when people don't have home insurance too especially when the reason for not having it is because of being skint. It's skint people who need it the most...

This is also the age group most likely to be getting drunk, falling into pools, having road accidents and falling from balconies

To be fair, insurance often refuses to pay out on people that are ridiculously drunk or fall off hired mopeds. No excuse for not having it though - people still might have accidents while sober or other illnesses.

We also dive, hike and mountain bike abroad and when you start looking into 'hazardous activities' it is surprising what is considered to be one - can't remember any specific examples but I'm sure there were some quite benign things that lots of people do without thinking about.

We had to cancel our Florida wedding due to SIL's pregnancy complications. We had booked for 9 flights and accommodation. All refunded (without an argument) with the exception of a £200 rebooking fee for the wedding venue as we cancelled 6 weeks before the wedding date. Total was around £12k.

Not sure crowdfunding for that would have been received sympathetically!

Definitely NBU op. My little sis is off to US and Mexico next week with no travel insurance. She can't afford £20 insurance but can afford to go on a luxury holiday My mum in a complete panic paid it for her and money for her nails done as god forbid she doesnt have perfect nails on holiday (obviously she's a bit spoilt).

Ive claimed twice on travel insurance and both went fine though took a while for money to come through.

First time was several years ago - stolen camera. Worst part was at the police station getting a crime number purely for the benefit of the insurance company as took ages. Was worth the hassle as camera was worth about £400 and they did a new for old exchange.

Then more recently last year I fell at the villa outside on wet tiles (not running!) and dislocated my elbow. It actually went back in itself but oh my goodness! The pain was worse than anything I've ever experienced! Also broke my finger at the same time, as well as fairly major soft tissue damage. Local hospital was private so E111 was not valid - was another 40 minutes or so drive to an eligible hospital. So we pain upfront for x-ray, treatment inc splint cast and medication. Luckily was in hundreds rather than thousands (luckily not the US) as it took about 3-4 months for the money to be repaid.

I'd never travel without adequate travel insurance. You don't know what will happen and if the worst does (and I'm takin forever proper issues rather than stolen goods or relatively minor injuries) then you need decent insurance. The cost of full operations or, God forbid, transporting a body home is horrific.

I ended up having my appendix removed in Vienna. E111 covered the medical care, but insurance paid out for me to stay an extra week before I could fly home. Bonus was that at the time, the NHS was still slicing and leaving a scar. My Vienniese surgery was done keyhole so I have no scar. I think NHS is keyhole now as well.

Friends 18 year old son just got very seriously injured in a foreign country while doing something classed as a dangerous sport. Insurance company immediately washed their hands of him and it took the combined fund raising ability of friends, colleagues and town to get the poor soul home.

My advice?? Get insurance, get the best insurance you can afford, check the small print and if it says no eating paella on a tuesday then don’t eat paella on a tuesday.

Pink "My little sis is off to US and Mexico next week with no travel insurance. She can't afford £20 insurance but can afford to go on a luxury holiday"

that's the bit I don't get.