Who is unreasonable? Issue with older person travelling uninsured in Europe.

[shovetheholly]

I don't have a stake in this argument - I'm very much a bystander. Submitting it to the Mumsnet hive mind for consideration.

Adult 1 is older, (70) has a stent in his heart and mobility problems. He is awaiting surgery for the latter. He can still get out and about, however, and enjoys a fairly active retirement. He is decently well off and wants to travel. However, he is appalled at the cost of travel insurance. As a consequence, he is thinking of going abroad to Europe uninsured. His point of view is that the EHIC will limit the potential cost of any accident to around £10k and he can afford to pay this should something happen. He has a tendency to regard insurance as 'tempting fate' and insurance companies as a rip off.

Adult 2 is younger (44). He thinks Adult 1 is wrong that the cost of any treatment would be limited to £10k. He believes that the premium is higher because an accident or emergency is more likely, and that travel insurance ought to be bought to cover potential costs, particularly given that the price is affordable to Adult 1. Adult 2 is generally risk-averse and cautious with money.

Who, in your opinion, is right?

The other thing that I would be very aware of is the fact that beforehand, when you are in full use of your faculties, you think of it as your problem, something that you will have to deal with. But when you are on that foreign hospital bed, speechless and dribbling and completely unaware of what is going on around you, it isn't your problem, it is the problem of the unfortunate person who is travelling with you.

As I said, my relative was not in such a bad state as this: she was still aware of what was going on (and terribly anxious and upset at the trouble she was causing). But the people who had to do the work, including some absolutely back-breaking lifting, were the younger relatives travelling with her. They were the ones who had to make the decisions and work out how she was going to get on the plane and how on earth they were going to deal with the arrival back in the UK. In that situation, I would want life to be made as easy as possible for the people who actually had to deal with it.

Younger people tend to think of illness as a bout of flu that you get over or a broken leg that heals. Once you get to a certain age, that is not necessarily the most likely scenario.

Well, I certainly don't think of illness as a "bout of flu". As I said the risks vary according to where you go on holiday and what your specific risks are with regard to being ill. As someone has genuinely weighed up those risks (I doubt that the person in OP's scenario has) then they may decide that their money would be better spent elsewhere.

I personally take out insurance but it excludes my medical condition. I choose not to spend a fortune on insurance that doesn't exclude it because I know that for me it is very unlikely to be worth the extra expense.

Well he is stupid .... Having worked in the travel business and seen the effects of people with no insurance and the upset / concern and not to mention the cost then it would be better for all if he stayed at home.
No insurance = no support / no assistance / no interpreters/no repatriation and no help say if the travelling companion has to stay on or a family member has to come out. Some European hospitals are rather different to the NHS and if you want / need care overnight then often you have to arrange it yourself. There are companies who do insure for pre existing medical conditions ... ( on a lighter note person packed a bottle of red wine in the suitcase - It smashed and wasn't in a properly sealed bag and under pressure it damaged about 15 other bags - many were the soft shell bags ..... Nothing to do with insurance but its an example of what happens to stupid people )..

Fair enough, Mary, if your condition is not one that makes it at all likely that you will be left helpless and unable to travel home on a normal ticket. I am sure you have weighed up the possibilities and made a sensible decision for your case.

But once you get to a certain age, then I think it is only realistic to include the possibility of a stroke in your calculations- and to think carefully through what a stroke might entail. This isn't just about an illness that might kill you there and then: it's about complete helplessness for far longer than you will be allowed to stay at a foreign hospital.

My relative had not included her breast cancer in her insurance, because it never occurred to her that it might move to her spine and paralyse her.

Thank you all so much for sharing with me. And to all of you who have had things go wrong abroad, either personally or with relatives. Your posts have really helped me to appreciate just how worrying and difficult such a situation can be.

So many great points have been raised on this thread that I hadn't considered. The assistance with language, the legal cover in case of injuring someone else - these are really important and I wasn't fully aware of them as issues before.

I agree that, ultimately, it's Adult 1's money and his decision. I think all Adult 2 can do in the circumstances is to present the facts with clarity and then let Adult 1 make up his own mind. Emphasizing the highly stressful situation in which it would leave Adult 1's partner might be useful. However, I am skeptical about Adult 2's ability to change Adult 1's mind - Adult 1 has form for not insuring valuable things, e.g. property belonging to a family member in a care home.

Thanks all!

Can I add to the chorus of the 70-year-old is being stupid, that in the absolute worst case scenario, repatriating a dead body can also be a very expensive and complicated process, which is most certainly not covered by an EHIC card.

If he has a lot of money to cover the risk and doesn't mind the possibility of losing huge amounts, then adult 1 is being more sensible than adult two. Insurers make money by charging more for insurance than they pay out. If you can afford the risk, on average, you're going to be better off financially self insuring.

But other posters make good points about who shoulders the burden of dealing with everything if things do go wrong. So adult 1 really ought to do some research and set things up so his traveling companion, or others if he travels alone, have easy access to whatever they will need to sort things out.

Sounds like sensible advice, Boom. Adult 2 should be forced to accept that the money and arrangements for a worst case scenario have to be planned out in advance so that they can be accessible on the day.

Because that is the other thing an insurance company will do for you: they will help you with actual arrangements. When dd was taken ill abroad, they kept phoning up to check we were all right and had somewhere to stay and offering their help. Totally not needed in our case: dd had chickenpox, we were staying with family in my home country, I was speaking my own language and stuffing myself on leftovers from the Christmas dinner. But if I had instead been talking of an elderly woman alone in a strange country having to organise ambulance repatriation and having no idea where to start...

The main issue is that if the worst were to happen when he was away then who would be lumbered with the £70K or more costs to bring a body home for the funeral. Sorry to be so morbid but that's what the cover is for too. My cousin died of an athsma attack when in Ibiza, she didn't take out insurance and my aunty and uncle had to sell their entire lifes work (house, cars, savings) to bring her body home.

But once you get to a certain age, then I think it is only realistic to include the possibility of a stroke in your calculations- and to think carefully through what a stroke might entail. This isn't just about an illness that might kill you there and then: it's about complete helplessness for far longer than you will be allowed to stay at a foreign hospital.

Even then though it has to be weighed against whether he can afford and would prefer to risk just paying for medical care to get home if he had a stroke. As boomboom says, insurers make money by charging more than they pay out. Therefore, if you can afford to pay if things go wrong the chances are you will be better off financially if you don't take out insurance. As I said, he needs to get his facts and weigh it up.

Agree, Mary. But he should not just think of the money but also of the organisational support that a good insurance company can offer. All that should be planned in advance, not just left for adult 1 to deal with suddenly when already in a state of shock.

And while insurers make money by charging more than they pay out, they don't have to make that money out of every single individual. Their main income surely is derived from the fact that the majority of low-risk travellers do not have an expensive accident every time they travel.

We more than got back our insurance fees on that one bout of chickenpox. And that was pretty cheap as medical emergencies go.

But he should not just think of the money but also of the organisational support that a good insurance company can offer.

Exactly, plus easier access to funds to pay for it, as you set up at point of purchase the people who may call on that insurance. If he is independently wealthy enough to be able to afford to pay potential costs arising from a medical emergency up front, he'd better assign at least one person, preferably his traveling companion, to have easy access to a large amount of his money should the need arise.

Agree, Mary. But he should not just think of the money but also of the organisational support that a good insurance company can offer. All that should be planned in advance, not just left for adult 1 to deal with suddenly when already in a state of shock.

As I said, he should weigh up everything.

And while insurers make money by charging more than they pay out, they don't have to make that money out of every single individual. Their main income surely is derived from the fact that the majority of low-risk travellers do not have an expensive accident every time they travel.

Well obviously. However, taking everything into consideration, the chances are that those who don't take out insurance you will be better off financially as a result. If that wasn't the case insurance companies wouldn't make money. Therefore I only insure if I can't afford to pay if things go wrong .e.g I insure my house and car but not the boiler.

I only insure if I can't afford to pay if things go wrong .e.g I insure my house and car but not the boiler - quite, this is a sensible approach. You know roughly how much it costs to repair or replace a boiler, and if you have that in the bank, it is probably not worth paying a monthly premium.

The problem with applying this principle to travel insurance is that the potential size of the risk is unknown. You might easily be able to cover the costs of some of the more minor things that you would be able to claim for on travel insurance (e.g. stolen luggage, cancelled flights, a broken arm), but you might not be willing or able to cover the costs of the more extreme possible events, such as a crippling stroke or death overseas. Not to mention all the bureaucratic assistance that insurance companies can provide when things go disastrously wrong.

The solution to this is possibly to find an insurance policy that offers options for a very high excess, so that it is essentially only covering you for the more catastrophic end of the risk spectrum, and the upfront premium will be lower.

OP There are companies specialising in covering older travellers and people with existing medical conditions, so it is possibly worth doing some shopping around on behalf of the stupid stubborn older person, and perhaps being able to show them that the premium may not be as bad as they think so far.

I agree exexpat.

We choose not to insure our pair of Siamese cats (actually at the moment, it's just one as the boycat was killed in a hit and run , but we're waiting to get another pair to be company for the older cat), nor the previous pair.

We've made the judgment call that we can self-insure; we have sufficient savings should anything come up and if it really were extortionately expensive, we always have the option of putting the cat down.

That however is not an option for a human!

It's true that no-one needs travel insurance to travel in Europe. We've had two holidays this year in France; one was with GRJ the other Saga. They evidence of travel insurance.

A few years ago we were in the Italian part of Switzerland. OH came out with a leg rash - hospital prescribed drugs, cream etc., and what to do if it got worse. All covered by the ECHC - however, after we got home we received a bill for the drugs.

Death is actually a relatively cheap scenario, but still repatriation of mortal remains would eat up his £10k (rule of thumb is about ten times the cost of a first class seat). But it would be horrendous for his travelling companion to have to liaise with health authorities, undertakers, airlines etc to arrange it all. With insurance, they do all that for you.

Ill-health beyond stabilisation of an emergency is far more likely to be far more expensive. Ask him why he thinks insurance is so expensive for him? Insurers want to sell him something and receive his premium. They have the world's finest expertise in judging his risk of something bad happening. If they see his risk as high and hence charge a higher premium, this is a really strong message to him that he NEEDS the insurance. Far more than he would if the premium were the standard few pounds of a younger healthy person.

as far as I know no travel company or country demands evidence of travel insurance for tourists. It is assumed that people competent enough to get on a plane or boat have enough brains to know what healthcare costs outside the NHS.

clearly not a correct assumption.

I suggest 'adult' 1 be given a piece of paper to sign, confirming his wishes that in the event of illness or death all concerned are to walk away. Although this may not actually be possible, the hospital may send a bill anyway even to dispose of a corpse.

and show him the very sad story above of the person who managed to destroy family finances by dying uninsured abroad. You don't need to be old or ill to do that.

I wonder if his reluctance is partly tied up with an expectation that insurance companies will rip you off if they possibly can?

I recently claimed on my car insurance and it was a really pleasant experience, which made me realise how little I had expected of them. It was the first time I'd claimed on insurance in over 25 years, but I remember when I was growing up and in my early 20s that it seemed every time something went wrong for myself or a friend/family and we looked to insurance we'd purchased, there was some interpretation of the fine print that meant we weren't covered. Or we were covered but not for what we expected, or we were covered but we were going to have to provide paperwork we didn't have. Or we were covered, but we weren't going to be able to replace what we had lost, we were going to have to use the insurer's nominated store which didn't make the one off, specially named and valued item, etc. And while some of it was to be expected, much of it rested on a reading of the detail that didn't occur to a lay person or that was lost in a complicated paragraph or hidden in a long list of exceptions or was just the result of kafkaesque procedure seemingly designed to put people off claiming.

So insurance wasn't just seen as an expensive fee you might be lucky enough to get away with not using, but as a bit of a mugs game.

I agree that insurance has improved based on my two very recent experiences (car and house). I was really surprised that they dealt with everything so quickly and efficiently and didn't try to wriggle out of paying. My experience of travel insurance 25 years ago was very different and getting any money out of them when I claimed was a really stressful battle. I very much doubt that they would have made an emergency less stressful based on that experience.

Hi Shove
I would hope that adult 2 would refuse to go, pretty much the only path left to them.
It is awful being the injured party but it was no picnic for my companion either and organising extra accommodation, alternative transport home etc without any help would be awful.
The insurance company was brilliant but this was years ago. I totally understand exempting certain conditions but to have no insurance at all seems crazy.

I've worked in a related sector and my experience (of other people's crises) is that travel insurance can be infuriatingly confusing and evasive for the small claims but is almost always outstandingly helpful for the big things. And it's for the big crises, death, serious illness, lengthy incapacity, that you need it.

Lorelei, I think we were all pretty agreed afterwards that if our relative had been upfront about her insurance arrangements we would all have refused to go.

Cory, I didn't see your post but I'm sorry if you had a crap situation

If adult 1 is adamant about not paying for insurance, could adult 2 pay it for them? Not because adult 1 can't afford it but for peace of mind for adult 2 if things were to go wrong? I don't know if adult 1 would allow this, and I am sure there would be lots of chuntering about the waste of money, but it would mean the cover was there if needed.