Why would you take you family on holiday without travel insurance?!

[IsitaHatOrACat]

AIBU to think that this is part of the cost of the holiday.

Yet again there's a family raising funds to pay for medical care abroad. This time for a 15 year old old. This must be a terribly distressing situation to be in however why take the risk?

It should be illegal to travel without it

Maybe the same reason people don’t have house and car insurance? I don’t understand it. First thing that I book when I book a holiday. Thankfully have never had to use it.

So my question is, who actually contributes to these go fund me cases?

I bet the parents will be in the newspaper shortly bei no very upset that the government aren’t stepping in to help and pay the costs.

it was a terrible and clearly freak accident but the parents need to shoulder responsibility for the lack of insurance. The BBC article skipped over that but rather quickly.

in Ireland you are only covered for basics. you need to pay for the follow up etc. medical card only covers people on low incomes. docs visit is 50e to 70e. prescription you have to pay up to 80e unless you are covered under long term illness. If you go to a and e and not admitted it's 100e. alot of people have health insurance and I for one would never ever give it up. no matter how broke I am

There are a lot of Ts&Cs with travel insurance that can make it void (depending on your policy) things like if you have alcohol in your system or take part in extreme sports. Maybe they had insurance but it wasn’t covered?

Very true. Maybe that’s what mum was thinking when she couldn’t be arsed to pay £30 for travel insurance!

similar to relative of mine. had heart issues while in florida did have insurance but consultant would not see him until credit card was scanned

Most people's credit cards would not even begin to cover the meds / hotel and food let alone an operation and ICU.

I’ve seen this story a lot on fb as the poor girl is from my area. I didn’t used to take travel insurance seriously when I was younger, until I was in a bus crash at 19 while on holiday and ended up in hospital with a suspected bleed to the brain. Thank goodness I did take travel insurance out on that occasion as the medical bills were extortionate.
Since then and especially since having children I would never go abroad without it.

A lot of people can't get it because of medical history. Or the cost is ridiculous if they can get it.

What I can never understand is why you can't get insurance to cover the non-medical bits. Just because I might for example have had an operation 5 years ago doesn't make me any more likely to have a flight cancelled or have my luggage lost by the airline!

As for having to declare HRT...

Didn’t even know it was a thing until I worked for a travel insurance company and now I would NEVER travel without it again. There are SO many people that get ill or have accidents on holiday. It happens ALL the time

The kid is 15, in a country where drinking alcohol is frowned upon in many public areas and was sitting eating food.

The incident wasn't her or her family's fault

That would mean a huge number of people wouldn't be able to travel. Mind you I guess it would be good for the planet.

But it doesn't affect you if they don't have it, so why do you care?

If they are in their 80s the insurance would probably cost more than the holiday does!

You can have travel insurance and exclude your existing medical conditions. Anything new and unrelated to existing conditions would be covered. A dr would decide whether its related in the event of a claim not the underwriter.

Declaring menopause (you are declaring the condition NOT the medication) doesn’t cost a single penny extra. It’s a free condition. It’s relevant because: if you went dizzy due to menopause and fell and broke your ankle THAT would potentially be deemed as linked

There's no guarantee that any of the donations will go to the 15y/o though. That's the problem with this kind of thing. You're donating in good faith, that's all.

Probably - but the cost of paying out if something went wrong would easily be 20 x that.

Well then you just don't go surely? Unless you are happy to refuse all medical care and die, or just bankrupt your family.

And if you have complex health needs or a condition that could deteriorate then the cost is not "ridiculous" it reflects the likelihood of you needing expensive health treatment.

Next year we'll be holidaying in the UK because I have a health condition that will make foreign travel insurance prohibitively expensive for at least 12 months. Sucks, but what can you do?

They're insane. End of.

I've always been paranoid about all kinds of insurance. Always check I know exactly what it covers, check the "small print", make full declarations etc, always mitigate losses, etc as required.

We've always got specialist policies when doing anything unusual, such as skiing and golfing holidays, cruises etc. Always went over the top for the "gold" package when going anywhere "iffy" such as USA, Africa, etc.

We even have travel insurance when we holiday in the UK to cover us for cancellation etc.

Can't be too careful.

I think a lot of the problem is people who rely on "packaged" holiday insurance by virtue of their bank current account or as an add on to home insurance, etc., which is usually so basic it's useless and invalid as it's easy to "forget" to declare medical history disclosures and pre-existing medical conditions. (When I say "forget", more like can't be bothered or just wing it because they don't want to pay a bit more to have pre existing conditions covered!).

As a pp has said, I have insurance with my bank account but you have to declare everything, no doubt so they can wriggle out of covering you after all or charge an extra premium.

I know two people personally who have had to repatriate their parent after the parent died while abroad. That is not cheap and it is not easy.

Cost doesn't have to be "ridiculous" at all. You need to shop around for more specialist cover if you are "higher risk". We got insurance for a Baltic cruise (already more expensive as higher risk even without pre existing conditions). For 4 of us. One an 80 year old with various health conditions. OH with incurable but treatable cancer just a few months after chemotherapy. And myself with high blood pressure and diabetes. Only about £250 for all 4 of us! We expected it to be a lot higher. And that was with paranoid levels of full disclosure of health history and medication, etc.

I posted on the travel forum. My partner is waiting for a referral for a SKIN condition. And because of that, he won't be covered on an insurance policy. We're hoping he's had a diagnosis by next September (where he can get cover, just not for pre-existing conditions, which isn't ideal, but better than nothing).
And when I got mine, I was asked if I'd got or ever had a broken bone! That's a new one. Never declared that before. I did this time as was asked directly. This was a comparison sites too.
Got to be so careful. There must be soooo many people who think they're covered and not. Even aside from those who just don't bother!

I'm starting to think that people now rely on getting money from go fund me requests if anything goes wrong. I'm not sure how much that poor child in turkey needs but I read that the go fund me that's been set up for her has 20k in it already. I think they are really irresponsible parents.

People still wouldn't bother because they think it won't happen to them.