To be sick of people starting to fund me pages when they go on holiday without travel insurance and can’t afford medical bills when they end up in hospital?

[AngeloMysterioso]

A woman with chronic pulmonary disease and mobility issues couldn’t afford the travel insurance she needed for her four week holiday to Disney World in Florida with her sons and grandson. So she went anyway, without any travel insurance, and you can guess what happens next… she caught covid and flu, then developed pneumonia, and is now in a critical condition in hospital.

And of course, her family has set up a go fund me to go begging to the public to cover the considerable financial cost of this woman’s utter foolishness.

AIBU to think if you can’t afford the travel insurance, you don’t go on the fucking holiday?? Especially if you have pre-existing conditions which make you particularly susceptible to falling seriously ill?

YANBU

i wouldn’t give a penny to these feckless twats

Good luck to her family - nothing wrong with wanting to do anything you can for your mum/grandma and there's no obligation to give - but perhaps they could also use it to encourage others to get travel insurance and spare other families from going through this ordeal.

Yes £3,000 is expensive, but insurance premiums are based on calculations of risk and her quote was high for a reason. They would have taken into account her medical history, the likelihood of illness and the severity of it, and the cost of treating and expatriating her if it happened. Had she taken out the policy, they would have had to pay out many times this amount.

That poor young girl got her body smashed apart BY A PARAGLIDER who crashed into her. Have some sympathy and also maybe question why the paraglider didn’t have insurance to pay for his accident before you go off on her having no shame

I agree with you that it’s ridiculous behaviour. My mum pummelled into myself and my siblings heads from when we were about 17 and started going away with friends that we had to have insurance because she did not have spare funds to cover medical bills should anything happen. Alas, first non-parent holiday sibling went on as a teen resulted in a broken foot. The insurance policy that covered it was only £12 at the time
so very good advice indeed.

I do however feel some sympathy for the woman in question in this scenario though as she was quoted £3k for insurance and I do understand that being elderly it was a question of taking the risk or never going away again. I have less sympathy for people who’s insurance is 20 quid for the week but can’t be bothered to pay it and then want everyone else to stump up when things go wrong though.

I don’t see how the choice for her was taking that risk or never travel again @Nc92982822

She was spending 4 weeks in Florida. Surely the cost of that (accommodation, food, spending money) is close to 3K a week? She could have cut the length of her trip in half and went for 2 weeks like most people do, and comfortably got travel insurance.

Also she had been 20 times before so I don’t see why it would’ve been some great tragedy for her not to go again.

Credit where it is due, I did have to claim once on a policy when my mother died while I was away and had to curtail the trip and fly back. They paid for remaining hotel nights and reimbursed for the return flights. Unfortunately I have no recollection of which company it was...

Tbf her adult children who traveled with her are stupid too if they knew about it.

And their calculation of risk was obviously a good calculation, because what they thought had a high risk of happening did in fact happen. The policy was probably priced to put her off, as if she had paid it they would be on the hook for at least a million.

The problem is, a lot of vulnerable people are persuaded into doing so.

YANBU. Stupid is as stupid does. 76-year-old woman, obese, COPD, atrial fibrilation, wheelchair user, in other words extremely vulnerable should she get Covid, flu or any other respiratory disease, all of which are rife at this time of year. So she gets on a plane with hundreds of other people and then goes to an extremely crowded place on holiday and surprise, surprise, she gets Covid!

The flight home on its own is quoted at £30k and god knows how much the hospital bill will be. She's been in there since 23 Nov, so that's 20 days already. Utter and total stupidity. I wonder if the hospital will come after the family to pay the bill if she dies?

I see your point absolutely. It was stated that the trip was going to be her final ever holiday so I guess I’m just considering in that scenario that it perhaps felt worth the risk to her as a bit of a goodbye to a place she’d loved so much. I completely agree that it was a foolish decision though - just that I have a degree of sympathy for her.

I don't understand their strategy now. They could have had her travel back with support, covered with the gofundme and credit cards. Shed be home now.

Instead, she was left in hospital with Rach day costing much more than what they'll ever get via gofundme. That was always going to be the case and quite obvious.

She now has caught pneumonia and probably at the stage where she could only come back via special flight which they'll never be able to afford. They missed the opportunity.

Sadly, it's likely she will not make it back home, and the estate will be liable to pay the debt before anything else.

Sadly, a lot of vulnerable people are persuaded to do a lot things.

Who on earth uses travel agents in 2024?

why do the people who keep suggesting how easy it is to make travel insurance a legal requirement not answer the obvious questions around how the British government can make other countries refuse entry to non insured people?!?

I think it should be law that you have to have insurance

I think that as a society we shouldn’t allow travel or medical insurance to be priced based on pre exciting conditions - because it does discriminate against those with disabilities. Although that will mean that the price for the healthy will go up. It would seem fair though.

Agree that it’s part of the cost of the holiday though. Campaign to change the law, uses, but be insured in the meantime.

Personally I have a high ceiling in my travel insurance, but also a high excess. If I have to spend £500 I can risk that, but I never want to be bankrupted for a medical transport back to the uk

Like people who are disabled should 'suck it up' and just don't deserve the same little things, joys, a once in a lifetime experience or luxuries occasionally in life that other people are allowed. Selfish of them? Pure ableism from the tower of privilege that has never had to live with long term disabilities. oh come on. A 20th trip to Florida which must have cost about £20k at least is hardly someone living one of life’s little joys. Let’s at least be real here.

I have a disability as well as a heart condition and I am in the process of being listed for a heart transplant. I can’t imagine that I’d get a cheap run on travel insurance should I choose to be stupid enough to board a plane to the states.

When my SIl was in the last stages of her illness they decided to go to Disneyland Paris instead of Florida because of the stipulations of insurance to go there.

If anything I’d say that someone who has been able to afford to travel to Florida twenty times has quite the tower of privilege herself there.

She/ her family claims it was going to be her last trip abroad - but who knows if she would’ve pushed her luck in another couple of years had it not been for this incident? Maybe that’s the cynic in me though lol

I would agree though it’s not a nice position for anyone to be in. I hope she gets back home somehow and I hope others learn from this.

I rather thought that might be the case 😁Oh well I've had my three score years and ten so anything now is a bonus. As other posters have said it is not just a case of a £20 policy but (as in my case) £2000+ to cover everything.

If anything I’d say that someone who has been able to afford to travel to Florida twenty times has quite the tower of privilege herself there.

Quite.

I have more sympathy in these circumstances. This woman took a calculated risk knowing she couldn't afford the £3k travel insurance and she wanted to spend a holiday with her grandson at Disney before her health got too bad. Shes then got seriously ill because of her preexisting conditions. Not smart but I can see the temptation to take the risk.

I still wouldn't donate though but I do have some sympathy.

I don't have any sympathy for young healthy people where the travel insurance is cheap and they still don't bother getting it then end up breaking a leg abroad.

Who’s law though?? As above the British government have no influence on the entry requirements for other countries.

if puru are happy to let uninsured tourists in, what can the uk government do? Why would they even want to do anything?!

what about borderless countries accessed on road or foot from other countries? Who makes sure a British person passing from Russia to Mongolia by foot has travel insurance then?

it’s a nonsense, which is why it doesn’t happen

"Luckily " for the family they aren't liable for her medical bills, but the hospital may well come after any assets she has, and will certainly do so if she lives.

I’m no expert so please excuse me if I’m being totally ignorant but I wonder if it’d be a possibility that when booking flights you have to supply confirmation of travel insurance to be issued your boarding pass? Only wondering because when I’ve travelled to the US I have to supply ESTA information at the stage of entering the pre-travel info shortly before the trip? Could this not be done with insurance info too?

I did a few roadtrips in the US with a travel company in my early 20s and we had to show the guide proof of insurance before we were allowed on the bus or we’d be refused boarding, which was stipulated in the terms when booking.

Why would it be the police to check and enforce??? Police only deal with criminal law, not civil law.

Existing travel laws, i.e. passports, visas, etc are enforced pretty much by airline and airport staff.

It need only be something as simple as having to put in your insurance policy number on the system when you do the check in for your flight. No policy number would mean no flight tickets would be issued.