To think that it should be illegal to go abroad without travel insurance

[AusBoundDD]

A friend has just put a plea for GoFundMe donations on our WhatsApp group as one of her cousins was involved in a car crash whilst on holiday in Spain, ending up in hospital with multiple bad fractures. He was uninsured so the family have been left unable to pay for his hefty ambulance fees, surgery, hospital stay etc. To make matters worse he isn’t fit to fly commercially and instead needs to be medically evacuated home to the UK via private air ambulance.

It feels like a yearly occurrence - someone begging for help to get their relative home after they’ve been stupid/naive enough to leave the country without adequate travel insurance. Surely it should be like having your passport - you can’t board a plane or gain entry to a country abroad without it?!

A little bit extra on your holiday cost is far better than the 000s you could be charged

It would be expensive but there are insurers who insure for pretty much anything

What would happen if he became ill? Can he or the family afford it?

It’s a risk for them to travel without insurance. Do they have a plan for how they would pay for any treatment they would use? I suspect they can get insurance but it’s very expensive because of these conditions.

Yes!!!

We always take out travel insurance as a family but I can understand why some people, especially older ones, don’t and take the risk. As a family of 3, we pay less than £100 for our annual cover…my parents who are 80, recently took out cover and for both of them, it’s over £1k. Yes I know in comparison to medical bills, repatriation by medical flights etc it’s a small amount but when you do it yearly and never claim, I can see why it’s tempting to skip it as it’s eye watering expensive for some..

Surely only the country accepting you can implement that

Certain types of holiday demand travel insurance actually. Cruises and rail holidays that I have booked have all specified travel insurance is obligatory. Why wouldn’t you ffs………anything can happen, as the OP states.

I hope they aren’t suggesting that as it’s entirely his choice provided he can find the money to pay for any treatment he needs, possibly a significant five figure sum, without resorting to crowdfunding. He should definitely avoid the USA however.

Insurers haven't been able to get away with this as much as they used to for a while now.

For example, a colleague of mine recently had to claim due to a broken leg. At the time they were on a waiting list for a completely unrelated medical procedure in the UK, which they didn't mention when taking out insurance.

Insurer initially tried to refuse their claim on the basis of this non-disclosure, but quickly relented when challenged.

They can still refuse to pay out if the treatment you're claiming for is related to a medical condition/investigation you failed to disclose.

No I don’t think it should be illegal. People should just use their common sense. And when the idiots who don’t get insured set up GoFundMe accounts, people should be asking this question, were you insured? Even better, these crowdfunding things should be better regulated it’s not right that people should feel they have to dip into their pockets to fund folk who who are too complacent/lazy to get proper insurance.

The ambulance, surgery and hospital stay are covered by the NHS via the GHIC. If he didn’t have one before travelling, he can apply online for a PRC - Provisional Replacement Certificate. He would get it the same day.

www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/get-healthcare-cover-travelling-abroad/get-temporary-cover-emergency-treatment-abroad-provisional-replacement-certificate

He’s a millionaire then? Because that’s at least what you need to be if you fall ill In the US.

This is a complete derail and not the point of the OP. If he can afford to pay for all of it including medical repatriation which is £££££££ then this thread isn't for you/him. He can do what he likes, travel where he likes. But he is the outlier here the majoirty of people who travel without insurance aren't able to pay their way out. The very rich can do what the hell they like (and do). Insurance is for those who can't afford those costs, and are too naive, daft or don't want to pay.

I think travel insurance is the only insurance Martin Lewis recommends unequivocally because people do need it and do not understand the costs.

I have medical conditions and my annual Europe cover insurance is around £25.

I don't get people who don't get insurance. If you can afford £3k for a family holiday, you can afford the £60 for a family insurance cover.

It’s very important that all medical issues are declared as insurance companies will do anything to wriggle out of paying, even if it’s non life threatening. Include hospital admissions, waiting for investigations/treatment, medication, anything!

@inks as long as your family member understands that if things go pear shaped they have to pay for it, not start a go fund me page and expect everyone else to chip in

This is true for lots insurance - my life insurance went up exponentially because I take an SSRI (very low does and for PMDD) but SSRi's have a possibible risk of relating to suicide, if I didn't declare they can and do just say you insurance is invalidated because you commited fraud on your declaration.

I don't think this right or a good thing (quite the opposite) but this is how it works.

It would be a little time consuming to check At passport control but I don’t know why this isn’t put into place it could be uploaded beforehand onto an app

my insurance has hugely increased because of a health condition. I travel less now but travelling isn’t a right (even with a parent living abroad)

it’s utterly idiotic to not have travel insurance

Your dad was Churchill?

I think you’re unreasonable for your naivety that having travel insurance = insurance company will pay out. We were almost left stranded on an island with no medical care, and then after the eventual airlift to another island with a hospital, the insurance co stopped paying for treatment midway through. We had an expensive policy with a major insurer, had answered all their Qs diligently and honestly. But they didn’t want to pay so they said one inhailer prescribed in childhood (long pre-dating the Qs and something my husband had no memory of) meant we weren’t covered. They were wrong and after 9 months the Ombudsman ordered them to pay up. But that’s of little use if you die waiting for the airlift or have to sell your house to pay the hospital back in the meantime. Read the Ombudsman case studies - it’s commonplace with big claims.
I wish everyone got travel insurance….but don’t assume that getting it will mean you’re actually going to be helped.

Perhaps, if it was illegal to travel without it, insurance companies would be forced to cover people like your relative, @Inks, or there would have to be some sort of exemption where someone could travel if they could show they had the funds to cover medical treatment if it was needed?

Are the Americans actually setting up go fund me appeals for accidents when traveling or for medical bills in their home country? A lot of American people are uninsured in the U.S or even with insurance still get whooping great big bills.
I have a lot more empathy for them having lived there and seen how expensive U.S. insurance and copays are. I wouldn’t compare that to someone not getting travel insurance to go abroad on a holiday.

I was in a similar situation a couple of years ago, while having to travel to the US multiple times a year for work.

I had to find a very specialist insurer and pay a small fortune, would be happy to pass the details on via DM if you'd like? As far as I'm aware there are only a very tiny set of circumstances (someone being so ill that travel would be detrimental, someone terminally ill nearing the end of their life or someone needing constant/regular access to care) where they're unable to offer anything at all.

To answer your question though - I think it's something the destination country should have a policy on, rather than the home country or any travel company. Perhaps people unable to access insurance could be compelled to put money into escrow until they leave the country?

I had to purchase tens of millions of pounds worth of coverage - if your relative has that kind of cash available, they're going to be a massive edge case.

I would think so, yes.

If the people mentioned in the OP are UK residents with NHS cover, then they should not need to pay for emergency medical treatment in Spain, on condition that they go to a public hospital. They don't even need a GHIC card, as the cover can be sorted out by NHS Overseas Healthcare Services. If they have been taken to a private hospital then it may not be too late to move them to a public one, which will at least slow down the rate at which expenses accumulate. Unfortunately the kinds of people who don't take out travel insurance are also the least likely to realise that they need to call 112 and get a public ambulance when something goes wrong.

Also, if the accident was the fault of a third party (e.g., another driver), then all of the costs from that will be paid for by that driver's insurance. Your friend can perhaps get their cousins to ensure that this angle is investigated. And if they were driving a rental car then they may have taken out accidental injury cover with the rental. That might feel unlikely if they skipped the main travel insurance, but maybe they just ticked every box and got it by mistake.

As to whether it should be illegal to travel without insurance... no. There are hundreds of ways in which people who don't think ahead can screw up their (financial) lives. If travel insurance was mandatory then it would be very expensive because there would need to be a subsidy component for very ill people (and where would it stop? Mandatory insurance for a day out to Frinton?). This incident results only in a loss to the cousins themselves and while it's immensely frustrating to look on while this sort of thing happens, you can't fix irresponsibility.