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?!

Plus travel insurance covers you if you have to cancel the holiday due to illness or bereavement of a close family member etc. That's why Martin Lewis always advises you take out travel insurance at the time of booking.

My goodness, that's a long wait! I am in my sixties and about a year ago I was told I likely have ADHD, plus possibly ASD. The wait for a formal diagnosis was expected to be 18 months, so I am hoping to be seen within the next six months or so.

DD went on a skiing holiday a few years ago and badly damaged her knee. She was seen by the private medical facility at the resort. Fortunately, she had taken out extra insurance for a dangerous sport, so all was well. The insurance company did mess her about a bit and delayed the payment, so she made a formal complaint and I believe they paid her a some extra money as compensation for the inconvenience.

That’s not true. They will be able to get insurance- either at a higher price or those conditions will be excluded.

Everyone of my family has some sort of or multiple conditions and medications . We have an annual policy with a specialist insurer Europe incl skiing £275 pa. That’s about £25 each per holiday with good cover.

I understand what you are saying, but giving an industry power like that is to be avoided-they already wield huge power.
l don't see me giving to a Go Fund Me because someone was too cheap to buy insurance.

I think you will find you don't have to have life cover with a mortgage as the property is the collateral. If the mortgage can't be paid for any reason, then the property is repossessed.

In our retirement we have taken to cruise holidays. Depending on where you go, if you are at sea when taken ill and maybe 3 days till you get to the next port, an air ambulance would be needed and can cost up to (or in excess of!) £100,000 - and that's before you get any treatment. Add on repatriation at ££££££ and without insurance you might as well jump overboard!

One travel insurance company quoted here will indeed cover almost any age and current health issues but the cost is extortionate. On one long cruise several years ago, the travel insurance for me and DH was nearly £6k - and we really didn't have any significant health issues then. Now we do, and it can be a minefield trying to get cover. But without cover we would not travel.

How can other airline passengers claim for " inconvenience" This is a new one on me. Seeing as I spend a hell of a lot of time on travel forums it might be useful info. Could you please link me to this information

You have to consider the repercussions, really to have insurance as a legal requirement you have to have the govt offer it, or nationalise the insurance companies ,otherwise insurance would quadruple in price overnight.

For all the people suggesting insurance isn't always necessary because the GHIC covers medical expenses overseas (in EU), it does not cover the cost of repatriation in the event of death, or needing air ambulance type transport home, as mentioned by the OP. It also will not cover other expenses such as accommodation for partner/spouse to stay in that country with them whilst they are in hospital and not fit to fly home. It also will not pay for the cost of cancelling the holiday last minute due to illness.

Finding suitable cover to take our 6 yr old son to Disneyworld when he'd just recovered from cancer was extremely difficult, but we absolutely would not have been irresponsible enough to travel without it. Foreign holidays are not a basic human right. We'd have simply not gone if he couldn't get cover.

If someone with complex medical needs cannot get cover, it means they are high risk of falling ill on holiday. If that were me, I'd not want to be away from the team providing my specialist care at home, and risk complications from receiving treatment overseas from a team not familiar with my needs - whether I could afford to pay for it or not.

I know many people with metastatic breast cancer who are uninsurable, but want to enjoy their shortened lives by sharing holidays with family. The insurance is absolutely stratospheric.

if people are outraged by the lack of insurance (and yes, there are some idiots, I would agree), hopefully they are also outraged by this. https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/health/1908660/cancer-holiday-travel-insurance-macmillan

Only for emergencies. I’ve done it.

Precisely. If it's not an emergency it can wait till you are back

I also think you should be able to download a health file from the nhs app which insurers should have to accept as the health declaration so to avoid all the rejected claims risk as well

Its a requirement for some people already, it hasn’t caused a need for nationalised insurance.

So you think insurance hasn't started getting unaffordable?
What about the shrinkage of this tourist industry it would cause?
It depends on what you mean by "need".

But your experience isn't reflective of everyone's experience. We found you can't get travel insurance (quite literally impossible - went to every specialist insurer and BIBA) less than 6 months post radiation for a brain tumour, despite Drs confirmation the individual was well enough to fly and go on holiday. So no, I don't think travelling without travel insurance should be illegal.

Car insurance is compulsory - it is certainly not offered by the government, nor are the insurance companies nationalised.

No, I don’t think that for the vast majority of the population it is unaffordable. Typically it’s a drop in the ocean compared to the price of a holiday. Obviously there are exceptions who sometimes get eye watering quotes (us included) but the only other option is to travel uninsured and take the risk of going ££££££ in debt, or even being unable to pay full stop.

In UK yes. Not everywhere

Exactly. It's not the ones who are getting £1000+ holiday insurance quotes who are swanning off overseas with no insurance. They generally have the common sense to not go, especially if they have quite serious medical issues that are causing the high insurance quotes.

It's the ones who are only having to pay £30-£40 per person (and probaby a tenner for each child) who aren't buying the insurance. And it's always the same kind of people too. EVERY TIME. (The ones who always go the the press with the compo faces in the Daily Mail!)

No I don't think it should be illegal even if it is risky. The reason we have to have some types of insurance is because of the potential damage to third parties. For car insurance, the insurance covers you for costs to other people if you are involved in a collision. You have to have buildings insurance to take out a mortgage because the lender wants to safeguard their investment. If someone on holiday has an accident/illness and needs expensive medical treatment, it is them who bears the cost, not anyone else, so no need for insurance to be a legal requirement. In general, it is better financially in the long term to avoid taking out insurance if you can afford the cost in the event of a loss, since the cumulative cost of insurance premiums will be higher than paying out yourself once in a blue moon, that is how insurance companies make money.

Before I had travel insurance through my bank I was sorting out an insurance policy for DH and I and it came to over £400. The deposit on the holiday was £350 so there didn't seem to be much point in taking out the insurance until nearer the time the balance was due as it would have cost more than cancelling and losing the deposit.

Yes, but you would still be paying the £400 whether you took insurance out at the time of booking or at the time the balance had to be paid, so you weren't saving any money which either way you did it.

I disagree with this, as when I was taken ill in Spain, I racked up a bill in excess of £12,000, there's no way that I've paid out this sort of money over the years in insurance. I'm lucky enough to have the money to pay a bill like this, if I had to, but I'd rather pay a few hundred pounds over my life time of travels, than £12k, all in one go!