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?!

Let's address two major issue cropping up on here!
EHIC IS NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR TRAVEL INSURANCE!!! If it was no European citizen would ever need travel insurance to travel to Europe! Plus I doubt it covers every country in Europe! It's basic accident and emergency treatment and will not cover admittance to hospital, surgeries, medical repatriation!

People saying that it's all on the people that mess up and it's not an issue to anyone else - it could be! If it becomes too frequent an issue with foreigners tying up hospital beds whilst they beg for donations, it could get to a stage where countries don't let people in without proof of decent insurance cover and that won't be your £5 policies!

They tend to ask extra questions, like is the person non verbal, do they have meltdowns or risky behaviours. I guess they are trying to gauge if the person is more likely to have an accident because they can't assess risk, or panic and run into the road in tricky situations.

With autism its really common to not feel things the same way, or be able to describe symptoms appropriately, this can lead to delays in treatment which makes things worse. It's why people with autism were offered covid vaccines early.

We didn't find autism without meltdowns put up our premium much or at all, but it might for others.

That's what does get me about insurance now! They are trying to look at any little thing as get out clause! I have diagnosed IBS which is pretty stable most of time and never been a issue to the point of needing medical intervention in hospital. I can go months without needing my IBS meds and mostly take them when travelling just as a precaution but I'm never sure if I should declare it but it'll never be that much of an issue touch wood as it hasn't been historically.

It does cover hospital admissions. I have travelled o ot using my EHIC in France where I was hospitalised with a blood clot ehic covered all of that, it didn't cost me anything
Of course it doesn't cover repatriation etc

But if you’re taken ill on a plane the flight could well be delayed, diverted etc whether you have medical insurance or not. The cabin crew don’t ask if you’ve got insurance while you’re having a stroke or heart attack!

There is a limit though and it's important people know, some years ago my late uncle went into hospital whilst on holiday in Spain because the veins in his leg collapsed. The operation he needed to sort it cost his insurance company £16000. I wouldn't people to think it covers everything.

If you have insurance that would pay If you offered the insurance details. I also had treatment and an operation on a broken leg when I was in Spain. All was done on my EHIC

But it is still a risk to depend on E(G)HIC. It can depend on where you are. Some places have very limited facilities (and those may be quite poor / not offer a range of treatments). There may not be state subsidised ambulances. A place that I go to every year has one ambulance for the entire island, and the state hospital is small and limited. There are two nice hospitals on the island with a wider range of treatments / facilities and private ambulances. Complex matters require relocation to the mainland either by air or by boat. So your broken leg, if not complicated, could have involved a 12 - 24 hour wait for an ambulance, or having to get a taxi and hope the transport doesn't make things worse. Then you can wait for several hours at least in a grubby waiting room (much like being at home only they don't speak English). Hopefully it won't be so complex that they can't deal with it, assuming they can get you in to the theatre without another lengthy wait. If you need to be moved to the mainland, well there are only private transports for that....

Or you could literally nip next door to the bright airy hospital with loads of treatment support etc, clutching your insurance policy because the E(G)HIC will get you nowhere.

Exactly. Am confused on some people's weird ideas

Believe that if it gives you comfort, but that happens incredibly rarely.

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My parents would find insurance, if available, to be extremely expensive and so, yes they don’t go. Because what is the plan if they need treatment (either for their existing conditions or something else)?

If the cost was £100,000s as it can be?!

What about free will? The freedom to travel is far more fundamental than to drive.

Play stupid games win stupid prizes.

If you choose to go overseas without insurance then you deal with the consequences - going without insurance shouldn't be illegal, setting up go fun me appeals to bail you out should be the illegal bit.

But why? There’s plenty of uninsured citizens living in the US who couldn’t afford healthcare if they needed it. Do you suggest they shouldn’t exist? Because it’s only the same as travelling uninsured.

I do have travel insurance, but it’s not unreasonable to not be insured and accept that you’ll have to potentially live out or die with anything you get struck down with in the country or your holiday, and your body may need to stay there.

Its a small wish of mine to die will on holiday in the US as I’d quite like to be buried on the coast in Maine…

We wanted to take the family to Amsterdam for 3 days. It cost less than £500 a head then. We were quoted £25,000 for travel insurance for DD1. Just because we could afford the holiday didn’t mean we could afford the insurance!

There are specialist insurers who will insure in the circumstances. DH and I are both on waiting lists so we had to go through a specialist.

I recently tried StaySure and even they won't insure me

There are plenty of circumstances under which it is not practical or affordable to be insured- they are there first and foremost to make money- many scenarios will not qualify.

Don't be ridiculous. It would inevitably fall to the travelling companion to make calls and run around organising things. It would take a very cold person to say "Sorry, tough, you are on your own with this while I finish my holiday"

Presumably, if you died uninsured in USA - they'd ask NOK to pay bill.

I don't think it would be 'free' just because you're dead!

There’s plenty of uninsured citizens living in the US who couldn’t afford healthcare if they needed it. Do you suggest they shouldn’t exist? Because it’s only the same as travelling uninsured.

I see no practical method of ensuring people travel with adequate insurance, but this is not remotely the same thing. US citizens require some form of healthcare insurance for day to day healthcare in their own country, and if they do not have any then they have to rely on things like Medicaid, charity etc. If they don't have insurance or an alternative they do not get treated. Poverty is the reason they have no insurance - they aren't swanning off to foreign countries expecting that either nothing will happen to them or that someone else will pick up the tab.

If you want a genuine comparison, then the answer here is that countries do not provide any treatment that they are not required to. So when you need something E(G)HIC doesn't cover (for example), then you don't get it, and if that means turfing you out before you are fit then so be it. Or, in another country not covered by this, no insurance no service. I am sure that Brits will condemn the iniquity of foreign countries leaving people with heart attacks to die on a pavement, but that would be the choice they are making by deciding to travel without insurance.

We are with Staysure and they won’t insure us, if we are under medical investigation.