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?!

I paid a small fortune for insurance for DD's recent trip the the US - she has some complex but stable and well-managed health conditions, unlikely to need attention during her trip. Insurance is expensive but not impossible to obtain for the majority, and a fraction of the expense should you actually need to pay for specialist care or repatriation.

For anyone without pre-existing conditions it should be a condition of booking at the price of a couple of airport beers.

And yes I would just ignore any begging - you make your choices and you put up with the result

Exactly. And if someone can't afford the extra few quid for the insurance (after declaring their health issues,) how on earth can they afford the holiday?

So much utter contradiction, and double standards - It's batshit!

Why do you care? How does it affect you? Such a petty, inconsequential thing to be annoyed about.

Sadly, yes that may be one of the consequences of long term conditions.

If he's that wealthy he can have his own private doctors and nurses on his private plane so it's not an issue if he doesn't bother with insurance if he doesn't want to but that's his choice

Although I am insured up to the hilt, theoretically, I would not like to try and claim anything on any of it.
My health insurance allegedly covers me worldwide (I live in a country where you are required to have health insurance). This costs something over €600 per month.
If I pay for any travel on a credit card I also have insurance.
I have an annual travel insurance on top of all this, which was €160, but then doubled after a significant birthday, so I cancelled and found a cheaper deal. BUT it only covers personal belongings/luggage for up to €2k, so my jewellery, laptop, camera, phone and iPad are in no way covered.
So yes, i do think it important to have insurance, but it is a rip off and does not really cover everything.

Yes, he will pay. Not me, I don't have his wealth

I was glad we took out insurance for our planned holiday to Italy. DH fell and broke and his hip a week before we went. Everything cancelled..but we have got almost all of it back

So who do suggests pays when family member is ill and stuck abroad?

I guess there would be a need for greater trust / oversight of the insurance industry

A GHIC card covers emergency treatment in Spain and is free.

Yes, not having travel insurance whilst travelling is really stupid unless you can afford the costs to be repatriated.

Yes. Unless they have a spare £200K

Yes, he does

That's correct. If he can't get travel insurance, then he should not be travelling abroad. The medical bills will very likely be astronomical. It can run into 6 figures sometimes. Will your family be able to raise this money? Will they even want to? Of course not. You will all be opening a GoFundMe page. Everyone does it who hasn't taken out travel insurance (when something happens, and they end up with a massive medical bill!)

People say travel insurance is cheap. Ours was £2500 last year, this year quoted over £3k. My OH has one condition, with no symptoms, which has had insurance cancelled and many decline. We paid it last year as we had holidays booked. Have had to rethink this year and now have to consider our holiday choices.

I am torn on this. I don't think it should be illegal to travel without it, as some people simply can not get insurance due to conditions that can't be helped.
Maybe there should be an insurance for them that would cover accidents, or things not related to their health condition.
I am not sure how it works. The furthest I go is the Channel Islands and I don't get insurance.

I have several health conditions which have increased my holiday insurance in the past. Not sure if they were actually excluded under the cover - will check next time I take it out.

I've never heard of anyone who was outright unable to get holiday insurance at ALL due to pre-existing conditions - and this included my late sibling who, when I was a child, was terminally ill with cancer when they took a turn for the worse on our family holiday abroad and was evacuated home.

In any case, if I literally couldn't get any cover at all, I would not holiday abroad. Unless one's family are zillionaires, I wouldn't consider it fair for anyone else to cover the costs of my hospital treatment and medical evac.

Bit more than that if you need specialist hospital care, theatre, itu, medication, hotels, flights, repatriation, compensate airline and passengers but this person has loads of money and flies in a private plane.

BIL is very wealthy, he could more than cover any costs. So why should he be prevented from travelling abroad?

We used to have EU health cards for this reason.

😂

Exactly this! ^

I want to add, people seem to think I am irresponsible but I am not. I always take out travel insurance for me, dh and dc because I am not a wealthy person.

But my sisters husband and his family are very wealthy. So there is no reason whatsoever for him not to travel

What you BIL is doing is called "self insurance", having the money to buy himself out of conceivable eventualities. That is different to doing something with no money to cover conceivable outcomes, and no insurance to cover them either. The OP maybe should perhaps revise the question to "AIBU .... with no insurance and no means to pay for conceivable outcomes""