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?!

You're right, they're not the same. Vapes and ciggies literally cause death whereas a lack of travel insurance just means the risk of a mega bill.

Tell me, what happens if a single person with no friends or family and no insurance winds up in a costly situation?

And just to add, plenty of taxpayers who don't smoke have to pay for others who do meed health services as a result. I dont see Marlboro queuing up to fund treatment from theit profits.

What if smoking related illnesses were run on a GoFundMe basis?

At least a holiday GoFundMe is optional.

Go Fund Me is really up to the people giving money, it doesn't really bother anyone else, or do they pop up like ads so you can't avoid them, I use ad blockers so perhaps wouldn't see them if they did

It used to be a requirement of travel, not a law, but I think it might have been ABTA that a travel agent had to sell travel insurance with a holiday. Caused all manner of upset due to financial regulations as the travel agents needed extra training. Then it changed to needing to confirm customer had insurance - i was (briefly) a travel agent at that point and had a dad kick off because I'd told his 18yo daughter and her boyfriend they needed insurance for the £199 package to Turkey. The insurance i was selling was £15. I explained to the dad it didn't have to be MY insurance but I had to tick a box to say she had it. He called back half an hour later and said she'd have the insurance but the boyfriend wouldn't. I'd been a holiday rep, I'd dealt with the aftermath of a customer not having insurance for a relatively minor injury (sprained knee - needed to keep leg straight on flight home so 3 seats, needed new flights, extended hotel stay until those booked, transfer from airport to home as couldn't drive on top of a few hundred quid of medical costs not covered by the EHIC).

Now so much is booked online, websites do recommend insurance and promote their own but you can just tick a box to say you'll arrange your own and there's no comeback.

You're not allowed to drive a car without insurance, or have a mortgage without life cover. Medical repatriation runs to tens of thousands of pounds. I've just taken out a 5* cover for a 3 day break for £8.50, with £20 million medical cover and a £50 excess.

My husband had a heart attack in Belgium. Our travel insurance paid for it all, including staying extra nights in the hotel. We may have paid a small excess. I can’t remember but he had a stent put it and a 2 day hospital stay.

That was my point.

My DH has multiple medical conditions and I always get a travel insurance that I can declare all his medical conditions - it’s a lot more expensive but totally peace of mind

I haven’t read the thread, just wanted to say - really?! What kind of authoritarian hell do you want to sign up for? What other areas in life should we slap legally required costs on that benefit large private insurance companies and restrict individuals who are willing to take that risk and don’t have the extra cash? (And yes I agree - total pain for any family members etc if things go wrong but that really is their business). I say this as someone who has just paid out £500 in travel insurance for a holiday, btw.

Our health insurance cover is £10,000,000. He will need deep pockets. Yes. People should have insurance or proof of substantial assets.

But noone is telling you you have to contribute to those GoFundMe appeals.

Are people seeking out these Go Fund Me pages as I don't really see them and wouldn't read them anyway, where are they, is it a website you have to go to.

BIL once phoned us from holiday, niece who was only about 6 at the time had been hospitalised. As it was poor niece who could suffer, we ended up paying it. He’s a complete irresponsible knob in all areas of life. So yes it should be unless you have adequate savings or whatever.

As Martin Lewis says.. the day you book your holiday.. buy travel insurance.
I have yearly travel insurance ( with extra medical needs) .. the GHIC card only covers so much in Europe.
I can't understand people not having it.

Just don't contribute to the GoFundMe. No one is forcing you to pay for anyone else's lack of foresight. And there is also nothing wrong with them asking. People can either contribute, or not.

What would happen if he became ill on the flight to/from the destination? Delaying other people's holidays/plans/coming home because of his stupidity?
Selfish.

How exactly would insurance speed up the process of getting the plane in the air? He would be treated as an emergency and the finances would come later. Insurance doesn’t stop the problem occurring

You can get travel insurance for pre existing conditions, it's not cheap but it does ean you're covered if something crops up or you cannot go on holiday.

In fact you should take out travel insurance as soon as you book, so that if you break your leg the day before, you'll get your money back.

Ex FIL was very ill with COPD (as in on oxygen at home, had been in hospital for two months, needed ten minutes to sit in the car for a rest after walking fifteen foot from the front door to get in the driver's seat) and they decided to go on holiday to Cyprus, saying they'd just say he had a bad cold if he became ill over there without his oxygen. He had to be resuscitated on the flight back.

ExMIL was furious when the hastily purchased £14 travel insurance for their next holiday wouldn't pay out for cancellation when he died. Complete scam, she said, always looking for loopholes to get out of it. Loopholes like lying on the form, not mentioning that he was terminally ill, not fit to fly and only buying it after he'd almost died on the flight. They'd booked for a three week driving holiday in Florida. As he actually died of heart failure secondary to the COPD when he had just walked in from work before dropping down (he was a bus driver - he'd lied to his employer and said he just had a bit of asthma), I dread to think how much that would have cost had it happened whilst driving over there.

Can't insure against stupid, though.

If you have the funds then it give to travel without insurance but it’s possible for a price to buy with all kinds of conditions for a price, it’s also possible to buy repatriation insurance if you have a ghic for eligible countries, ideal for those eligible for reciprocal medical care

You’re being completely unreasonable with this statement. There are many people who take out insurance but find they are not covered. Should we not go just in case something is not covered or we don’t understand a question and are then left without?

the risk they are taking is massive debt or death due to not being covered. You’re not affected by that so why are you so bothered? Sounds a bit self righteous to me.

of course people should be covered but for some people they don’t worry about these things. DH has never purchased insurance. Of course I think he’s an idiot and if we go together then he is covered (I’ve actually secretly covered him every time he’s gone away) but that would affect me directly. A random stranger will not so leave them to it.

Thing is, insurance is a very skanky industry. My DM tried to make a legitimate claim years and years ago. Insurers wouldn’t pay out - so she never bought travel insurance ever again, just went completely without as she considered it to be a con.

My PILs have also done it. They both had bad health so some insurers wouldn’t insure and others wanted ££££. So they basically said we’re going without insurance, if we die abroad, just leave us there and don’t feel guilty about it.

So it isn’t as clear cut to just say that people without it are irresponsible. They might be, they might not be. Nobody is forcing OP to donate.

That's not relevant to insurance tho is it. Insurance wouldn't stop that happening. In any case the poster said that the man in question uses a private plane. Possibly he's the King. I bet the King doesn't bother with travel insurance.

I don’t think it should be illegal to travel without it, I just think that people who choose not to get it should own that decision and stop begging on Go Fund Me etc. I don’t donate, you also can just not donate should you choose.

I have 1 DC with Mutiple medical needs and we paid over 1k for their insurance due to the severity and we genuinely planned for ages and thought we had covered everything. DC had an injury on said holiday which actually was not related to health conditions at all !
insurance refused to pay because I didn’t declare they had at one point in their lives - years before treatment for mild eczema. When I say mild it was a patch on in his inner elbow that was treated as “ mild “ but after one course of cream cleared up so I doubt it was ever actually eczema in the first place and hadn’t even remembered !
the cost was not too high thankfully but the panic really set in for future holidays that they will find any reason not to pay !

Does the man in question have his own private holidays island to go to with his own private hospital too 😀