Do you think holiday insurance is a necessity or a luxury?

[faithfultoGeorgeMichael]

Where I live there are an increasing number of crowd funders every year for people who have an accident on holiday and have no insurance. I have always thought this was a minority of people willing to accept this risk but yesterday I spoke to a younger colleague (I am 51, she is 32) who said that no one she knows ever buys insurance and it is seen as a foolish waste of money to her and her friends.

She is off to Indonesia for a month in August with her children - with no insurance!

YABU: I would go abroad without insurance
YANBU I would only go abroad if I had insurance

Are you just here to be argumentative?

See title of thread!

No it's a genuine question. How can you enforce it idf people do things like that. Nobody has actually answered it

Surely you would just senda copy of the policy to the holiday ticket agency?

Well, no regulation or law is 100% enforceable, but that doesn't mean you don't have them.

You enforce it by putting in consequences, the same as any other law.

My 19 year old granddaughter recently spent five days in hospital in Bali, on iv antibiotics they originally thought that she had Dengue fever, however it was just a terrible chest infection, she had insurance, anyone who travels without insurance is a fool.

It’s vital.

I have annual travel insurance right now. But when I don’t I always buy insurance when I buy my tickets so we are covered.

I can’t believe people go on holiday without it.

I always have travel insurance for any visit of over 50 miles from home even when visiting friends and family by train. I got Stuck in Edinburgh years ago due to the last train being cancelled.I had no way of getting back to the west coast but at least i had insurance , gave them a call and they authorised a hotel for the night. Insurance had cost me about £2 at the time, cheapest hotel was about £75 at the time. I didn't have £75 to spare then. Without the insurance i would have been sleeping on the street.

See I drive. So don't have to worry about trains. Didn't your insurance have an excess though? Most of them do

I bet you've paid far more than £75 for insurance over the years. Train companies also have a duty of care to get you home if trains are cancelled - they'd have sorted out alternative transport for you, and quite possibly paid for a hotel if they couldn't. Don't be dramatic, of course you wouldn't have slept on the street.

It is an absolute necessity!!

My daughter who is 30 has lots of medical issues so I helped her sort out the holiday insurance, it cost £40, thank god we did. She holidayed in Mexico in a 5 star TUI hotel, RIU Cancun, and suffered with food poisoning, as did many of the guests there. They were advised by TUI to isolate in their rooms for 48 hours, had she done this she could possibly have died of dehydration.

She made her way to the hospital, by this time she was delirious and very poorly. The shocking bit is that until your insurance has checked with your G.P that you’ve declared all your illnesses they won’t give the hospital the guarantee of payment. So my daughter called us as the hospital was demanding 6.5k. We had to pay this on the proviso that it was a holding charge and would be refunded.

The next day they wanted the same again, we simply didn’t have it. I contacted Zurich and asked them to call my daughter, they did this and demanded that they stop harassing her as they had given guarantee of payment to them. Whilst this was going off they’d locked all exit doors so my daughter couldn’t leave. Zurich spoke to them and demanded they let her go, they also tried to take her passport.

She already has PTSD which was declared and Zurich advised the hospital of this, they suddenly released her then. It was a fucking nightmare. To date the hospital hasn’t returned our money, Zurich advised us to claim out of pocket expenses. I have to admit Zurich we’re amazing and disgusted but not surprised at the Joya hospital in Cancun. The total bill for a 24 hour stay was $15000!! Thankfully Zurich are deducting monies already paid by us, so the robbing bastards don’t get the 6.5 k twice.

Sorry for the long rant, but it answers the question of whether it’s worth taking out the insurance, pay £40 for a good policy or $15000 🤷‍♀️. By the way at the time of booking TUI quoted £200 for insurance, so it’s worth shopping around.

My brother in law didn’t declare that he used to take ramapril as his blood pressure was back to normal, but it was still on his notes. The insurance decided not to pay out, he ended up with a bill for 2k, he was in Cape Verde. He’d had an allergic reaction to mosquito bites, nothing to do with blood pressure, cheeky bastards.

I declare everything and also have a EHIC card for European travel. To be honest I’d sooner stick to European destinations after an horrendous experience with Mexico. I’ve commented on here about my daughters treatment, $15000 for a 24 hour stay with food poisoning, thank gawd we declared all her meds and medical conditions 🤦‍♀️

Hilarious that you think train companies always get you home when trains are cancelled or find you a hotel. My experience is that you're abandoned on your own if you're at anything other than a large city centre station where there are train staff at the station, and even then, they're sometimes unhelpful. Trying to use their "contact us" phone at an unmanned station to get help when you're stranded is a waste of time as you're talking to a call centre miles away who have no local knowledge and have no arrangements in place to help you, especially if late at night. Their "advice" is usually to sort yourself out and make a claim afterwards!!

In the case quoted, the person was in Edinburgh, staffed 24/7 with loads of resources available. They'd have easily sorted something. Insurance was just a waste of money.