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

Necessity. People should not be able to travel without it. I would never donate to any of these crowdfunders. This is partially why people think it’s okay to risk not taking it. It isn’t, and no one else should have to bail you out when it goes wrong.

I never travel without insurance and thankfully have only had to use it twice but to walk into a small doctors surgery with your baby in pain so bad his eyes wete rolling in his head and say yep its fine that its private I can pay (ibiza) was worth its weight in gold... that broken leg cost about 6k in total but i got it all back bar the £50 excess on the policy.

It's not her age she's just a complete idiot. I see it almost weekly on FB something happening to someone abroad and a fund raiser set up for them.

A friend had a medical incident in America. They had insurance but there was some debate over whether they would pay out (due to undeclared item of medical history). In the end they did but for a while they were looking at having to sell their house to cover the £200k bill. And it would have been more than double that if they needed medical repatriation.

In many counties though, unless you can pay thousands upfront or get prior approval from an insurer you simply won’t be treated.

I wouldn’t crowd fund someone who made a decision not to get insurance.

A necessity. If you can't afford travel insurance then you can't afford to go on holiday, it's as simple as that.

Trouble is that for people with serious medical conditions, the insurance can be several hundred pounds if not thousands, per holiday, so I can kind of see why they take the risk, but, for us, we simply would do without the holiday rather than take the risk if we felt we couldn't afford the insurance. Insurance costs can vary enormously for those with medical conditions depending upon where they're travelling to. DH has had quotes varying from around £600 to nearly £4,000 when we've requested quotes for different countries. You have to be picky about choosing "cheaper" countries to go to rather than choose the country first and then get insurance afterwards. Insurance costs really drives your options with medical conditions.

Necessity.

I think it's partly because it's easy to book flights, accommodation separately now and whereas you're prompted when booking a package this doesn't happen the same way when arranging things individually.
I do think it should be mandatory.

Yes, but not declaring all material facts will always put you at risk of insurance not paying out. After all, it's based entirely on "risk" factors. No point having any kind of insurance if you;re not honest with the declarations.

Just to add to this. I know some people do get travel insurance but don’t declare their medical history making the insurance invalid. They are idiots too. You must declare medical history even if they don’t ask.

I can understand short travels in EHIC zone without one - necessary care covered "as a local" and ability to get home on the ground. Yes, there are still some edge cases (complex repatriation of still alive person), but it would mostly work.

I wouldn't dare going outside of EHIC without one, especially the expensive countries and more exotic countries where using the international hospital would be practically a necessity for both language and care.

My DH and a colleague were in a (thankfully) minor car accident while on a work trip to Germany some years ago. They both had the European health card DH also had insurance his colleague didn't and the colleague was struggling to access even basic care as the hospital insisted he needed insurance as well as the health card. Mean while DH was taken to a top specialist to be checked over at a private clinic.
Fortunately the college discovered that he did actually have cover via his bank account so was sorted in the end.

I think lots of people assume they don't need insurance because it won't happen to them, or because they think the European health card will cover them. Lots also get caught out by having not checked they are covered for everything they are doing and not thinking about only having basic cover when they get sold a parascending flight or jet ski session.

Not all of Europe and not all services. We needed serious medical interventions in Budapest and it was the insurance that got what we needed. Same in most Balkan Countries. It is a basic cover though and everyone should use it
But anyone going outside of EU or other Western European Countries without medical insurance is being completely irresponsible. All our children travel extensively and have an annual policy that includes hostels etc. It's not even prohibitively expensive.

I don't think it's an age thing. My 21yo dd always gets travel insurance, and on her latest holiday with friends, another one of the group sent a text round to everyone reminding them to sort it out. They all agreed, so I don't think it's the case that young people don't think it's needed.

I’ve told this on here before but in 2007 we were on a 3 week holiday in the US with loads of exciting things planned (Grand Canyon, Vegas, Disneyland etc). Whilst in the wilds of N Arizona, DH’s appendix burst - he had been feeling under the weather for a couple of days but never suspected this. He was evacuated by helicopter to Tucson ($39k), had 4 surgeries, a week in ICU ($2.5k per day) then a further week in hospital. The insurance policy cost me £52 and they paid out around $250k all in.

Anyone stupid enough to travel without insurance is undeserving of my sympathy. I’m not a boomer - my kids are in their 20s and have annual travel policies because they remember what we went through.

Your younger colleague and her circle are idiots. I'm in my thirties and would never be so irresponsible as to travel without cover for me and my family

Agree! In this case the undeclared item was something that had happened and been resolved while he was unconscious having an operation - the operation was declared but he never knew about the issue that happened during the operation as it was sorted by the time he woke up and they didn’t tell him. But it was in his medical notes. He had to pay £30,000 upfront whilst they argued it though.

Your friend is ignorant.

I’ve never had to claim but 2 of my closest friends have had to be hospitalised abroad and obv good thing they had insurance. In their 20s and 30s at the time.

It still feels that the UK travel insurance is quite expensive and hard to get.
It probably covers you more comfortably and completely, but we have an option of cheap (1€ a day) health&basic liability no declaration insurance, which covers the random things that happen, but wouldn't cover issues related with active illness&health conditions known before travelling.

I agreed to take 85 yo father to Ireland recently. He thought insurance was pretty pointless and was going to cost him £150…. I said I’d refuse to take him and there was a fair chance he might need it. He bought it…

It's not an age thing. All the young people our children know wouldn't travel without insurance. Some guilt their parents into buying it, but they wouldn't travel to Indonesia without insurance. Not a single one.

Necessity, but I’ve also been stung where I had insurance but it didn’t apply due to a tenuous reason. They were awful and we were £3k out of pocket so I can understand some situations aren’t covered.

Another situation is my uncle who has very complex crohns and cannot get insurance. He risked it once so he can visit his dd in Australia. I’m not sure my dad will get insurance now as he has incurable cancer but he really wants to travel more before he dies (he’s not that old). Those situations I understand to some degree but they would never crowd fund. Dad said, if he dies abroad, bury him there.

Necessity.

As I worked in a hospital for 12 years until recently, I think it’s idiot mentality to go abroad without it. Obviously going to the US without it is literally insane but in any country,, if your little darling managed to get an infection or some kind of viral illness or a complex break or a gastric issue which lands them in hospital, funnily enough you’re not going to just leave them, you need to stay in the same country until they are fit to get home. How are you going to afford that? Time off work (especially if self employed with no pay if you don’t), new travel tickets, food, all the rest?

The number of people who transported ageing parents or obese relatives over to visit without insurance who then had strokes or whatever. Literally facing the entire family going bankrupt. Travel is not a right.