Travel insurance for UK - necessary or not?

[Goodbyeimgoinghome]

Hi. I’m a UK citizen living overseas and planning a trip home. Wondering if travel insurance will be necessary. I believe I am covered by NHS due to reciprocal medical agreements between countries. Policies all seem to be packages mainly concerned with medical emergencies but I think I just need to cover flight cancellation. Anyone have experience, is something like this available?

The other thing travel insurance covers is medical repatriation to get you back home if for example you had an accident and needed long term hospitalisation.

Buy a worldwide, annual, policy and be done with it.

We self insure UK-UK (ie we will spend what is needed if something happens).

We had an annual policy when we lived abroad, that covered holidays (we lived in a dump and frequently drove to the nearest country), and trips home.

Thank you both for your responses. I’m afraid an annual policy would very much go to waste. This will be the first time I will have left the country in 7 years, and I absolutely will not be going anywhere else for quite some time much as I would love to.

what about your luggage and belongings if they got lost or stolen? or accommodation / onward travel bookings if flights get delayed or cancelled?

We have an annual policy as part of our bank account. It recently covered the cost of a holiday cottage that we’d booked for a short break but had to cancel when ds broke his leg and was unable to travel.

we’d not considered using it for uk travel before but having it saved us most of the cost of the trip - minus the excess.

My cousin (English but a long time resident of Australia) was visiting here when he was taken critically ill, and put into an induced coma in ICU. His travel insurance was invaluable. It even paid for his son to fly over. As soon as he was well enough to fly, he was repatriated. The company was so good and made a horrifically stressful situation as straightforward as could be possible for his wife.

Definitely get it if you can. He had been perfectly healthy until this condition came out of nowhere.

You are only covered for primary care and emergency hospital care not anything else including repatriation.
take it out

The cost of a medical repatriation can be eye watering, even within Europe. It's not just the flight, possibly needing first class for you and a nurse but also a private ambulance to the airport. A friend of ours visiting the UK needed a medivac to their own European country a few years ago and it was a 5 figure sum then - first class seats for her and accompanying nurse, overnight accommodation and return flight for the nurse, private ambulance to Heathrow, private ambulance to hospital at the other end.

It sounds like you need single trip insurance. If it's like the UK you just put in the country you are visiting and your start and end dates. You'll be covered for cancellation as soon as you take out the policy then covered for medical emergencies etc. whilst away. If that's not available in your country, can you buy some sort of cancellation cover for the flights from the airline? Though travel insurance would also cover things like lost/stolen baggage and missed departures, so it would be advisable to get proper insurance just as you would if visiting any other country.

Ok. Thanks everyone. I had tried to find flight only cover but can only find packages with expensive cover for things I don’t really need, like lost luggage, accommodation costs, the medical cover ( I hadn’t considered repatriation just medical treatment on the spot). I was only concerned about having to cancel beforehand or needing to come back early due to something happening here rather than something happening to me on the trip. I guess I will just go ahead and take the lot.