Why I never bother with travel insurance

duchy

I used to be a travel agent -I also worked for a while on the travel account for several large holiday insurance companies repatriating their customers home after disaster struck. I won't step foot out of the UK without insurance.

If you break a bone even if you'll fit in one seat and don't need to pay for extra seats the airlines won't accept you to fly until the plaster is fully set often meaning new tickets need to be bought and extra hotel nights/meals are needed

If your parent or child is taken seriously ill or is in an accident at home and you need to curtail your holiday to get back

If between booking the holiday and going you get ill enough that you can't travel

I have stories that would make your hair curl -the worst was the "recovered" alcoholic who took his son (son lived with Mum) to Florida -went on a bender and ended up sectioned. Result eight year old child alone in the US until Mum could be flown out.

Our prescription drugs are heavilly subsidized by the NHS -people don't realize the cost of drugs and X-rays until preented with the bill for what here we'd consider a minor mishap-abroad can be several thousand pounds.

Personally I don't care much about the other sections of a policy -I don't pack expensively, Money is on a card not much ready cash all I care about is cancellation, medical and repatriation those are essentials.

I've seen first hand people end up thousands in debt or stranded due to not wanting to pay for insurance -please don't skip it-it really IS essential.

Call me a sheep I don't care but at least if the worst happened to me abroad I'd be a solvent sheep.

davidlizard

I am partially with the original poster on this - many of the things covered by travel insurance are largely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things and would cause only minor financial loss.

For example, if the plane is hijacked claiming £200 from my travel insurance will be the least of my worries! If I lose my luggage then by the time I take excesses into account and given I take nothing of any value with me it will be hardly worth claiming. The chances of me losing my passport are minimal, and if I do I will simply stay a few extra days and get a later flight home - it will cost a few hundred pounds extra but again I can underwrite that myself. The same can be said for many such things.

Also the whole value of travel insurance is questionable when insurers try to wriggle out of claims, as shown with the attitudes of some for the volcanic ash chaos earlier this year.

However, certain aspects I cannot afford to (or are not prepared to) underwrite the risk myself - these are mostly the expensive things, typically medical/repatriation expenses, personal injury and personal liability. For this alone, basic travel insurance is essential.

Insurance by definition is risk transfer - passing the buck to someone else in exchange for a sum of money. Its the same for car insurance, home insurance and any other kind of insurance. There is always the risk of over-insuring - i.e. spending more money than necessary. There was an article (I think relating to home insurance) where Martin discussed "insuring against catastrophe" - i.e. keep the insurance costs low by not insuring the things you could cover yourself, but do insure against the big/expensive things.

Pollycat

Just had a quick look at some of Nobjocki's other posts:

Absolutely bang on the money.
Our children have back-packed all over the world with us often during school time.
It helps, I suppose, that they attend a fee-paying school whose headmaster has fully supported our objectives of broadening their horizons and life skills.
There has been zero disruption in their education - any school which tells you otherwise only has their interest at heart and not their pupils.

KRABI,Thailand



I'm looking for a mid-range hotel here for a couple of nights ( Dec 18-20 ) before heading out to the islands.

Two adults, two kids ( 14 + 12 ) in a decent area with a pool.

I have driven several times across the States with just two adults and two kids in a large RV and that was a squeeze.

Travelling abroad with 2 children without insurance makes (imho) Nobjocki even more irresponsible than I first thought after reading his posts on this thread.

Nobjocki - what are the statistics of another car hitting your whilst driving across the States?

jammin_2

shockingmoment wrote: »

HSBC - who very kindly paid for the hotel bills for a week - 4 of us, 2 rooms.

I'm sure they did not pay out of kindness.

duchy

Pollycat wrote: »

Just had a quick look at some of Nobjocki's other posts:







Travelling abroad with 2 children without insurance makes (imho) Nobjocki even more irresponsible than I first thought after reading his posts on this thread.

Nobjocki - what are the statistics of another car hitting your whilst driving across the States?

What a fool -Mess with your own health and financial security if you feel the need -Mess with your kids' .................. makes you the kind of parent most of us wouldn't want to be !

piccybabes

Just to add weight to the importance of travel insurance. My folks went to Turkey last year for a 2 week holiday - got insurance through Saga for £80'sh I think.

Dad had a heart attack, hospitalised in private hospital for 3 weeks then medivac'd out on hospital plane to Cardiff.

A couple of points;

1. The £18,000 hotel bill would have crippled the family financially if they had not had insurance. Heaven only knows what the plane cost.
2. The medical care in the private hospital was fantastic, my Dad had round the clock nursing- something that the general hospital in Maramaris would not have been able to match
3. The insurance paid for my Mum to keep the hotel room for the duration of the time Dad was in hospital.
4. there were some people in the hospital who had injuries/strokes who did not have insurance. Nobody would want to deal with the combined stress of having a sick family member coupled with the worry about paying.

I agree that some elements of the insurance policy are almost worthless, but for your family's sake get some insurance that covers your health care costs.

DKLS

Like any insurance you get the policy that best suits your needs, when I was much younger and lived in israel, a girl I knew cut her leg whilst washing up, simple clean wound few stitches would be needed, when we got to the local clinic, £50 to see the dr and £20 a stitch! that just about cleared out the girl.

Needless to say she didnt take the clinic up on their offer to remove stitches at £15 each, I did it for a beer.

greyraccoon

I always take out a policy with Direct Travel whenever I go anywhere. I was caught up in the volcanic ash disruption earlier this year, and like most policies a strict interpretation would suggest I wasn't covered for anything. However they were very good about the whole thing and agreed to cover it under the delayed travel section and paid out £350 each. Combined with the meagre payout from the airline we just about got enough back to cover our costs.

The MSE guide on travel insurance recommends them for annual policies - in part due to the favourable stance they took on ash cloud related claims.

shockingmoment

jammin wrote: »

I'm sure they did not pay out of kindness.

Well, probably not but....

It was a 'gesture of goodwill' payment. So that was nice.

Again, they said claim not strictly covered, but due to the exceptional circumstances....

They paid hotel costs only - no food, out of pocket expenses etc - but hotel was by far the biggest cost (after my lost wages of course!). So no complaints from me - particularly as the policy was free.

I'm sure there was a 'goodwill' calculation behind the payment - not that many people caught out but good PR - as opposed to the bad PR for Insure and Go.

I&G could have done this too if they chose.

But they didn't.

Never claimed from them before. Thought I had a genuine claim, but apparently not.

For me - it painted a good picture of HSBC (or their insurers) and the fact that they consider claims sympathetically.

Had a great time in KL btw - if anyone is thinking of going!

Madmel

I have posted on this subject before, so apologies if you've read my story before, but I can't believe that people can be so cavalier.

3 years ago in the SW USA, my husband's appendix ruptured. A day of generally feeling unwell then stomach pains meant that we went to a local hospital in Arizona. They diagnosed him, but didn't have the facilities to treat him so he travelled 240 miles by air ambulance to Tucson where he was operated on. He spent 5 days on life support, a week in ICU, a further week on a ward and ended up with 4 operations. He had to fly back business-class so he could lie flat to rest.

Thank goodness we had bought adequate travel insurance. It covered EVERYTHING! And I only paid £50 for it!!! The helicopter trip alone was $38,000 USD, the ICU bed was $2500 USD per day and I never found out the costs of the surgeons, anaesthetics teams or drugs. I do know it ran to 6 figures, and we have never spent anything like that in travel insurance costs.

They paid for a hotel for me and the children, a car, my mobile phone bills and replacement flights. Apart from the horrid Canadian company I had to deal with (until the amazing head of social care at the hospital got involved and read them the riot act) we could not have received better care or met kinder or more compassionate people.

You never know when something like this is going to happen. Yes, it's rare, but it happened to us, and we very nearly ended up bringing DH home in a box. Thankfully he is now fully recovered, and we have been in touch with the wonderful people who saved his life. Please, please spend the £50 or whatever; the alternative is not worth it.