Thomson forcing people to buy travel insurance

duchy

UK area insurance is so cheap and cancellation, curtailment, extra expenses etc can still cost hundreds if not thousands that a fiver is hardly a massive issue - but if it is ...book with someone else.

The issue isn't that people choose to risk claim claim they want to self fund - but is they often do it unaware of what they could end up paying for and that is about far more than just the medical treatment itself.

Often the decisions made aren't informed decisions.

duchy

bagand96 wrote: »

An interesting thought - I wonder why Thomson have felt it necessary to include their customers MUST arrange travel insurance, and make them tick a box to acknowledge this? I reckon there's two reasons:

1) To sell their own insurance. I imagine there are people who don't know to shop around, or are just plain lazy and will tick the box to buy Thomson's own policy.

2) The world of litigation and blame. It doesn't take too much imagination to think of a situation where some people end up on a package holiday and have some sort of very costly disaster. They then try to claim against the tour operator "We were never told we might need travel insurance. The tour operator must have had a duty to advise us we might need this?"

Agreed - it is nothing new and not exclusive to Thomson. All tour operators do this - and have done for literally decades.

pattycake

photome wrote: »

That is for an annnual policy though rather than a week in Europe, which would be about a fiver without preexisting conditions

It is only now that we are retired that we can afford the cash and the time to have multiple trips overeseas in a year. Sadly, age often brings the dreaded pre existing conditions. We just have to grit our teeth and pay the premiums. The reason it is so high is the extra risk of needing medical care abroad. I truly hope we never need to claim.

I would not travel without insurance or fail to declare any illness.

r2015

a weeks cover to europe can be had for a round a fiver

Not for a couple of OAPs it won't.

cj2011

daveyjp wrote: »

I take it the OP has also never lost or had a Passport stolen.

Getting a new document to allow you back in to the UK can cost thousands in extra travel, hotel stays, emergency document fees and you then have to buy a new passport.

A decent policy will cover these costs, cheaper ones may not.

No, I have never lost a passport but it definitely wouldn't cost thousands if it did happen. I would be prepared to take the risk of having to visit an embassy to get an emergency passport for £95. If I irresponsibly left it in a hotel room while at the beach it probably wouldn't be covered by most policies anyway. If I keep it in a belly bag under my shirt (completely out of sight - it's a very flat one), it's unlikely to get stolen unless I'm physically attacked in a robbery.

I had a suitcase stolen from a hostel luggage store in the UK. No insurance, but we did get them back after a few weeks (with contents intact - even the ipod, which was newish at the time, came back). What it taught me was to be much more careful with what I leave where (admittedly stupid to leave stuff that I could easily have carried in my pockets but it was my first holiday without my parents). Insurance would probably not have helped more than the police and hostel staff already did - luck helped that time. It won't happen again though because I will never leave anything in a luggage store that I can't afford to lose. I've had a few close calls and they taught me to be more careful and wary and not to take unnecessary/avoidable risks.

cj2011

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Given that they appear to be relying on ATOL protection I'm not convinced that it's well informed.

I was not relying on or assuming anything - I was asking IF I wouldn't have certain basic rights even without insurance. I was asking for further information and I didn't say booking with no insurance was always a good idea.

My own experience is that the problems I've encountered so far, did sort themselves out even though nobody in my party had insurance (stolen bags were found intact, cancelled flight was refunded by Easyjet despite not having taken out insurance cover). This implies that there were certain rights we got 'automatically' when staying at that particular hostel or flying with that particular flight operator. So I wondered if Thomson were somehow opting out of these otherwise 'automatic' liabilities.

cj2011

moreofthegoodstuff wrote: »

I think it's good that Thomson want to ensure you have travel insurance. I would never travel without it and can't understand why people would.

I worked overseas and witnessed many things go wrong on people's holidays. One was a child that had chicken pox, family had no insurance and had to pay for the doctors visits (and the free to fly certificate) extra hotel nights, new flights etc, plus they couldn't leave their room for the whole holiday. I've also seen insured people need operations, have to stay weeks longer because of simple problems like an ear infection (can't fly) people have died on trips and had to been flown home... Trust me, £10 is nothing when you think about what could and does happen!

Encouraging is good, but it should be MY choice though, should it not?

cj2011

duchy wrote: »

Agreed - it is nothing new and not exclusive to Thomson. All tour operators do this - and have done for literally decades.

What was new was that Thomson had a box you had to tick to confirm that your were intending to take out a travel insurance policy which I HAD to agree with BEFORE booking. I've never seen it worded like that before - other flight operators do offer you to fly without insurance at your OWN RISK - though they do try to sell you their own policies (which I don't have a problem with, as long as it is my choice whether to buy it or not). Ultimately it should be my choice whether to risk it or not. I would be reluctant to tick a box to confirm that I've taken out adequate insurance cover if I wasn't intending to do so (but I'm sure lots of people don't bother with insurance for short-haul flights and just tick the box anyway). With Easyjet I did not have to tick anything like that.

tomtontom

cj2011 wrote: »

No, I have never lost a passport but it definitely wouldn't cost thousands if it did happen. I would be prepared to take the risk of having to visit an embassy to get an emergency passport for £95. If I irresponsibly left it in a hotel room while at the beach it probably wouldn't be covered by most policies anyway. If I keep it in a belly bag under my shirt (completely out of sight - it's a very flat one), it's unlikely to get stolen unless I'm physically attacked in a robbery.

I had a suitcase stolen from a hostel luggage store in the UK. No insurance, but we did get them back after a few weeks (with contents intact - even the ipod, which was newish at the time, came back). What it taught me was to be much more careful with what I leave where (admittedly stupid to leave stuff that I could easily have carried in my pockets but it was my first holiday without my parents). Insurance would probably not have helped more than the police and hostel staff already did - luck helped that time. It won't happen again though because I will never leave anything in a luggage store that I can't afford to lose. I've had a few close calls and they taught me to be more careful and wary and not to take unnecessary/avoidable risks.

If you were physically attacked and your passport stolen, you'd be down far more than the cost of a passport:

You get taken to a private hospital.
You get kept in and miss your flight home.
You need a new passport.
You'll need accommodation until your new flight.

Plus of course, the cost of replacing the ipod, mobile, cash and so on.

Anybody choosing not to take cover is irrational.

cj2011

tomtontom wrote: »

If you were physically attacked and your passport stolen, you'd be down far more than the cost of a passport:

You get taken to a private hospital.
You get kept in and miss your flight home.
You need a new passport.
You'll need accommodation until your new flight.

Plus of course, the cost of replacing the ipod, mobile, cash and so on.

Anybody choosing not to take cover is irrational.

How likely is it that they would BOTH attack you AND get away with ALL your valuables including the passport? Extremely unlikely. IF you're ever being robbed, you offer them your wallet and mobile and/or ipod and the robber is likely to run away before someone calls the police. Most robbers would only attack you physically if you refused to give them anything. They got what they wanted (valuables), so why would they stick around to risk getting caught? Of course there are exceptions, but the risk is low.

If someone assaults you because they don't like your hair colour, skin tone etc. (as in a hate crime or similar), they might be happy to cause some bodily harm (which could be serious), but people who commit hate crime are rarely robbers. So you'd be extremely unlucky if you lost all your valuables AS WELL as becoming so physically vulnerable that a local hospital could not sort you out and that you couldn't wait another couple of nights for your planned flight home.

The risk of either a robbery or a hate crime happening obviously varies with what type of holiday you're going for, if you're planning to be out at night in certain areas, where you'd be staying, how familiar you are with the area/country/language/culture, if you have local contacts etc. If going some place like South Africa, I definitely would. 4 nights to an area of Spain that I'm familiar with, probably wouldn't bother.

"Anybody choosing not to take cover is irrational." Sweeping statement since you shouldn't be judging someone if you don't know the circumstances. A different take would be if somebody said "Anybody who insists on ALWAYS taking out cover even for day trips must be either obsessive or paranoid" (I did NOT say this but this is to illustrate that the circumstances do need to be taken into account - somebody may have a rational reason for taking out cover for a daytrip, just as somebody may have a rational reason for going on a 1 week trip with only the basic rights that one gets automatically). It really does depend on the level of risk you are prepared to take and it's up to each and everyone to decide whether or not it's worth the risk, and the risk in turn depends on the circumstances (e.g. what type of holiday, activities, what valuables you'll be bringing). Irrational is not the word. You might as well say "Anyone who ever rides a bike without a helmet is being irrational" (no, they may have a perfectly rational excuse not to wear a helmet in a given situation. Depends on how old they are, if they're riding on a busy road, how far they're going, are they riding extremely cautiously etc. You do need to take the circumstances into account).