Travelling with no insurance?

TELLIT01

The type of person the OP is trying to convince is one of the "Yeah, but it won't happen to me" brigade.  Personally, I would let them get on with it, and just keep an "I told you so" handy for if something does happen.

Pollycat

TELLIT01 said:

The type of person the OP is trying to convince is one of the "Yeah, but it won't happen to me" brigade.  Personally, I would let them get on with it, and just keep an "I told you so" handy for if something does happen.

100% agree.

If the person the OP is talking about doesn't have the sense to see that things would be very different if he'd had the accident in Spain instead of at home, there will be no convincing him.

silvercar

Two horror stories, and accepting that we only recount the horror stories not those holidays that end with no issues.

A friend's son died in a hiking accident. The insurance paid for the repatriation of his body. Not only that, they dealt with the logistics and the reams of paperwork.

Another friend's brother died in America. With no insurance. Even though it was the brother's wishes to be buried alongside his wife back in the UK there was no money to repatriate his body. So his brother flew to the US, had him cremated and brought his urn back to the UK. He just brought him back without any paperwork- literally carrying him in a rucksack on the plane. There is now an issue as the body transfer wasn't recorded and the cemetery where he should have been buried aren't yet accepting a burial of the urn. He was on the brother's mantel piece, now he's been relegated to a corner of the lounge. 

Pollycat

You can take a horse to water but...

louism

I'm a bit long in the tooth to be in the "told you so" brigade. I tend to just roll my eyes now. I would help out (within reason) if the unfortunate did happen to this person eg pick them up from the airport at this side etc
Some interesting replies here (liked the urn one!) and I did stumble upon a webpage here by admiral which allows you to select different countries. The Real Cost of Getting Ill Abroad - Admiral 

lisyloo

JGB1955 said:

lisyloo said:

Mine would be covered on house insurance (doesn’t work if you don’t have that either of course).

Whilst I have house insurance, I DON'T have cover for items outside the house - so would have to rely upon travel insurance in my case.

Won’t cover you for outside the house when not on a “holiday” e.g. go to the shops and car gets broken into.
may not cover you for UK holidays.

not as bad as foreign travel,  it youre still uninsured possibly by a 4 figure sums if you have wedding and engagement rings.

Doshwaster

Personally, I don't really care about the loss/theft of personal possessions. I don't tend to take anything valuable with me so the insurance excess would probably be more than any one item is worth but it still useful in case a suitcase goes missing and you need to buy a full set of replacement clothes. I've known people arrive in Iceland with only the clothes on their backs and their cases lost in the void beneath Heathrow.

Even cancellations and delays don't bother me too much as they can be generally sorted out with the supplier. The only real reason I have insurance is for medical cover - which fortunately I've never had to use. I did need a couple of stitches in Thailand once but the bill from the clinic only came to about £20 so it wasn't worth claiming for. 

lisyloo

A cancellation by you e.g. death or serious illness will generally not be covered by the supplier.

Archergirl

Some people just don't care, hence all the 'Go fund me' pages They just expect other people to foot the bill................

zagfles

lisyloo said:

A cancellation by you e.g. death or serious illness will generally not be covered by the supplier.

If I was dead or seriously ill, the last thing I'd be worried about was getting back the cost of my holiday

But seriously, I agree with Dosh, I'm not bothered about cancellation, medical is the main reason to have insurance. Insurance would only cover cancellation for a limited set of reasons anyway, someone I know cancelled their holiday because their dog was ill (seriously!), insurance didn't cover it. If you really want full cancellation cover, best way is to book cancellable flights/travel/accomodation as you can then cancel for any reason.