Travelling with no insurance?

Doshwaster

zagfles said:

But it's all a bit moot anyway - the main reason I (and probably most people by the sounds of it) have travel insurance is for medical, and you get cancellation and other stuff thrown in. It might be possible to get medical only but I don't think significantly cheaper, and my travel insurance policy is very good value for the amount of travelling I do anyway!

Same here. Insurance is primarily for the medical cover in the event of a serious incident. Any additional cover for luggage, delays, cancellation is just a free bonus. In fact, they only two times I've tried to claim for cancellation it was rejected by the insurance company so I try to self-insure as much as possible.

zagfles

Doshwaster said:

zagfles said:

But it's all a bit moot anyway - the main reason I (and probably most people by the sounds of it) have travel insurance is for medical, and you get cancellation and other stuff thrown in. It might be possible to get medical only but I don't think significantly cheaper, and my travel insurance policy is very good value for the amount of travelling I do anyway!

Same here. Insurance is primarily for the medical cover in the event of a serious incident. Any additional cover for luggage, delays, cancellation is just a free bonus. In fact, they only two times I've tried to claim for cancellation it was rejected by the insurance company so I try to self-insure as much as possible.

Same here. There are situations where you end up on a catch-22 situation with insurance. A few years ago we were booked to go to Barcelona. But after we'd booked, a couple of day before we were due to depart, the French air traffic controllers announced a strike on our return date. On previous strikes, Easyjet had cancelled the flight and it took 6 days or so to get people home. We needed to be home before then, work school, exams etc. 

So I checked the situation with the insurance. What would happen if we went and the strike went ahead? No cover - because the strike was announced before our departure date. What would happen if we cancelled the holiday? No cover - because the return flight wasn't yet cancelled. So we couldn't claim for cancellation and we couldn't claim anything if we needed to find an alternative way to get home on time.

We went, and luckily the strike was called off. But we were forced to either take a big uncovered risk or lose all we'd paid upfront, which was quite siginficant that time, which is why now I try to restrict how much upfront committment I have for any holiday.

lisyloo

zagfles said:

Doshwaster said:

zagfles said:

But it's all a bit moot anyway - the main reason I (and probably most people by the sounds of it) have travel insurance is for medical, and you get cancellation and other stuff thrown in. It might be possible to get medical only but I don't think significantly cheaper, and my travel insurance policy is very good value for the amount of travelling I do anyway!

Same here. Insurance is primarily for the medical cover in the event of a serious incident. Any additional cover for luggage, delays, cancellation is just a free bonus. In fact, they only two times I've tried to claim for cancellation it was rejected by the insurance company so I try to self-insure as much as possible.

Same here. There are situations where you end up on a catch-22 situation with insurance. A few years ago we were booked to go to Barcelona. But after we'd booked, a couple of day before we were due to depart, the French air traffic controllers announced a strike on our return date. On previous strikes, Easyjet had cancelled the flight and it took 6 days or so to get people home. We needed to be home before then, work school, exams etc. 

So I checked the situation with the insurance. What would happen if we went and the strike went ahead? No cover - because the strike was announced before our departure date. What would happen if we cancelled the holiday? No cover - because the return flight wasn't yet cancelled. So we couldn't claim for cancellation and we couldn't claim anything if we needed to find an alternative way to get home on time.

We went, and luckily the strike was called off. But we were forced to either take a big uncovered risk or lose all we'd paid upfront, which was quite siginficant that time, which is why now I try to restrict how much upfront committment I have for any holiday.

I’d say the quality (and hence usually cost) is relevant.
that sounds very poor, but you are right there are always gaps in any insurance you buy.

the biggest one I’ve found is with elderly parents.
they might have flu or an infection which could be very worrying in an elderly person but it doesn’t hit the bar for “serious illness”. It makes it very difficult to book things when you are in that situation and sometimes as you say the best solution is to get something cancellable.
through the pandemic I’ve always booked cancellable hotels for our staycations.

sometimes you do want that dream trip and sometimes you have to book in adavance if you have the sort of job/team or the sort of trip that demands it.

you can only do the best you can do.
insurance isn’t a cast iron guarantee for all sorts of reasons.
i know if I have a dive claim that first thing they’ll ask for is the dive computer to check depths etc.

Pollycat

I think if your own personal opinion is that someone is making a mistake that may rebound on them in any way - maybe emotionally, financially or whatever - you explain once then leave them to deal with whatever circumstances result from their decision.