Can you afford to ditch your travel insurance?

I meet many people who swear all insurance policies are a complete waste of money – but, after two experiences this week, I will never take the risk of travelling without one.

First, on Wednesday, I had to get up at 5.0am to meet my father off a plane at Gatwick – he was returning from a longed for cruise that had gone disastrously wrong.  Four weeks earlier, a day or so after boarding, at Bridgetown, Barbados, poor Dad had presented to the ship's doctor with raging cellulitis – and, when my brother, a GP, saw pictures of Dad’s leg, he told me it was the worst case he’d seen in his life. My father drained the ship’s IV antibiotics before being admitted to a private hospital in Barbados for 10 days, and then finally being discharged to a nearby hotel for another week before he was eventually fit enough to fly home. 

Even then, he arrived back in a wheelchair – and still wearing the towelling flip-flop slippers from his hotel because his ankle was too swollen for shoes...

A day after bringing Dad home, I happened to interview a young woman who, at 22, had gone off to Egypt, gaily promising her mother she had just taken out an annual travel insurance policy, when really she had done nothing of the sort – and never imagining that her visit to see her best friend in Cairo could end in calamity. Unfortunately, walking back to her friend’s apartment after dinner one night, she fell and cut her leg on a pane of glass – and it was such a major cut that she was told she may never walk again. The hospital refused to treat her until she had paid £1000 into their account, and, as she had no insurance, her parents were woken with a call from the hospital at 5.0am... Oh yes, I can imagine just how that felt! And how annoyed, as well as upset, her mother must have been. Gemma’s hospital bills totalled £3000 – all of which her parents had to find. I am glad to say that they also made her pay back every last penny.

Sure, many travel insurance policies will not cover the full cost of the clothes you lose if your suitcase is stolen... But will yours pay for you to be treated and repatriated should you need it?