Travel Insurance

[Henny Penny]

Not sure if this should be posted here ... but as it's just a general query here goes:

I haven't bothered with travel insurance for the last 5 years even though I supposes we've done about 10 trips abroad as a family in that time. Am I being naieve in thinking we don't really need it?

I figure while in the EU we will be covered by the E111 or new equivalent for medical emergencies. Plus we have VHI cover which I imagine covers us abroad also ... to be honest I didn't really read the fine print.

As regards flights, we usually book using visa card which includes credit card insurance.

We don't really have anything valuable to take with us ... eg. golf clubs, expensive jewellery (depite the hints to Mr HP) etc.

I would appreciate any opinions.
Thanks

HP

 

[Ash]

I've always bought travel insurance when going abroad. Thankfully nothing went wrong - until my last trip. As per the thread started by me over in the Travel, Holidays & Airlines section on 05/07/05 under the heading "travel delay/missed departure" I now wonder it was worth the bother and expense, at least for a "minor" disruption/claim.
I too would be interested in opinions about whether travel insurance is useful for anything other than health matters.
By the way, have you thought about what would happen if you and your family missed a flight and ended up perhaps having to pay for additional flights?

 

[RainyDay]

The cover while abroad on the [broken link removed] is quite limited;

Care When Abroad

When on holidays* abroad, emergency medical help is just a phone call away. Your Vhi Healthcare Assist card provides you with all of the following benefits:


A 24-hour medical telephone service.
Access to an English-speaking medical expert.
Finds you a GP or directs you to the most appropriate, local hospital or medical facility.
Monitors and manages your on-going hospital care.
Pays up to €100,000 for in-patient hospital costs.
Contacts your family, doctor or employer if necessary.
Arranges for you to be flown home for further treatment, if medically necessary.
Pays up to €1,000 towards the expenses of a companion who remains with you and a further amount up to a maximum of €1,000 for a companion who travels with you during your repatriation.

* Limited to stays abroad of no more than 180 days.

It wouldn't take that long to run up a €100k bill in case of a serious accident. It doesn't offer repatriation/evacuation cover, so if you find yourself stuck in foreign hospital with few English-speaking medical staff (no jokes about Irish hospitals please), you'll need to fund an air-ambulance yourself to get home.

I wouldn't think of travelling with kids without travel insurance. I got €6 million cover for just €75 for the family for a 1-year multi-trip policy at my local credit union - see this thread for more details.

 

[delgirl]

We have VHI cover and had an incident year before last in Switzerland where our son cut himself quite badly and had to have an anaestheic and stitches in the local hospital.

We presented our VHI World Assistance Card to the hospital, they contacted Eurocross International Holding BV in the Netherlands and VHI immediately agreed to pay for the treatment.

We were a bit surprised as, see Rainy's 'Care when Abroad' list below, they do not normally cover out-patient treatment either here or abroad.

We also travel with the European Health Insurance Card - downloadable application form here:
and have additional travel insurance - just in case!

 

[Mourinho]

Article in Irish Times Health Supplement yesterday about the limitations of the VHI/BUPA etc travel insurance and how the cover is quite limited. You could easily run up a massive hospital bill (€12k per day in USA/Canda) in the case of serious accident. This would not be covered by the VHI/BUPA cover.

Multi trip travel insurance is relatively cheap these days, lots of competition. They give cover of c. €5m for a serious accident which would cover hospital bills in such circumstances.

Fingers crossed it never comes to that though.

 

[casiopea]

Hi Delgirl,

Are you sure that isnt the worldwide vhi healthcare plan you are on and not the normal plan B/plan C one? Its just that the coverage for those plans are different. Im on VHI worldwide healthcare and all hospital trips, doctors visits are covered here in switzerland. When I was living in Ireland I was on a plan B and if I was travelling I would only have the coverage listed above by rainy.

cas.