News Updates in the Travel Insurance Sphere

...not just up to the 22nd parallel (which is south of Vilanculos) as before. The policy document is currently being revised accordingly and we will advise when the revised document has been posted at the site.

Don’t trip up on your trip abroad
Mike Monk has seen it all. worked in the travel insurance industry for years, can recount hundreds of tales of ill-fated holidaymakers who went without cover.

There was the young woman who fell ill with appendicitis in North America and ended up with a medical bill for more than £10,000. Then there was the climber who went trekking in the Himalayas, fell off a cliff and had to be air-ambulanced to the UK.

Travel insurance: Just the faqs
Did you hear about the resort guest who was sitting by the pool, minding his own business, when a palm tree toppled over and crushed him to death?

I’m not making it up. It happened a few weeks ago at a hotel in the Caribbean. No one ever likes to imagine the unimaginable, but sadly enough, it happens all too often.

12 Wellness tips for the road
Keeping healthy at home is hard enough. Just ask anyone who has survived a Northeastern winter. Between hacks, coughs, drips, sneezes, wheezes, and fevers, it is amazing that we can make it until spring.

But when traveling, it’s a completely different story.

Family of dead Irishman gets €50,000 Thai hospital bill

The family of an Irishman who died in hospital in Thailand recently following an accident has not been able to bring home his body because of an outstanding hospital bill of €50,000.

The Thai hospital is refusing to release the body of the man who died after a fall, until his healthcare bill is paid. He had no travel insurance and his family has so far been unable to come up with the funds.

The hospital bill is €50,000, and a further €5,000 is needed to repatriate the body.

This is just one of a number of recent cases of Irish people who have suffered when something went wrong abroad and they had no travel insurance.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern has appealed to everyone taking a foreign holiday to take out travel insurance.

A spokesman for the minister declined to comment on individual cases but Ahern said there was a growing worldwide problem of individuals travelling without insurance cover.

‘‘Most of the problems stem from the dotcom world, where at a touch of a button people can book their holidays and flights online,” he said.

‘‘Sadly, in a growing number of cases, they do not also click for travel insurance.”

In September, an Irish woman died in Spain and €7,000 had to be paid for undertaker costs and repatriation oft he body. In August, another Irish person required medical treatment in Malaysia which cost several thousand euro.

‘‘While, statistically, probably less than 1 per cent of Irish people run into difficulties when health and medical problems arise, they can prove very expensive,” he said.

Ahern said he was trying to find out what percentage of Irish people who travel did not have insurance cover.

‘‘There is enough heartache for the families of loved ones who die or are seriously injured abroad without also the added worry of trying to pay expensive medical treatments and air ambulance costs,” he said.

The issue is an international one, with countries such as Denmark providing insurance state cover for citizens in the Mediterranean region.