We recently travelled to Turkey with my mum who took out full top level gold cover with All Clear. It cost pretty much as much as the holiday but she was determined to go and enjoy a last trip before chemo.
What followed was very distressing but without going into that, I want to make sure everyone is clear that even once you obtain insurance, if you fall in on holiday it can take a long time before the underwriter will confirm your cover and take any action at all. We were left for nearly a week with my mum getting progressively worse before they finally confirmed cover and air ambulanced her home to ICU. We had to cover the hospital bills with our own credit cards as well as accommodation. As yet we have no idea how long re-imbursement will take.
If you do not have the finances to cover an emergency situation I would not recommend travelling to a non EU country with out an EHIC. Even then, you will probably be in a private hospital and clinic and have to pay first.
Scarily there were several English cancer patients in the ICU with mum in Turkey with no cover at all. Like mum they came away feeling good but the unexpected happened, infections, dislodges stoma's, it can and does happen.
Hi briarwood
I'm sorry to read what a distressing time your family has had on what should have been a lovely holiday.
Thanks very much for taking the time to share your experience and, as you said, it's a good idea to make sure you have credit cards with a healthy limit in case you need to pay for treatment upfront before you can claim it back.
I noticed that you also said that
I would not recommend travelling to a non EU country with out an EHIC. Even then, you will probably be in a private hospital and clinic and have to pay first.
and just wanted to add that an EHIC, now replaced with a GHIC, only covers a handful of non EU countries.
It's great that your mum has travel insurance in place as some people do decide to not get cover when they've had a cancer diagnosis because they feel it's too expensive. As you said, your mum's insurance cost almost as much as her holiday but is now worth it's weight in gold because she needed an air ambulance to bring her back to the UK.
Wishing you and your mum all the best
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
