Is GoFundMe the new travel insurance?

its nothing like that expensive. Maybe just nudging 6 figures, but not even close to £1m

A story from years ago, c.2012 was repatriation from New Zealand via private air ambulance (coma, life support) was in the region of £187,000.

That’s a massively more complex flight than transatlantic.

For years, medical expense cover was either 5m or 10m and noone got anywhere near. Even £1m was massively high. But with US intensive care being somewhere $10-$30k per night, for a month that’s knocking on £700k just for the bed.

So, while I doubt this one will go near 15m, it’s going to be chunky. And it may end up going back on the driver, but insurance coverage over there isn’t like the UK and it’s simply not as “simple” as it is over here.

For years, medical expense cover was either 5m or 10m and noone got anywhere near.

Yup, they basically throw in the big numbers just for marketing. Many, many, moons ago I worked for Direct Line. Their record at the time wasn’t even £200k, as they always took the “repatriate asap” option instead.

@paddy0091 There was a thing on the War on Cars a while back about US car insurance often having very low (by EU/UK standards) third party claim limits, so even if it paid out, it might not go all that far.

And as also mentioned US healthcare costs are considerable.

its nothing like that expensive. Maybe just nudging 6 figures, but not even close to £1mm

It’s literally what I do for a living, but thanks for the insight

Care won’t be on the NHS as the treatment started privately.

Really – I’ve known plenty of people injured overseas that received necessary ongoing treatment for the injury on their return to the UK within the NHS.

Closer to home I saw a gofundme recently for a fella who had a pretty bad accident while mountain biking.

Guy is self employed and is now not going to be able to work for some months while recovering.

I know it’s not the big ticket figures of overseas care – but surely if your hobby can potentially wipe out your income you would get some insurance for that? Seems madness not to!

Gran with serious health conditions declines to get travel insurance due to being quoted £3k (although can afford 4 week holiday to Florida!) Can anyone guess what happens next?

https://metro.co.uk/2024/12/02/gran-76-trapped-florida-falling-sick-last-holiday-favourite-place-22103603/amp/

Care won’t be on the NHS as the treatment started privately.

This used to be the case but is so no longer

TBF the daughter seems to come across quite well.

TBF the daughter seems to come across quite well.

She does, unfortunately she is absolutely in a no win situation there.

Oof, that’s going to be expensive. 5 days intensive care then weeks on a lesser ward in a US hospital. That 50k target ain’t going to touch the sides.

The daughter doesn’t come across that well of you follow through to the go fund me page, she only bunged in fifty quid. 😀

That’s a sad story and must be awful for the daughter who tried to convince her not to travel without insurance. I wonder if the sons had similar advice?  It’d be heartbreaking to have to leave her there.

I suppose one takeaway from that story is that it explains exactly why the premium quoted was “high”, in so far the risk of a medical issue has come to be.  Close call there for underwriters not being taken up with the quote, terrible call for the family not taking it out.

Stupidity.

What happens if they cannot pay ? I dont think the US has debtors prisons, and would any debt collection work here :/

Maybe someone just has to declare themselves bankrupt, like plenty of Americans do.

Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States, accounting for 66.5% of bankruptcies:

(Sauce – Google AI search result).

What happens if they cannot pay ?

AIUI (but could well be wrong!) the hospital have a duty to stabilise the patient, but not to provide any ongoing treatment. This is because they can’t actually force the patient/family to pay the bills. So the family just need to cover the repatriation expense, the gran never returns to the US, and the hospital writes it off. Best-case scenario possibly?

From that latest story, the family got the price of repatriation down to £111k (or less with a commercial flight). And there’s a company quoted elsewhere on the thread saying about £140k ish.

Just mindful that @BoardinBob works in the industry, but said the repatriation cost would be around £1m.

Can you explain why there’s such a difference in the rates being (apparently) charged?