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Family Holiday Insurance: How The Medico-Legal Culture Factors In

by

Patrick D Chong

There’s a good reason family holiday insurance packages come highly recommended: they give you peace of mind and that can’t be overestimated. The problem, however, is that many people take the risk of going abroad uninsured, banking on the fact that nothing bad will happen to them during their trip.

Yet the spectre of illness, misadventure or even natural disaster is one that cannot simply be wished away especially when you factor in how different cultures take different approaches to medical treatment.

Multi-Stage vs Definitive Diagnosis

Lets take, for example, the different approaches the UK and the US have when it comes to diagnosing diseases. In the UK, doctors tend to take a low-key approach to illness. This multi-stage approach starts off with the doctor making a quick assessment of the patient. If nothing serious is spotted, the doctor gives an initial prescription while adopting a wait-and-see approach reserving advanced procedures only when the initial treatment does not work. This approach is encouraged among doctors in order to minimise costs and conserve resources.

If you are holidaying in the US and someone in your family gets sick while on the trip, doctors will seek a definitive diagnosis the very first time you come to them with a problem. This often means a barrage of tests to determine with certainty the cause of whatever is ailing you. You will often get your answers right away, but this can get very expensive if you dont have family holiday insurance to cover the expenses. US doctors take this approach not only because they are paid for their services, but also because making a definitive diagnosis shields them from the inevitable lawsuit they would encounter should they misdiagnose a patient.

So what does all this really mean? Simple: if you ever find yourself in a culture that places greater emphasis on definitive diagnosis, you will most likely end up unprepared for the financial setbacks of doing so.

Opt-In vs. Compulsory Treatment

Another major risk you face if you travel without family holiday insurance is finding yourself in a situation where medical treatment cannot be avoided. If you’re lucky, you could opt out of treatment and wait until you get back to the UK, where the NHS will cover a large part of the resulting medical expenses. If you are unlucky, however, you could find yourself (or a member of your family) forced to undertake treatment on the spot something that will cost a lot of money without the proper insurance.

This is why insurance premiums for some countries cost a lot more than other countries, especially in the US. Its citizens are expected to choose their own health care providers, unlike many countries in Europe where citizens pay higher taxes in exchange for subsidised medical care. Not only that, but the treatment procedures are exhaustive, sometimes to the point where they can be considered excessive resulting in significantly higher medical fees.

It is for this reason that family holiday insurance comes highly recommended when travelling to any country. The amount of money saved on the diagnosis alone makes such insurance a worthy investment and thats not even counting the treatment itself, should it come to that.

Patrick Chong is the Managing Director of InsureMore. We provide low cost travel insurance and offer a range of policies including

family holiday insurance

, annual, multi-trip and single-trip insurance. For all your travel cover needs, InsureMore can help you in the quickest and most cost-efficient way.

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Family Holiday Insurance: How The Medico-Legal Culture Factors In}