On Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:13:41 +1100, Alan S wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:45:21 +0000,
(David Horne, _the_ chancellor (*)) wrote:

I'm wondering how much I've saved in the last 20 years by never buying
insurance.

You're extremely fortunate if that is true.

On each of my trips I ended up ahead on insurance; usually
only a little.

However, my Mother would have been out of pocket something
in excess of $10,000 if she had not been insured last year.
On a trip to Gallipoli for Anzac Day she fell and broke her
wrist.

There were Turkish treatment and hospital costs, costly
changes to Turkish accommodation arrangements when her tour
had to continue without her, cancellation costs for the
weeks of tours in Europe that had been planned, airline
costs, and sundry other charges. Additionally a friend
stayed with her, cancelling her own arrangements to care for
her and those costs also had to be met.

Both ladies were insured by different agencies, but both
agencies were re-insured by QBE back here. All claims were
paid.

Not having insurance because you have never claimed is as
sensible as a teenage girl not practicing birth control
because she has never had a baby.

The argument here should be about the quality of that
insurance, not the need for it.

Cheers, Alan, Australia

We have travelled for years without any insurance, but now that we are
in our 80s we have decided to get it, and on our last trip we had to cancel
due to a death in the family. The insurance re-imbursed us for the whole of
the pre-paid tour, minus a processing fee. Without the insurance the loss
would have been over $6000.00!