Will you still cover me – when I’m 64?

Since insurance companies charge older people going abroad higher premiums thus reducing the uptake, and since many older people are disinclined to make such journeys anyway or abstain from the more risky activities compared with younger holidaymakers, I am wondering how the insurers can have enough representative data to make the correct actuarial judgments on the degrees of risk. I tend to go abroad during the school term times when the majority of travellers are over sixty-five and in their prime – I don’t think many are succumbing to higher-than-usual sickness rates or dropping dead on the cruise; indeed I would say that many of them put the younger generations to shame with their healthy eating [and drinking], sensible exercise and fitness activity, and early nights. Admittedly there is always a handful of ageing reprobates who should be penalised because they eat and drink too much, not because they are over sixty-five!

I always thought the idea of insurance was about the ‘spread’ of risk ! The trend in the insurance market in all fields appears to be the ‘isolation’ of risk. A fair flat rate premium for all is the ideal…..but not in our selfish, scramble for profit, ‘hide’ the policy exclusions, economy …. I doubt !

I can understand why insurers don’t want to take on huge and unnecessary risk, but what really surprises me is how low the age limit is – 65? I wonder how long this rule has been around, and what has to change to make them reconsider their age limit.

People are living much longer these days, and it’s so common for people aged over 65 to be keen travellers that most people wouldn’t even think twice about whether the journey would be difficult or risky.

There’s nothing wrong with insurance companies being cautious, but I think by setting the limit at 65 they are being cautious almost to the point of discrimination – how many 65 year olds do you know who are physically incapable of going on holiday, or for whom a holiday would be a health risk? Not many, I expect.

Noting Richard’s point that some older people are going to die on holiday [just a some will die on the golf course] I still tend to agree with other correspondents that the insurance industry is milking the senile generation [me included] and hoping it will passively accept their unreasonable and disproportionate demands. Our esteemed CE of Which? made the points most cogently in the June magazine [which are herein reinforced by Nikki Whiteman]. And, in my admittedly unrepresentative observations, it is the juvenile generation that is being scraped off the pavements of Lanzarotte and Budapest and delivered home in an ambulance after costly treatment. Half the elderly cruisers do not even get off the ships at the ports of call and nobody on a good cruise ship would dream of eating locally. All-inclusive hotel holidays and escorted tours also cut the risks of mishaps considerably [and consequently the cost of claims] in my opinion. It is not necessarily age that determines risk but behaviour.