Sue - we usually take out yearly travel insurance, so all our trips are covered. If I didn't have cover in this way, then personally I wouldn't bother taking it out. I suppose it's only you that know if you have circumstances that might need it ie. health issues.

I wouldnt have thought you'd need insurance to cover you for health issues in the Uk as you'd be seen in a NHS hospital or by a NHS Gp should you need treatment. Most hotels also offer cancelations up until 24 hours before so personally I wouldn't bother unless you have an annual policy.

re health issues- I meant perhaps having to cut short your holiday, and having to catch different trains home, incurring extra expenses.

You also need to think about what if you need to cancel your holiday before you even go? If you did then you would not be able to claim anything at all back. If it had not been for the fact that Center Parcs changed our dates over for us, due to my operation then we would have lost one heck of alot of money As it was we had to pay an extra £200 pounds as we moved it from October of last year to August of this year.

We immediately then took out Insurance for the UK, as our Europe policy that we do yearly does not cover for this country, so for those of you that think you are covered may I please suggest you recheck your policy!

Thank you for all your helpful replies, I think weighing everything up I do need to take out Insurance for if we had to cancel.
We used to have Annual Insurance which covered all our holidays but when I had cancer three years ago I have had to get each holiday insured.

Sue

sue,
a couple of things to check
do you have travel insurance through your bank account, as this would probably cover you for missing/cancelled trains etc , but probably not pre-existing medical conditions
does your household policy cover you for articles taken out of the home. most do, and so you would be covered for your clothes/suitcase etc should they get lost/stolen
you can work out how much a medical problem will cost you in lost deposits/costs and then weigh that up with the cost of extra insurance, but bear in mind that most insurance policies have an excess, and that plus the premium could make it financially unviable if you have some sort of other insurance as above.