I was just wondering what the general mustachian opinion on travel insurance is. We live in Italy and don't have private health insurance. We just use the public system, which is very inexpensive, and if we have to go private for whatever reason, we just pay out of pocket (private costs are cheap here -for example I need to get a mammogram soon and it will cost 80 euros privately and another 40 euros for the visit with the gynaecologist). When we go to the US, we always get travel insurance so that our health care is covered as (as we all know!) health care prices are insane there. But when we travel to places other than the US- for example we just got back from a few days in Ireland - we don't bother with travel insurance. My friend told me that we are crazy as "what if something happens while you're away?"
Ireland is a bad example because it's in Europe so we'd be covered for emergencies if anything were to happen health wise through their reciprocal agreement with the Italian health authority but what about when we travel outside Europe? For example, a few years ago we went to Thailand and didn't get insurance. I've read that health care in Thailand is cheap and good but my friend said "but what if you need to be medivaced home?" We have also been to Australia, which has a health care agreement with Italy which means that any hospital treatment would be 100% covered. But my friend said "what if you had had a dental emergency while in Australia or needed Xrays?" Those would not be covered she said so we're crazy not to get travel insurance.
My philosophy is that usually it's better just to take the risk (apart from travel to the US of course!) and if the worst comes to the worst we would just pay a few thousand for health care. We have savings so this would not be a problem. Do others agree with this? Do other mustachians get travel insurance when traveling to non-US destinations? Is my friend right that we are crazy to not get travel insurance whenever we travel anywhere?