Gran slapped with huge £8,600 bill after error on dream holiday

A gran who caught pneumonia on holiday is facing thousands of pounds in hospital bills after relatives forgot to declare some of her health conditions to insurers.

Grandma-of-five Margaret Houghton, 65, from Warrington, Cheshire, went on a dream holiday to Egypt with her husband Dave, three grandchildren, and daughter Kate when she came down with pneumonia in the last week of their two-week trip.

After being rushed to the Sharm Peace Hospital, in Sharm El-Sheikh, the family was shocked to find out their travel insurance wouldn’t be paying out for all of her bills – which already stand at over £27,000 – despite paying a £165 premium.

Now, her family is scrambling to raise the money to pay for Margaret’s treatment, as doctors say she could need to spend two more weeks in hospital after developing a bacterial infection.

Daughter-in-law Aileen Houghton, 41, said travel insurance company No Limits – which specialises in covering holidaymakers with medical conditions – looked at Margaret’s GP record and found ‘discrepancies’.

Aileen said: “My sister-in-law filled in all the travel insurance to the best of her knowledge, she’s not a dishonest person, she’s not like that.

“The travel insurance have reviewed the full GP record and my sister-in-law’s mistakenly missed off some conditions, unrelated as far as I can tell as to why she’s in hospital. They’ve said she’s paid £165 and if the conditions were on it would have been £245, so it’s been under-declared by 32% and they’re only willing to pay 67% of the bills.

“My mother-in-law’s on disability benefits – she doesn’t have thousands of pounds, none of us do. We’ve tried appealing to the travel insurance, but they’re not willing to do anything.

“My mother-in-law is struggling to get well because she’s stressing about everything and the whole family’s just starting to fall apart, to be honest.”

Aileen said Margaret’s history of atrial fibriliation, esophogal dysmotility, bladder dysfunction, fibromyalgia, depression, and GORD had not been declared to insurers – with daughter Kate only filling out her diagnoses of COPD, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and heart failure on the forms.

The family has already raised more than £2,000 through fundraising website GoFundMe – but faces a bill of at least £8,600.

To make matters worse, husband Dave and daughter Kate, who have been travelling over two hours each day to visit Margaret, now potentially face a fine for overstaying their Egyptian visas after forgetting to renew them.

Aileen added: “We’re worried because none of us are rich, people’s jobs aren’t secure.

“If we wipe out every bit of savings any of us have got, if one of us gets made redundant we won’t be able to make mortgage payments.”

No Limits Travel Insurance has been contacted for comment.