I agree you need some kind of insurance but not convinced travel insurance is the only way to go. Like I said, in many countries your australian private health insurance can possibly cover it. Both my l4 and l5 disks ruptured on Tasman Glacier near Mt Cook on a mountaineering trip in NZ and Medibank covered all medical and the ensuing double Laminectomy and Diskectomy when I got back to Australia. On a 30k + operation I paid 500 bucks for one use special swab.
Everyone has their own opinion, all I can speak from is my experience. I travel for a month over christmas, get the northern summer off (june/july) and take another two ten day trips each year. I also live in China now but lived the previous three years in Uzbekistan. More than 12 months cumulative travelling in the last three years alone.
We never use travel insurance. We have a Aetna health insurance for worldwide coverage and use Clements property and this covers us for everything, in almost every country outside of afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and current warzones. It covers us in Australia too.
