Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Cawker. It's Thursday the 24th of April.

I have a great pleasure of being in Starrygrad on the island of Hwar off the mainland of Croatia.

But what's taking my attention today is a story that's around from Your Money.com which says that there's a lot of concern about

the reduction in the applications for G-Hick cards. That is the Global Health Insurance Card. And just

to give you a bit of a reminder, that replaced the old European health insurance card after Brexit and you might think that

the term global means that it's valid for more places than that card was. In fact, it's valid for

fewer places. You can use it in the European Union plus Switzerland. You can no longer get

free or reduced rate medical treatment in Iceland or Norway or Lichtenstein.

So that's a quick mention there of what the E-Hick or the G-Hick does for you.

And by the way, if you've got an old E-Hick, European Health Insurance card, and it's still valid,

that will continue to be worth a while for

its duration but you'll need when it finishes to get a global health insurance card instead.

So what do you get for it? Well, you are entitled to be treated on the same basis at anybody in

the country that you are in. That typically means that

in a public hospital, as opposed to any kind of private hospital, you will be given all the

emergency treatment that you need. You might need to pay a bit for things like prescription

medicines. And of course course there is no provision for

you to be taken home free of charge if you fall seriously ill or you have a serious accident only

travel insurance will do that but geihick is something that is a worthwhile thing to have, although it doesn't replace travel insurance,

a number of older travellers, particularly those with pre-existing medical conditions,

might rationably decide not to insure for journeys to destinations where you are covered by the G Hick

and where the cost of insurance would be very

...