Pack up your potential troubles

My young son has not started school yet so I am in a fortunate position where we can jet off abroad before most families this summer.

With just a few days left in the office, I am going through the usual anxiety of ensuring my team are fully up to speed with my caseload, that my clients will be cared for in my absence and that all urgent matters have been dealt with.

I am your typical ‘what if?’ solicitor and try to consider every eventuality. When you have good relationships with clients, you want to do everything you can to help them. I am lucky to have a great team that I can rely on during my time away.

We’ve all seen television documentaries featuring holidaymakers forgetting their passports, arriving late for check-in or losing their luggage. I’ve often thought such scenarios were exaggerated for TV but a recent survey reported that
17 per cent of us have forgotten travel documents and 10 per cent have left behind luggage.

Maybe this is because of the last-minute rush... or maybe we are a nation that does not plan very well?

Priorities change

I no longer live as I did in my teens or 20s. It’s not just about me anymore. I have a young family to consider when I travel, and that opens up an entirely different level of organisation and, to some extent, worry. Now, my holiday checklist includes suntan lotion, a beach towel, travel insurance and wills.

As a private client solicitor, it is easy to update and write my will. However, I don’t have a lasting power of attorney (LPA), although I certainly know the reasons why I should. I have seen the consequences for relatives whose loved ones have been injured while on holiday and have subsequently lost their mental capacity but did not
have an LPA.

If I don’t have one, how
can I expect my clients to appreciate its necessity? So, organising my LPA is now a priority before holidays.

Accidents are more likely
to happen on holiday even if,
like me, skydiving and bungee jumping are not on your itinerary. A more carefree attitude, unfamiliar surroundings and maybe a bit more alcohol than usual increases the risk.

It is easy to assume that UK standards apply internationally – especially when it comes to road safety.

For instance, the UK and Thailand have similar size populations of around 65 million people, yet there are five times as many road accidents in the latter. That’s something for the annual 870,000 UK visitors to Thailand to think about.

Emergency help

Statistics show that every year around 3,500 UK tourists are hospitalised abroad and require emergency British Consular help. Many of those cases involve long-term injuries or
lost mental capacity. Holiday hotspots such as Majorca, Ibiza, Spain, Greece and Egypt are seeing a rise in such cases, according to the Foreign Office. A further 6,000 UK residents die abroad every year.

Despite the evidence, it is
rare that clients contact me about drafting wills and powers of attorney in the run-up to
their holiday.

Too young

The reasons for not doing so
fall into the same category of
‘I never got round to it’ or ‘I’m too young’ or ‘I have nothing to give away’. And in these times of austerity, this is unlikely to change in the immediate future.

I often get asked whether someone needs a will or LPA
and my response is always to explain what could happen if they don’t make provisions. This leads to an interesting question of whether wills and/or LPAs should be made compulsory
for those booking a holiday.

Could insurance firms
make taking out insurance a prerequisite? Or would this mean even fewer people doing so?

Maybe a holidaymakers final call should be: “Tickets, money, passport... insurance, will, power of attorney?” SJ