A toddler's travel lessons

Paying extra for travel insurance may end up paying off

She was only two at the time and didn't understand she had become wonderful advertisement for travel insurance … a cutie with short red hair and quite a yapper for her two brief years.

It wasn't what she said to endorse the travel insurance but what she did. She tumbled off a fireman's pole at a playground on the Gold Coast. 'Worst parenting moment of my life,” says mum, who in order to minimise damage to her reputation as a mother, prefers not to be named.

Ella broke her almost brand new femur or thigh bone. She's screaming in agony and mum's trying to contain a panic. They get Ella to a hospital in a taxi because on the Gold Coast it's quicker than waiting for an ambulance.

Then the expenses start. Not the hospital because there's some reciprocal arrangement. However there is the change of flights for the family and that comes at a premium. And don't forget Ella's leg is in a splint and you can't comfortably lever that into cattle class.

We're flying business class. Ka-ching! And there's another week's hotel accommodation until Ella's well enough to leave hospital and fly home. We're talking thousands.

But you couldn't insure against what happened next. Right on dinner time, in business class at 30,000 feet Ella poops herself. Where do you go to clean a 2-year-old with a broken leg in a splint? Just when your patience has expired, your dignity takes a battering.

'Not my most fun travel experience,” says Mum. But certainly memorable and a lesson to us all. Don't leave home without a change of undies and socks – and travel insurance.

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