Holiday insurance - for suckers

My wife and I tend to to take our holidays together, When you've been married to the same person for a few years, such as and eg nearly 48 of them, it's what you do. You plan the holiday, you pay for the holiday, and you look forward to the holiday during the dismal winter months. 

But ah! there's a catch that you only find out about if you have to cancel at the last minute because one of you is suddenly taken ill. That holiday insurance, which cost you a big chunk of the holiday itself, is per person, not per couple. While your nearest and dearest is mopping your fevered brow as you're convulsing and hallucinating with a temperature of 105F, your insurance company is drafting the letter which says: 'so only one of you is dead, then?' And you've cancelled very late (says your travel company) so there are penalties. 

You'll be lucky to get back 40% of the cost of your joint holiday.

Spouses do not desert each other, however great the disappointment at losing a holiday. What do insurance companies expect? That husband will hook up with a temporary surrogate wife, and wife with temporary surrogate husband, for the duration of the holiday? And what do they sign in at the hotel as - Mr and Mrs Smith? Some hotels still look a bit askance at such goings-on.

When a couple take out insurance for a holiday, the insurance should cover both in the event of cancellation by either.

But it's not going to happen. Insurance works by virtue (if that's the right word) of the small print, with all those exclusion clauses that mean they don't have to pay out if you've ever had an ingrowing toenail or an aunt with dandruff.

We're wiser now. Next holiday my wife has invited Hugh Quarshie to step in if I am unavoidably dead, and I am torn between Carol Vordeman and Tuppence Middleton. Oops, sorry. Hugh Smith. Carol Smith. Tuppence Smith.

But we won't be travelling with the same coach company and their insurers again. Ever.