Where are you travelling from and on what passport please?

The 30K is a requirement to get a Schengen visa. I am not sure that is 100% the case for the UK. It is a bit stupid to travel without insurance anyway so just get a decent policy to cover yourself whilst travelling. Most policies will have coverage well in excess of 30K especially for medical insurance.

I'm no aware of any specific insurance requirements for the UK, but as a UK resident I don't suppose I would be knwoledgeable about visitor requirements. I do know that I've read of visitors not having any insurance at all, so i don't think there can be any requirements in this area.

I was watching a programme recently about overseas patients being treated in a London hospital, and the bills being presented after a spell in intensive care were in some cases in excess of £100,000. And that's excluding costs of repatriation. Insurance is cheap compared to the overall costs of your trip, hopefully you won't have to claim, but weigh up the risks of having to find that money if you're not adequately insured.

Yes, insurance is essential, whether there is an official requirement or not.

Whiletravel insurance is recommended for all the reasons already listed in prior posts, from a legal standpoint, travel insurance features in "Section 4: documents you should not send unless specifically requested" of the UK visa checklist https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/549692/Visitor_Supporting_Documents_Guide_-_English_version.pdf

Re #5, actually, I assume some international visitors to the UK who run up big hospital bils do the same thing such visitors do when they run up big bills in the US -- they go home without paying. A question that has come up more than once on the New York City forum concerns ESTA applications and whether an ESTA visa can be denied a British visitor who on a previous visit was treated in a US hospital and received a bill he/she did not pay. (And the answer is no, the ESTA visa will likely not be denied because a medical bill was not paid). US hospitals cannot deny emergency medical treatment based on lack of insurance or ability to pay, and must provide care until the patient is stable, and I assume British hospitals work pretty much the same way. However, US hospitals and health care providers can deny non-emergency care where the patient is stable. In other words, if you want to come here for treatment for cancer or some other probem, you need to arrange payment (whether through insurance or direct payment) with your hospital before you get treatment, and no hospital will treat you without such an arrangement.

Unpaid NHS bills are reported to whatever the UK Border Agency is known as these days. These are flagged against passports and you can be refused entry on subsequent visits.

Tripadvisor staff removed this post because it did not meet Tripadvisor's forum guideline limiting each user to a single forums screen name.