IN March Mr and Ms Grumpy set off on their dream holiday.

I’d trashed my car in Elland some months before and rather than waste all the insurance dosh on another costly metal box, I decided to put it into a holiday fund.

The destination was the Pacific Coast of the USA; the whole flippin’ lot of it, except Alaska and Hawaii obviously.

A few days before we jetted off on the vacation of a lifetime a scary thought exploded inside my skull like the airbag that deployed the second my car was turned into scrap metal.

“What about my shoulder?”

I’ll bet you’re sick of hearing about the dreaded joint that sat precariously between my left collar bone and funny bone.

Approximately 98.5% of the columns I’ve written in this esteemed publication have been about it. In summary it has been my nemesis; a wobbly, dislocating piece of debilitating disgrace that conspires to confine me to a sedentary life, watching old editions of X-Games and crying.

‘As any fule kno’ standard insurance policies do not cover pre-existing injuries. America may be the Land Of The Free but it sure ain’t the Land Of The Free Healthcare. As you may have read in my colleague Nick Lavigueur’s column, the USA barely supplies its own people with free healthcare, let alone visitors.

Medical treatment in the US, if you’re uninsured, is eye-wateringly expensive. To have a dislocated shoulder relocated in a bottom-of-the-range emergency room costs around $1,900 (£1,215). Many an American has been bankrupted by illness or injury because they couldn’t afford health insurance or the subsequent hospital bills.

So rather than risk ruining the holiday of a lifetime I decided to upgrade my policy.

The longer I spent on the phone to my insurers, the higher the price rose. I’d started at about £30 and by the end of the conversation I’d been quoted around £260. I shopped around online for some time but the cheapest quote I could find was £170. Nevertheless, paying it deflated the balloon of anxiety. More importantly, it was prudent to cover my shoddy shoulder.

You’d think most holidaymakers would take out insurance as a matter of course but a scary proportion are too lazy, too stupid or too disorganised to do so.

Research from The Money Advice Service last month found that a third of holidaymakers weren’t covered for their main summer holiday abroad. Indeed, it’s estimated that one million Brits have no intention of buying a policy before crossing the sea.

It sounds like one family, from Blackburn, had an infernal time in Turkey. An aftershave bottle shattered in dad’s eyes before he was assaulted by a crazed Russian tourist on the beach. As if dad wasn’t having enough holiday fun, he and the best part of his family were set alight in a restaurant. Apparently a waiter’s attempt at flame cooking their fish at the table went disastrously wrong. And to add insult to their injuries, the family hadn’t taken out insurance. They, quite literally, had an agonising wait in hospital as doctors totted up their £3,500 bill.

I’m afraid I didn’t catch fire at any point along the Pacific Coast. It was hot enough, thank you. And while I didn’t suffer a dislocation on our tour from Seattle to Tijuana I still consider the extra £140 money well spent.

I wonder if those hapless Lancastrians would agree after their holiday turned into a flaming disaster.