Annual Travel Insurance Policies

[SimplySuzie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecondAttempt This topic is of great interest to me recently and I have been doing a lot of research - that's not to say I know much though. We live in Hawaii and seem to travel to the mainland once or twice a year and make an international trip to Europe or Asia about once per year. After retirement we will probably do about the same number of mainland trips but longer duration and probably 2 international trips and will expand the list of destinations. I have traveled quite a bit on business in my life including to some places with "challenged" health care systems. My company actually sent us to a physician who specialized in travel medicine and developing world health care, not for care but for practical aadvice. She gave us a prescription for cipro, told us to pick up a bottle of imodium at the drug store and gave us a list of cities to self-evacuate to that have first rate health care. Her reasoning was that very few things are immediately life threatening besides bleeding, some infections, and diarhea. She said most developing countries have decent doctors, they just lack sterility and access to some medications. She said if something happens like a car accident your focus should be on getting stitched up and getting yourself to a developed country. The course of cipro was to take if we felt sick or were treated in a local hospital. The immodium was to shut your bowels down so you can fly and dont die of dehydration from diarhea. Constipation can be treated, death can't. She also said travel medical insurance was probably unnecessary because medical care is very inexpensive in most of the world and emergency care is often essentiall free. My research started in 2021 when we were planning a trip to a country that required health insurance because of covid. I found a wide array of "things" offered that usually went out of their was not to call themselves insurance. I would put them in 3 categories: 1. Health insurance for travelers that covers medical expenses oversees. These are true insurance and sold by big insurance companies like Cigna. 2. Travel insurance usually covers things like trip delay, lost baggage, cancellation if you get sick, etc. 3. Evacuation insurance will pay to bring you home if you have a medical emergency while traveling. As others have said, you might be flying in a private jet with a staff of doctors and nurses or you may be in a coach seat. It also pays to bring your remains home. In my research, I found that our regular insurance covers urgent and emergency care worldwide (Blue Cross and Kaiser) although the process seems opaque. I was able to find the forms and a "user guide" though so we decided we did not need this kind of insurance for now. Blue Cross seems to actually have a network of providers for routine care but it is not entirely clear. For travel insurance our credit cards offer some pretty good coverage and we can self insure by being flexible. I have also found that there are unpubished perks to having status at airlines and hotels. We are loyal to United and Hawaiian airlines and they have almost always accomodated flight changes and other requests without fees and very proactively. I have a long history with united and my partner with Hawaiian both for business travel. Neither of us has must earned status now but their systems seem to have a memory. So for these reasons do not buy travel insurance. We did buy evacuation insurance this year and plan to continue it. We paid $615 for two of us for a year through Global Rescue. That will cover 3-4 planned trips. Other major vendors include Medjetassist, Ripcord Rescue, Safetywing, and others. They will provide evacuation from point of injury (some only do it from a hospital accessible by normal ambulance) to a hospital of your choice anywhere in the world, repatriation of remains, and so forth. They will also provide security evacuation for about double the price. We did not buy that but plan a couple of future trips to sketchier areas and may include it then. Do we need evacuation insurance? I sure hope not. Just like I hope I never have to use the fire insurance on my home. But reaching late 50s and already having had a couple of friends experience issues while traveling (though neither had to be evacuated) we felt the $615 was worth it for the peace of mind.

OP here - Thanks for sharing your research! I appreciate the time. you spent to responds with so much detail!

Based on your feedback, looks like my main focuses should be for travel and evac since I know my healthcare plan will cover me otherwise. Sometimes I do carry a filled RX of antibiotics during my travels, and I hope your Cipro advice helps others too!

[SimplySuzie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marita40 I bought an annual Allianz policy in April to cover a number of trips planned for this year. My very first trip went horribly wrong. I had booked a flight to Quebec through Montreal, as well as several prepaid hotels and internal transportation. The flight was cancelled as I stood in line for it in the airport, and the next flight was not until the next day. That would have been two days out of a 4 day vacation in the airport. So I bailed out and went home. I put in a claim to Allianz for every penny lost, and I just received notice yesterday (yes, they are backed up) that I got the entire claim amount. So, I'm a believer at least at this moment in Allianz!

Wow! That's great! I've always heard great things about Allianz! Thanks for sharing your recent experience!

[OldShooter]

Our thought process over the years has been similar to @SecondAttempt. We make sure our health insurance will cover us overseas and we buy only rescue insurance -- more because we want the logistical support than because of fearing the cost. But having the cost protection is nice, too.

One wrinkle, though: There are a lot of companies offering evacuation services that are not actually insurance companies. No state oversight, no financial qualifications, no state insurance fund. One giveaway is that their web sites will dance around the word "insurance" and rarely or never actually use it.

Looking at the Global Rescue site I can't really tell whether they are an insurance company or not. The word is seldom used and they do appear to resell insurance from a company called IMG, which does appear to be legit. So they can use the "I" word occasionally.

Medjet Assist is pretty straightforward: "We’re not insurance."

Ripcord Rescue is a little hard to figure out. My guess is that their evacuation "services" are not provided by a real insurance company, but they also act as an agent for one or more genuine travel insurance company. So they can also use the "I" word occasionally.

Safetywing appears to be a genuine insurance company, but from a quick look at the website I do not see that they offer evacuation.

So ... I strongly suggest that anyone buying evacuation "services" determine whether they are dealing with an actual insurance company or not. From that point you can decide whether a non-insurance company is a deal killer or no.

For us, I have pretty much settled on Travelex. They are a big worldwide company with lots of troops, maybe even some troops on the ground most places we might go. We have never had a claim, though, so I can't say how that end of the deal might go. But I am comfortable with their credentials. (There is a trick to doing this: Pick a policy that includes the evacuation features you want, and the buy $0 coverage for trip cancellation. more: https://www.intltravelnews.com/2020/...trategy-update)

[OldShooter]

Forgot to mention: We always carry Cipro or Z-pak, lots of imodium (generic: Loperamide), and Tylenol (generic: Acetaminophen).

In addition I have some Tylenol 3 left over from a broken ankle experience. Certainly the codeine in the T3 is long expired but some amateur sleuthing on the internet led me to conclude that it will probably still work. (Interesting factiod: The US Army, for logical reasons, constantly studies the shelf life of drugs like this.)

We also stop at our health care providers' Travel Clinic to get shot up with whatever is in vogue for the countries we'll be visiting. They are running out of new shots to give us, though.

[SecondAttempt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldShooter In addition I have some Tylenol 3 left over from a broken ankle experience. Certainly the codeine in the T3 is long expired but some amateur sleuthing on the internet led me to conclude that it will probably still work.

Be careful withe the T3. Opiods can get you in serious in some countries even witha prescription.

[SecondAttempt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldShooter There are a lot of companies offering evacuation services that are not actually insurance companies.

Global Rescue is not an insurance company. I looked very closely at Ripcord as well and would not rule out switching in the future.