travel insurance

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset We got year long insurance to cover all trips we take outside the USA, as long as each trip is less than 70 days. It was from insuremytrip.com (we did not get cancellation insurance). Is your trip really booked as one trip ? Or is your trip 60 days in Australia , and then you are taking a 40 day cruise trip. ??

My thoughts exactly. The cruise line is going to offer travel insurance, including emergency evac for health problems.

[Helen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan My thoughts exactly. The cruise line is going to offer travel insurance, including emergency evac for health problems.

My biggest concern is evacuation during the cruise as we could be far from a major hospital This is what my Federal BCBS states, does this seem like adequate coverage?

"Our Worldwide Assistance Center offers emergency evacuation services only to the nearest facility that is adequately equipped to treat your condition. Benefits are not available to transport you to a facility in the United States unless it is the closest facility that can provide adequate treatment. Benefits are not available for evacuation in the event of a natural disaster.

[H2ODude]

Anecdotes do not good statistical analyses make. However, DS works in Tanzania and at 38 had a spontaneous pneumothorax, aka collapsed lung. He has all sorts of insurance through work, but it was a hassle dealing with them regarding evacs. After a week in hospital in Dar es Salaam, TZ, they weren't able to get the lung reinflated. He had just put his pregnant wife on plane to return her to US for delivery. Would they send him there? No, it was off to South Africa (where his care was excellent, a 4 hour special medivac plane ride w a doctor). Before he got there they were expecting surgery, so DW and I flew there since his wife was no longer allowed to fly because of pregnancy. We never thought anyone would pay for it, but the company's special medical insurance covered one of us and his company chipped in for the other (Thanks!).

Once lung inflated and healed, they needed to fly him to states for delivery. At this point it was all in the hands of the special insurance company. Next thing he knew he was in business class to Chicago, with his own accompanying physician, who delivered him to his wife's parents home where she was staying. Two tix business class from Joberg to Chicago with an MD escort (and return). I'd guess that alone was $20-30k easily. The medivac from TZ to Joberg likely that much as it was a special plane, medical equip, and staff, all just for him. All in I'd guess the adventure was at least $75k.

Yeah, most travel is to more medically equipped places than Tanzania, but that experience has us inclined to buy the medical for visits to such places as TZ. With an acute life threatening incident in the middle of the third world, you can't just hope to make it home to the US in time on your own. Well, you can hope to I suppose.

May have posted this before, but when seen by US Dr. was told, oh, you can have this again (had been told by Dr. in South Africa, who incidentally had been Mandela's personal physician for 6 years) and you must not fly again and should always be within an 1/2-1 hour of a good hospital. WTF? He was freaking out as international engineering is his career. Called the South Africa Dr. and he just said, pshaw, that's just US medicine covering its legal ass. You work in Africa and expose yourself to far greater danger so just live your life. It's been three years and no repeat. Besides, while pretty painful and scary, I'd guess he could live through another one even a day away from a hospital. And I do believe airplanes come equipped w O2 to assist stressed folks. Keep Calm and Carry On!

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Helen My biggest concern is evacuation during the cruise as we could be far from a major hospital This is what my Federal BCBS states, does this seem like adequate coverage? "Our Worldwide Assistance Center offers emergency evacuation services only to the nearest facility that is adequately equipped to treat your condition. Benefits are not available to transport you to a facility in the United States unless it is the closest facility that can provide adequate treatment. Benefits are not available for evacuation in the event of a natural disaster.

That sounds similar to the coverage we purchased from the cruiseline on our cruises, that you will be airlifted to a facility equipped to meet your condition. Once in that facility wherever it may be you will need health insurance to cover your treatment there. Our BCBS PPO plan did have that coverage throughout the world but never covered repatriation to a US facility.

The only time we took out extra health insurance was when we traveled to and spent a week in Vanuatu as I couldn't find any BCBS facilities on Vanuatu listed on their website.

On our cruise over to England in April 2016 there was a medical emergency mid Atlantic and a helicopter flew out from the Azores at a range of ~300 miles to airlift someone who had taken ill. (I have no idea who or what the problem was)

ETA
For our 2 week cruise to Norway we will have our EHIC cover for treatment in any EEA country we end up in and will sign up for the emergency airlift coverage from the the cruiseline.

[Just_Steve]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan The only time we took out extra health insurance was when we traveled to and spent a week in Vanuatu as I couldn't find any BCBS facilities on Vanuatu listed on their website.

Still don't but close by Fiji, New Caledonia and the Solomon's do.

[kcowan]

We buy top-up coverage to add to our 30-day multiple trip coverage out of country. It is expensive but better than the alternative. We have discovered that Mexico has a 5-tier charging system and that gringos with insurance are at the top.

I have used it twice each in the 2 previous years, and once this year (broken foot). Before that, I bought it every year without a claim since 2008. I suppose I finally got my money's worth! I do not rely on CC insurance because of all their small print.

[Happyras]

I just compared insuremytrip.com to Costco's travel guard. Same policy was much cheaper through costco travel. AIG Travel Guard Gold for 2 with 500K evacuation. Citi Costco Visa has proven to cover the Trip Cancellation and Interuption costs on the card, so trip cost was quoted with $0 through AIG only to get the medical and evac, all other benefits were just fluff duplication.

This is for our Asia Celebrity cruise in Dec, BTW.

[explanade]

I've used insuremytrip a few times and used Squaremouth once based on the recommendations in this thread. In particular, Squaremouth offers primary medical coverage filter.

IIRC, insuremytrip's lowest priced coverage is cheaper than Squaremouth but SM has primary medical and things like more coverage for baggage and personal property. Not a lot of coverage but maybe useful in case your homeowner's deductible is too high.

One thing I just noticed though is that insuremytrip policies have some minimal dental coverage in case of accident. Only a couple hundred but it's something compared to nothing listed in Squaremouth.

So I wonder, as useful as primary medical would be, especially with high deductible health insurance these days, maybe dental could be useful too, if you say chip a tooth or something.

Anybody ever had the need for emergency dental care while traveling abroad?

[Sunset]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Happyras I just compared insuremytrip.com to Costco's travel guard. Same policy was much cheaper through costco travel. AIG Travel Guard Gold for 2 with 500K evacuation. Citi Costco Visa has proven to cover the Trip Cancellation and Interuption costs on the card, so trip cost was quoted with $0 through AIG only to get the medical and evac, all other benefits were just fluff duplication. This is for our Asia Celebrity cruise in Dec, BTW.

Citi Costco Visa no longer covers travel , they removed that benefit.

[explanade]

Also any experiences with World Nomads?

They cost about 60% more for a short trip (2-3 weeks) but they do have higher coverage limits.

Apparently uses Nationwide Insurance.

[Happyras]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset Citi Costco Visa no longer covers travel , they removed that benefit.

Sadly yes, We are leaving for NZ and AU next month and have to figure this out. My G plan has international coverage, but I am new to it. My wife is not on it yet so we need to do some insurance still for her. We travel a lot so maybe we will buy a 1 year plan.

[explanade]

Hmm, you might have wanted cancellation coverage in case your trip is affected adversely by the fires over there.

[nwsteve]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Happyras Sadly yes, We are leaving for NZ and AU next month and have to figure this out. My G plan has international coverage, but I am new to it. My wife is not on it yet so we need to do some insurance still for her. We travel a lot so maybe we will buy a 1 year plan.

We used Medicare International coverage ONCE and now make sure we pay for primary medical when we travel. Also don't forget it only covers 50k lifetime and no emergency evac. It probably depends on who writes your Plan G but in our case it was a Blue. At that time, international claim processing was handled I think for all Blues by an entity in Florida. They took FOREVER, and demanded levels of documentation including translation of foreign hospital bill. You also have to pay the bill yourself and then submit subject to a 20% deductible. The remaining balance is subject to the entities schedule of "normal and customary"
We rely on an annual emergency evac subscription and our Chase Sapphire for cancellation coverage and non medical.

[explanade]

I have Chase Sapphire Reserve, but you have to book the common carrier with that card to get the travel insurance benefits.

I kind of figured you can get trip coverage with $250k evacuation coverage for like $40-50.

But I've heard that the carrier may not approve evacuation and even if it does, it doesn't necessarily mean repatriation. You would have no say in where you're evacuated to, unless you buy your own evacuation coverage, like MedJetAssist.


BTW, Chase Sapphire Reserve annual fee going up to $550 though they will give you some Lyft credits.

[Sunset]

I posted this in another thread, but it's also applicable to this one as it deals with travel coverage:

I just learned a low cost $110 lesson about CC travel coverage.

Our flight back from a trip was delayed 19 hours, so I called the Citi AA Advantage number to make the first ever claim against a CC insurance.
Turns out Citi removed travel coverage on many CC's on Sept 22, 2019 so my claim was denied as I bought the tickets after that date.

I never received a notification about this change as far as I know, and only learned of the Citi Costco card dropping Travel coverage on this site, which I did phone about to confirm months ago.

So anyone using a CC and depending upon travel coverage, may want to phone the CC company prior to trip purchase to confirm it's still effective.

[athena53]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Helen My biggest concern is evacuation during the cruise as we could be far from a major hospital This is what my Federal BCBS states, does this seem like adequate coverage? "Our Worldwide Assistance Center offers emergency evacuation services only to the nearest facility that is adequately equipped to treat your condition. Benefits are not available to transport you to a facility in the United States unless it is the closest facility that can provide adequate treatment. Benefits are not available for evacuation in the event of a natural disaster.

Last month a friend got a call that his brother, who had been traveling with friends on a Caribbean Cruise, had had a transient ischemic attack and had been taken to a hospital in St. Kitts. My friend dropped everything and flew there- he was the only one in the family who had a valid passport and was able to travel. (One daughter heavily pregnant, another traveling in Africa.) When he got there, his brother had been there for 4 days with no phone, no Internet, no TV and no physical therapy. They stabilized him and fed him and that was about it. No towels in the room, either- families were expected to supply them.

Brother did have "insurance" and I suspect it was something like what was quoted above.

Read your policies carefully. I'm headed to South America for 3 weeks in March, including side trips to places at very high altitudes. I'm in excellent health but I'm a very active traveler. In addition to a decent travel policy I got MedJet Assist, which will come and get you anywhere and take you back in a private aircraft to any hospital you specify in the US.

Call me paranoid but at least I'm protected.

[explanade]

That sounds like a regular health insurance policy, not a travel policy with medical evacuation.

So they just dumped him on the nearest island?

You'd think the bigger Caribbean islands would have some kind of modern medical facilities?

Yeah I looked at MedJetAssist. Annual premiums aren't too bad. Nice that you decide when and where you will be evacuated to.

But are you always the best person to make that decision?

[nwsteve]

Quote:

Originally Posted by explanade That sounds like a regular health insurance policy, not a travel policy with medical evacuation. Yeah I looked at MedJetAssist. Annual premiums aren't too bad. Nice that you decide when and where you will be evacuate to

Here is another option for medical evac. Global Guardian Air Ambulance. https://globalguardianairambulance.c...rontpage/plans. It does require you be admitted to a hospital to be evacuated but you decide to where. It requires any event to be beyond 100 miles (?) from you home to be used. So it is good even in the US when you are in a road trip and somebody T-bones you a longs way from your home. Current cost $385/year for family plan--(2 adults and up to 5 dependents).
Fortunately never had to use,

[explanade]

So I may eat some money because I didn't have trip cancellation insurance for a trip to Hong Kong and Thailand.

But generally I don't think travel insurance covers cancellation for "any reason" do they?

Typically some govt. has to declare things like natural disaster or maybe civil unrest or something like that, in addition to some medically valid reason.

Can't imagine for instance that they'd cover you saying I don't want to risk traveling to a region where the corona virus may be spreading.

State Dept. issued travel advisory for China, so maybe trip cancellation might cover cancelling trips to China. But it wouldn't cover trip cancellation to neighboring countries which wouldn't have travel advisories?

[mystang52]

Quote:

Originally Posted by explanade So I may eat some money because I didn't have trip cancellation insurance for a trip to Hong Kong and Thailand. But generally I don't think travel insurance covers cancellation for "any reason" do they? Typically some govt. has to declare things like natural disaster or maybe civil unrest or something like that, in addition to some medically valid reason. Can't imagine for instance that they'd cover you saying I don't want to risk traveling to a region where the corona virus may be spreading. State Dept. issued travel advisory for China, so maybe trip cancellation might cover cancelling trips to China. But it wouldn't cover trip cancellation to neighboring countries which wouldn't have travel advisories?

It all depends on the details of the policy. One can get cancel-for-any-reason trip insurance but it's pricier, and based on your question it appears you did not get that. But it never hurts to check your policy. Keep in mind Hong Kong is part of China, so maybe your insurance will cover. ALSO keep in mind that no doubt there are quite a few trip cancellation claims now being made, so the insurers are well equipped to find bases to deny a claim.