Travel Insurance

Travel Insurance covers much more than (limited probably) health care - like flying you back to the U.S. if incapacitated - or changing your non-refundable flight, even theft in some policies

Your regular health insurance may well be good everywhere (except Medicare)

Expect great umbrage from FodorBrits over your tapping into their comprehensive socialized health care - i can hear the keys being beat with excoriations

ttt

It is literally emergency care that is free. If you needed stitches you would get them, but you might have to pay for them to be taken out as removing them isn't an emergency.

All of what PalenQ says is true.

What sort of emergency were you thinking of having?

If you just have to visit a doctor, then our local practice charges foreigners about £50, so you may think it worth taking a risk.

My brother-in-law was recently taken in ill in Bogota, Columbia. He was in hospital for several days and had two operations, including having a heart pacemaker fitted. Then he was flown back to the U.K. and transported to his home, all with a doctor in attendance. That was paid for by his travel insurance policy.

Insurance is always good value when it is against a very small risk of a very large bill.

"Foreign patients owe millions to the NHS"

This article is in today's "Observer".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/sep/14/nhs.health

Insurance is NOT "always" a good value. It depends on what insurance you already have; your financial situation; what you will be doing; where you will be travelling; your age and health status, etc. etc. etc.

And you must STUDY what is really covered in the travel insurance you are considering buying--don't assume anything. For example, many people get a travel policy that includes emergency evacuation, and they assume that means the insurance will pay for them to be sent back to their home if they have a serious medical problem. In most cases, this is not what happens.

Usually, if you read the fine print, it means you will be "evacuated" to the nearest medical facility that can handle your problem, NOT to your home country. Normally that's an ambulance ride if you have an accident or fall ill in Europe.

I always weigh in on this topic, just so people will not confuse "travel insurance" with "travel medical insurance."

There are much more comprehensive (and more costly!) policies that cover the risk of cancelling a paid-for tour due to illness etc -- and there are policies that cover only the medical aspect.

Jake1 is correct that you must be a careful reader of the policy... just as you must be a careful reader of ANY contract you are entering into.

I have found http://www.insuremytrip.com/ to be a very useful "portal" to compare the costs of such insurance. In order to sift out policies that cover ONLY medical needs, one should click on "quotes" and then put in "0" in the blank for "Trip Cost". The contract details CLEARLY spell out exactly what is covered.

BTW, if you choose a plan, you have the option of getting the contract on line or through the mail. Choose the mail, for a small printed folder, rather than 20+ pages as a download.

I agree with Jake and I work in the health insurance industry. Travel health insurance is not always a good value if you don't need it because your own health insurance covers you abroad, and you are going to a country with good medical care as in Western Europe, and you will be in urban areas and not doing risky things. Many medical travel policies will NOT evacuate you home just because you want to, if there is no medical reason for it (ie, if you can get perfectly adequate care where you are).

I have had health care in the British system on vacation, and I paid, but it wasn't expensive. That is another reason why I wouldn't buy it going to the UK if it didn't cover evacuation on demand, because in all of Western Europe, health care costs are extremely cheap compared to the US (where I live).

I think you should pay for any emergency care you got on vacation, and it is unethical not to.

I'm not sure sashh's post is correct... my sister got non-emergency medical care at a clinic in London and they didn't charge her a thing. We had to wait for 3 hours to get in, but no charge.

I still buy travel insurance, though, because it covers evacuation back to the US and things like trip interruption.

I get it REALLY cheaply through STA Travel. You don't need to be a student to use it and it's always been cheaper for me than insuremytrip.com.

An additional note about looking at policies, with Insuremytrip or otherwise. On that website, you can click on the various items and get greater detail. You need to look at what is primary and what is secondary coverage. You need to consider what you might be doing on your trip that might be excluded. (I found some policies deemed mountain hiking to be extraordinarily dangerous activities). Policies can also cover things that might happen before you leave that might prevent you from taking your trip. Just reading some of the coverages gave me a sense of the hidden costs beyond the hospital/doctor costs associated with a medical problem.

Also remember that if you have regular Medicare you are not covered outside the US. Some of the Medicare Advantage and/or Medigap policies will cover you outside the US.

I recommend that you check out a company (from Indiana), Seven Corners Inc., that we have used and recommend to our clients traveling abroad.

http://www.sevencorners.com/

Even though we should be covered by healthcare in the EU, and setting aside extra needs a medical emergency might bring, I still think it's worth having travel insurance for everything else that's covered - lost luggage, having to cancel your trip, being robbed, etc.

There are very frequently posts on here by people whose luggage was delayed or lost, complaining about their airline not reimbursing them - but who didn't think it was worth buying travel insurance.

An annual policy doesn't cost very much, and it means you are covered whenever you leave home - even for trips within your own country.

Lost luggage, delayed luggage--I don't think it's worth paying to insure for such things. Truly lost luggage is pretty rare when compared to the number of people who travel. But it's a personal decision, and it could be worthwhile for some people for their peace of mind.

Trip cancellation might be worth it if you have a lot of prereserved items that can't be cancelled without a large penalty and you are in some grouping that's at high risk for cancellation, but it would have to be a large amount of money to make it worthwhile. But again, it's a personal decision.

I suggest you also read that fine print to make sure any pre-existing medical conditions aren't excluded, etc.

As to travel cancellation insurance..there can be a LOT of exclusions there, also.

"Expect great umbrage from FodorBrits over your tapping into their comprehensive socialized health care "

Written three weeks ago. No-one's raged a single solitary umb since.

By and large, we no more worry about tourists having broken legs mended for free than we expect them to pay to walk across a park, go into a museum or have a policeman tell them what time it is. Apart from a handful of free-enterprise fundamentalists (who believe everything should be charged for, except subsidies to investment bankers), we all accept that free public services should be free to anyone who's here. Not that museums should be free, of course - but that's a different story.

Apart from a bit of moaning about seriously fraudulent medical tourism, we leave all that whingeing about foreigners getting free medical care to the kind of American who thinks sick Mexican workers should be left to die.

Not sick, just pregnant South American illegal who comes here specifically to have a child, then really complains when we want to send the illegal mother home. They say they want to keep the family together, and of course, since the child is US citizen, they want to stay with it. My opinion -send the child and mother back where they came from and let them do the correct paperwork to get back into the states. The child can claim US citizenship and return any time it wishes, provided the mother kept the paperwork.

That is what the EU does, is it not? If I go to GB and do not have correct paperwork to work or do anything else except be a tourist, there less then 90 days, what happens to me?? I get shipped home, and cannot return, that is the law and that is what happens.

We do treat the sick who have no insurance. For example, in Washington, DC, the emergency room that Ronald Regan was taken to when he was shot is now closed, because of indigents receiving services and not paying. The health crisis in US is now to the point of emergency rooms closing because they lost so much money the hospital has to cut them or fold.

flanneruk--well, it's not really free, is it? Somebody does pay for the care one way or another.

jkbritt: where did you get the information that the GW Emergency department is closed??? According to the University's website today:

"the Emergency Department at The George Washington University Hospital plays an essential role in caring for the urgent health needs of the District of Columbia. The department cares for more than 45,000 patients each year including serious injuries as a Level 1 Trauma Center." http://www.gwhospital.com/index.php?&PageID=1906

When I was in DC last year, the headlines in the paper were that it was closing. Glad to see the paper then me were wrong. However, I still say illegals are killing our emergency rooms:

I Quote:

Illegal Aliens Drive Another Hospital To Closure
By Digger

Here's a nice article from the New York Times on the recent announcement by Northridge Hospital Medical Center that they will be closing by December 31.

This follows a recent announcement of the closure of the emergency room at Elastar Community Hospital in East Los Angeles.

Four other emergency rooms have closed in the county in the last two years. The reason given is the high cost of treating uninsured people. The article also states that 70 hospital emergency rooms and trauma centers have closed in California since 1990.

"We're mandated to treat anyone who comes in through those doors, regardless of their ability to pay," Tracey Veal, a spokeswoman for the Northridge hospital, said.

Ms. Veal estimated that the hospital had spent $13 million on so-called charity care in the fiscal year that ended on June 30.

While the New York Times does not exactly specify illegal aliens as the cause, it is quite obvious by these numbers.

"This is definitely cause for alarm," Carol Meyer, director of the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency, said on Friday in an interview.

Ms. Meyer said 30 percent of the nine million people in the county were underinsured or had no medical insurance at all. Statewide, seven million people are uninsured, according to the California Medical Association.

So, lets break these numbers down. 30% of 9 million is about 3.3 million people or nearly half of the 7 million in California that are uninsured, That's just in their county.

While everyones health insurance goes up to cover the uninsured, we get poorer and poorer service. If you pay your insurance on time for coverage for you or your family and there is an emergency you may just end up having to drive an extra 10-15 miles to get to an emergency room. Upon arriving you may be in line behind someone who doesn't pay, but expects the same services you receive.

Something has to be done of course. Illegal aliens receiving this free service should be number one on the list. Preventing illegals from being here in the first place is a law after all. Hospitals should be able to note whether someone is here illegally. The only way to tackle the issues is with full disclosure and good input data. If you don't know the breakdown of why someone is uninsured how can you fix the problem?

The county estimates the cost of providing them with health care is $340 million annually.

Here's a first hand account of the free ride illegals are receiving from Right Side of the Rainbow

The impending collapse of emergency health care

Earlier this year, I had a patient -- an illegal alien from Mexico -- who came to my institution after his discharge from an acute care hospital for treatment of a traumatic injury. Before that, he'd been in the custody of the Texas prison system, following his conviction for a violent offense.

I and my fellow Texans picked up the tab for his incarceration. But the cost of his acute care and subsequent rehabilitation was left uncompensated. I don't know the tally of his bill at the other institution; but at my facility, the average cost of care is $1800 a day. He was with us for 27 days.

<<If you pay your insurance on time for coverage for you or your family and there is an emergency you may just end up having to drive an extra 10-15 miles to get to an emergency room. Upon arriving you may be in line behind someone who doesn't pay, but expects the same services you receive.>>

They may have a broken neck and you have a broken finger. Just because you are paying should you go to the front of the queue?