Trip Insurance
 

We're beginning to outline a plan for a November Asia trip, but we will need to buy trip insurance that will cover both Beth and me, if I need more focused treatment. Can anyone give me the name of a trip insurance compnay that will write a policy covering a pre-existing condition and pay when additional medical treatment is required? Thanks.

Let's start out by saying that <i>all</i> insurance polices are written by attorneys.

I got a Travel Guard policy for a trip I took last year. I got the policy through insuremytrip.com, which is an excellent site for comparing different types of policies. For the policy that I got, and for many of the policies that I looked at, the key to getting coverage for pre-existing conditions was to purchase the policies within 15 days of making your initial payment for your trip.

You might also want to consider insurance that will get you back home in a medical emergency. (From what I've seen, travel insurance policies will get you to the nearest reputable medical facility, but not back home.) I've also got a policy with Medjetassist.com -- if you're hospitalized while traveling, they'll arrange for you to be returned home. You can get a MedjetAssist policy either for a single trip or on an annual basis. I don't recall their policy on preexisting conditions.

I echo Rizzuto's recommendations. Insuremytrip.com has all kinds of features and you can compare policies "side by side". On my trip to Capri, I was re-routed due to weather and essentially lost a day of my vacation, and then on the way home my luggage was delayed, so I actually used and collected from my trip insurance.

Here's some more info on the short-term policies that Medjetassist has:
http://www.medjetassist.com/plans/shortterm.aspx

This claims that no health questions, deductibles or claims forms are ever needed. Being a legal eagle, I'm sure there's a lot subject to interpretation, but you have the professional chops to weed your way through it all.

BC

For medical evacuation insurance, the cheapest way to get it is to become a member of Divers Alert Network (DAN). A family membership which includes $100,000 worth of insurance, "TravelAssist" is $55/year.

Below was a recent blurb about Medjetassist. We also want to give them a call to check out pricing and particulars. Yet, the outfit is well known and seems to get good feedback. The pricing, if accurate as advertised, seems good for what is offered, I think:


For a Guarantee That You'll be Evacuated to a Hospital of Your Choice Try MedjetAssist Posted by Arthur Frommer at 6/17/2010 2:26 PM EDT

Travelers who are anxious to guarantee that they will be evacuated home, if a serious illness requiring hospitalization is incurred, often learn that their policy of emergency evacuation insurance isn't quite as effective as they would have wished. Some policies require that you prove a serious level of illness before evacuation will be provided. Other policies simply provide that you'll be flown to a better, nearby hospital that's not necessarily in your home country. Thus, a person trekking the trail to Machu Picchu in Peru, and falling seriously ill, might simply be moved to a hospital in Lima, and not in the United States.

Those examples have recently been used to justify the rather serious fees -- $250 for a year's travel protection -- charged by a company called MedjetAssist (www.medjetassist.com). Unlike many of the other insurance companies offering emergency evacuation, MedjetAssist will apparently evacuate anyone who has been admitted to a local hospital by the doctors of that establishment. And it will then fly the patient to a hospital of his/her choosing, not simply to the nearest hospital. This difference in policies has recently been noted by magazines as distinguished as The Economist.

(A short-term policy covering only a single trip of a few days costs $95).

If you're a person who worries about such matters, you might want to study the website of MedJetAssist; persons who travel to remote countries of an underdeveloped nature might want to consider the protection it offers.

And DAN does not screen for pre-existing conditions.

Andy, I believe Medjet Assist offers a discount to AARP members. And the key to covering preexisting conditions on a trip insurance policy is that you must purchase it usually 14 or 15 days from the date of your first booking, but I've seen some policies that require 10 days from first booking. If you do not want to compare the policies on your own on your computer, call insure my trip directly (they are brokers for many policies) and tell them of your situation and concerns and ask them to recommend the best policy for your situation. I did thios once, and by paying a little more than a policy I was going to purchase, they recommended a different company with much better coverage. I'm happy to hear you got a good MRI report and are making plans to continue travelling.

Doesn't DAN just evacuate you to the nearest medical facility that is qualified to treat you, while MedJetAssist will take you to the hospital of your choice as long as you meet inpatient criteria for both the sending and receiving hospitals?

I used to have American Express, until I discovered they only cover you for 45 days. Now I have DAN and of course my Medicare Advantage that covers me worldwide.

No doubt I could find this out eventually but I still haven't found out yet:

does AMEX cover you for medical evacuation? Does it depend on the AMEX card you have? Or, is there an option to sign up for it before you depart? Thanks.

the other thing to do is to have no insurance and just self insure.... meaning that in the case of cancellation of your trip that you just absorb the $2500 airline costs yourself.... i personally hate to pay insurance premiums for something that would pay only a small amount of money, i.e. $2500. we have dan insurance and are quite happy with it at $55 a year for the two of us...

seeing that you are looking at bkk, evacuation insurance is really a mute point with B hospital right on your doorstep...

"you just absorb the $2500 airline costs yourself." - it can be a lot more than $2500 - if you're on a stretcher, for instance.

The Banker is right, though -- insurance is, by its nature, a losing proposition, on average, for the consumer. If you take 100 trips and buy insurance for each one, you'll spend more on premiums than you'll get back in payouts.

That said, there can be sound reasons to buy insurance. Knowing that you're in an above-average risk group, or being unable to absorb the cost of a loss are two of them.

the OP is able to absorb the cost, but like all democrats he wants someone else to absorb the cost for him...

now this should bring people out of the wood work!!

We are DAN members, so the medical evacuation part is taken care of. It is the cost of the flights and hotels about which we are concerned. It's a straight betting situation. Does it make sense to pay the premium given my diagnosis and the likelihood of having to cancel our trip? We compare the premium to the total cost and use a percentage estimate of the likelihood on cacellation.

Bob's political nonsense is beside the point. He did these calculations as a banker for hundreds of years.

there should be no potential hotel expense as you do not pay in advance..

what's $2500. in the scope of things if you are sick?? and the tickets could be used probably at a later date up to one year...

Like I said. It's simple math. How much are we risking and how much do we spend to insure? If it costs $20 per person for trip insurance, it's a good deal. If it cost $500 per person it's a bad deal. Do they even have arithmetic in Needham? If so, why?

You can look at it the other way-If you can afford the cost of the trip insurance, you can go away with peace of mind knowing that you are covered "just in case". If you need to change your return plane reservations, it could cost more than the original roundtrip ticket.

I did just see a $730 BOB-BKK fare on FinnAir on Travelocity. If we grab that, we may go with einstein's plan and just hope for the best. Of course, i wonder whether the travelocity Insurance would cover us.

I have to admit that I have never purchased trip insurance. I do carry med evac through DAN since that's the really expensive thing one could need. My regular medical insurance covers urgent medical treatment in other countries.

I always pause and consider what I have to lose if there is a problem. Airfare? deposits on hotels? Or what I'd have to pay to get myself out of a situation - change fees on my airline ticket? a new ticket? Each time I've done the math, it hasn't been worth it to me. But your situation is different, so your numbers are different.

The worrisome big ticket item is return to home base if you cannot return using commercial air. Strokes, aneurysms, MIs are all conditions that can be treated in major hospitals abroad. However, if prolonged hospitalization is necessary, especially with complex machinery helping keep you alive, unless you have something like MedJetAssist, I don't think any regular medical insurance policy or DAN will pay to bring you home.

Marija, what makes you think DAN wouldn't med evac you to home if it was necessary for appropriate care? Do you know something I don't know?

My understanding is that they don't automatically med evac you to home, but to the closest appropriate facility. If the closest appropriate facility means home, that's where I understand they will send you.

I know some people want to go home if they need to be hospitalized for anything. They need to buy a policy that brings them home, like medjetassist. Others of us are fine with going to an appropriate facility, like Bumrungrad or a hospital in SIngapore, for instance.

The simple fact of the matter is that the type of treatment I'm getting is available at only a few places in the world. Highly unlikely that there are any in Asia. I'm on protocols for an experimental drug. There's may not be a single dose of this drug in Asia. I suspect that if there is a significant incident that DAN will bring me back to Dana Farber.

<i><<He did these calculations as a banker for hundreds of years.>></i>

Okay, if Bob started working when he was 16, he's a minimum of 116+ right now??? He sure doesn't look it to me!

BC

I should be seething but am beyond it,lol

Aloha!

i don't know about medjetassist or DAN but there is another consideration which is what occurred to me when I broke my foot in Japan. I was not hospitalized but was unable to continue my trip since I could not walk....My trip insurance covered the extra cost of my flight home - last minute - which came to about $1500 over and above what I had already paid for my rt ticket....
This was under the clause called medical repatriation, which the first time I called the ins. co., the rep said was only for remains. ;-) So if you think you might need to go home but have no need of hospitalization, you need to read the small print of the policy you are considering....

Mara, I thought all med evac policies covered medical repatriation, but perhaps not.

From DAN's website: "Emergency Evacuation and Repatriation
Covers up to a maximum of $100,000 per person (if a Family Membership) for an emergency evacuation, or medically necessary repatriation."

Kathie, I know some policies will cover only if you require specialized inpatient care, such as a particular surgery. For example, you are out in the mountain provinces of the Philippines and break an ankle that would require placement of a pin for your ankle to properly heal, but there are no orthopods at the closest hospital to which you could be transported at the time and place of the injury.

BC

Kathie--note the "medically necessary repatriation." If you're in an appropriate hospital in Bangkok the repatriation would be for convenience not medical necessity, right?

Gpanda, in your lawyerly mode perhaps you could call DAN and find out exactly what would happen in the situation where you're getting appropriate care but far from home.

Does anyone have a phone number for DAN?

Kathie - I'm not even sure of the difference between medical evacuation and repatriation and it may depend on the particular policy.
This is what I got from the medjetassist site:

"Worldwide Evacuation and Repatriation
When a member becomes hospitalized as an inpatient due to an illness or injury while traveling more than 150 miles from home, either within or outside the contiguous United States, MedjetAssist will provide medical evacuation and repatriation services to the hospital of the member's choice by a MedjetAssist authorized affiliate."

It sounds like you need to be hospitalized...I find the DAN site very confusing and am not sure exactly what they cover.

My point was that you may not be hospitalized but still ill or injured enough to need to be transported home....

I should clarify that I'm not at all concerned about being treated in adequate hospitals, wherever they may be, for limited periods of time. What worries me is the scenario where long term hospitalization/institutionalization may be required and commercial flights are unsuitable for repatriation.

Gpanda, DAN's ph# is 1-800-446-2671 and they claim the phone lines are staffed 8:30AM-5PM in the Eastern Time zone where you presumably are now.

BC

I'll be interested in the response from DAN, as I've been thinking of switching to them.

When I broke my wrist in Switzerland I was only hospitalized overnight, but tenweb.com sent a car and driver to take me to Geneva airport, and provided the economy class tickets to get me home.

Andy-

I always purchase insurance when I am booking a big trip in advance. Like you, I have that "pre-existing" stigma. I worry both that a) I might not be able to go if I get some medical complication, or b) I'm in a far off land and need expensive medical treatment or evacuation.

I've had medical issues often enough (though never while traveling, so far) to know that they are a real possibility. I would not want to have to worry about money if it happened abroad.

I just bought Travel Guard yesterday for my trip to Turkey. For coverage for both of us, with $3,000 in plane tix, I got the Gold plan at $149. I can increase up my coverage later if I pre-pay for domestic airlines or non- refundable hotels.

It covers everything: cancellation due to med reasons to trip delay, lost baggage, evacuation to the "hospital of my choice" medical costs, costs of an assistant in the event I am evacuated, and much more. The cost is based on your age, home state, destination and your non-refundable costs.

They also have a "silver plan", but for $20 nearly every benefit was doubled. they also have a plan called "My Travel guard" which is an ala carte plan. Under that plan, I needed to upgrade to "additional coverage for other reasons" to get the pre-existing waiver. Even without that, the costs were higher ($199)and the benefits lower. Their Platinum plan seems to be quite high as it is designed for cruise or guided tour packages.

It wouldn't bankrupt us to lose the cost of my tickets if I have to cancel, but if I'm sick enough to cancel, I might think differently. Plus, all the medical costs, evac and other would be very nice to have if I did get hurt or ill on the trip. Just one lost bag, a flight delay that caused us to miss a connection or a night in a hotel would cover the $149 price of the plan!

As my husband likes to say, insurance is a total rip-off, until you need to file a claim.

http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/me...p/handbook.asp

link to DAN's member handbook where the emergency medical evacuation/repatriation benefits are shown....

We've had Medjetassist for about five years since MP began a consulting gig in a Carribean country with questionable medical services. The operative word is "hospitalized" and that can vary depending on whose doing the diagnosis.

We also get travel insurance for each trip to cover the cost of airfare and board in case we have to cancel at the last minute. I've not checked the "pre-existing" condition clause, although I do have a PEC (never thought to read the fine print, but it's a good idea).

Travelguard and some other insurers now offer, "cancel for any reason" insurance. That too is an option yet, you generally pay a premium for that and, last time I checked they cover only 75% of your out of pocket costs, not the entire cost. For a medical cancellation in advance of departure "regular" insurance should cover you.

And, since this is the Asia board: one thing I've noticed with most Asian carriers is a much more liberal cancellation fee and policy as compared to US carriers. Many fares are fully refundable with a penalty of $100-150. Some ultra cheap fares might not be but, others are. Searching for those also is a good option. Refundability and avoiding non refundable hotel rates is always a good thing when traveling.

Amex charges the insurance each time you buy a ticket with your Amex card. I think they basically covered evacuation and emergency care. Sorry don't remeber the details.

Travelocity seems to have a reasonable and good trip cancellation policy. Don't know if preexisting conditions is a caveat.

We have been relying on the Amex platinum card's evacuation insurance provision. The annual cost of the card is high, but only one of us needs to have the card and a spouse and dependent children are also covered as long as they are traveling with the card holder.

When anyone in the family takes a major international trip apart from the card holder, I purchase a policy from the insuremytrip.com website.

I always worry that Amex is going to drop this provision so I have called several times before trips to confirm that they still include it.

DAn may be a better way to go -- I don't know.