Why Travel Insurance?
For your Protection!
You may wonder why you should buy special travelers insurance for your vacation. It’s not just your investment you’ll be protecting; you’re also protecting yourself and your family. If you are involved in a car crash, injure yourself, lose your luggage during your trip, become ill, have to cancel your cruise, or are delayed en route and miss your connection, your ordinary health insurance policies may not protect you! While it’s true that many cruise lines offer travelers insurance, and some credit cards include baggage protection and flight travel insurance, those policies are usually limited, and don’t protect you from many serious risks.
Important Things to Consider Before Planning Your Trip
Do I need long-term medical insurance when I travel?
Long term medical insurance is designed for people who don’t have any other medical insurance. Since most people who can afford it have health care coverage in their home country, comprehensive travel medical insurance is of interest primarily to long-term travelers who have no medical insurance, or who are living and working outside their country of citizenship or permanent residence.
Who needs emergency travel medical insurance?
Travelers medical insurance is designed for people who have medical coverage at home, but whose health plan doesn’t cover them while they are traveling. Emergency travelers medical insurance only covers emergency services abroad; once you get home, you’re on your own (or presumably, back under your regular home health coverage) for any necessary follow-up treatment or continuing care. Most health insurance plans and health maintenance organizations in the U.S. include their own provisions for emergency care while abroad, at least for trips of less than 30 days. Check with your current insurer or HMO before you purchase an emergency travel medical plan that duplicates your existing coverage.
What is Medical Evacuation (Medevac) insurance?
Medevac insurance covers the cost of an air ambulance, attending physician and nurse, etc. if you are injured or so ill that you can’t return home (or get to a suitable medical facility) on a scheduled commercial passenger flight. Medical evacuations can cost tens of thousands of dollars. This is coverage for the really big problems such as a helicopter rescue. It makes sense to buy this coverage if you’re going on an “adventure” vacation, or to an area where you’ll be far from modern medical facilities.
Medicare does not provide for payment of hospital or medical services outside the United States. Medicare provides no benefits outside the United States, and Medigap only pays for emergency care during the first 60 days you are outside the U.S. This leaves retirees traveling for 61 days or longer with only two options: buy private coverage individually or through a group, or go without medical protection.
American Based HMOs and PPOs. HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations), while covering emergency room treatment anywhere, generally provide other coverage only through networks of doctors in your own state. PPOs (Preferred Provider Organizations) cover a greater portion of your medical costs only if you go to in-network doctors, and again, the networks are usually only local.
What does travel interruption and trip cancellation insurance cover?
Trip cancellation and interruption travel insurance covers the cost of cancellation penalties or the cost of returning home if you have to cancel your trip, or cut it short, for specified reasons. The reasons are weather, injury, illness, termination of employment or financial default of the airline, cruise operator or tour operator which results in bankruptcy or discontinued services, terrorism, or jury duty.
Travel Assistance Service, a phone call away.
Travel Assistance Service provides a variety of Medical and Travel Assistance services for individuals — services that no traveler should be without: medical evacuation and repatriation, medical or legal referral, guaranteed hospital admission, translation services, lost baggage retrieval, inoculation information, passport/visa information, emergency cash advance, bail bond, eyeglass replacement, and much more.
Which company do we recommend?
We have used Travel Insured International for years and love the service and pricing! You can get quotes and customized plans right from their Website.
