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Travel Insurance Question

I think my husband and I have figured this out and decided our plan of attack with regards to "Travel Insurance," but would appreciate any advice here.

1) We have confirmed our current medical insurance covers us out of country, including ambulance transportation to medical treatment facilities in that country.
2) We have a MedJet policy for medical evacuation.
3) We use our Chase Sapphire Preferred card for all travel expenses and feel the travel insurance benefit through that card will reimburse most costs should we have a cancellation or interruption of our trip. We are not concerned if not 100% is covered as we just feel that's a risk we can take.

Having those 3 things in place, is there any reason why we would need to purchase a trip insurance policy from Allianz, GeoBlue or the many other companies who sell these policies?
The only thing I can think of would be some type of policy that provides us some additional coverage should we contract Covid-19 while traveling and have to quarantine in place somewhere, but I have not found any policies that seem to sell that limited coverage....and although we'd prefer not to have to do it, we can afford to quaratinine in place, if necessary.
Thank you in advance for any thoughts on this. It can be exhausting trying to research this on the internet!
~Amanda

Posted by
369 posts

Speaking from experience here, be sure to consider how a significant illness or injury involving a hospital stay or surgery would play out. It's not a problem to get reimbursed later for a simple trip to the doctor. However if something serious happens, the hospital may want proof of coverage as happened with us in Belgium. (Don't know about other countries.) We made one call to our travel insurance company (Travel Guard), and they immediately went into action, contacting the hospital to guarantee payment, etc. They also were proactive in contacting us and suggesting, arranging, and paying for services we might need that we hadn't even considered, such as the ambulance ride to the airport, upgraded tickets so my mother could lie flat on the flight, and an ambulance to her house once she arrived home. They took care of everything. I don't know how we would have navigated that situation without their services. And all of this resulted from a simple trip on cobblestones.
Granted, this was something you hopefully will never experience. My point is to check and make sure that your existing coverage will provide these services in case it does. "Keep your bills and we'll reimburse you" is not sufficient in this scenario, nor is "Call back during normal business hours."

Posted by
3347 posts

Looks like you are good to go. Medjet will fly you home as soon as you are stabilized so no ongoing expenses.

Posted by
6713 posts

I think you're OK with what you have, given your willingness to absorb some unexpected costs like lodging during quarantine.

Good to hear of Linda's great experience with Travel Guard. I wish I could say the same after a very poor experience this year.

Posted by
369 posts

Oh, no, Dick! That shakes my confidence in them. If you would be willing to share, what problems did you encounter?

Posted by
30 posts

Thank you all for your comments! I feel a bit more assured now that we're on the right track!

Posted by
219 posts

FYI: One of my friends had travel insurance but she still ended up in a hospital in Mongolia. She said it was much better than she would have expected. I always wonder how long it will take evacuation insurance to actually evacuate claimants. In her case it was a week.

Posted by
1022 posts

1) We have confirmed our current medical insurance covers us out of country, including ambulance transportation to medical treatment facilities in that country. That should not be a problem. Do make sure you have the funds to pay and be reimbursed by your insurance carrier.

2) We have a MedJet policy for medical evacuation. This should kick in if you are hospitalized.

3) We use our Chase Sapphire Preferred card for all travel expenses and feel the travel insurance benefit through that card will reimburse most costs should we have a cancellation or interruption of our trip. Well done.

We are not concerned if not 100% is covered as we just feel that's a risk we can take. Well stated.