Global Health Insurance

Travel insurance is a very common question on the forum. From the search function for 6 months, here are the threads that might help you https://search.ricksteves.com/?button=&date_range=6m&filter=Travel+Forum&query=Travel+insurance&utf8=%E2%9C%93

To somewhat answer your question, look for evacuation coverage, medical and enough travel cancellation/interruption to cover your paid for, non-refundable expenses, ie hotels, sightseeing, trains.

I book cancellable hotels that do not require a deposit so I don’t cover those. And I buy refundable plane tickets so I can cancel for refund if need be. You can self-insure some costs if you want to keep the premium lower.

Does your Medicare supplement policy cover out of country medical? If yes, the norm is 80% coverage, up to $50,000 lifetime benefit. It reimburses and doesn’t not pay out of US doctors/hospitals direct. Medicare does not cover evacuation.

Most travel insurance policies cover evacuation but you need to read the policy. Many are to the nearest facility. A Medjet Evacuation policy will get you home.
If i have a medical emergency, I’d want to go home and have my own doctors. Without evacuation policy, the cost can be huge.

If you have preexisting conditions, there is usually a clause saying you need to buy insurance within a specific time of your initial payment to be covered.
Read the fine print to see if Covid is covered and to what extent.

Hope this helps you decide what is best for you.

We get an annual policy; haven't tried it out yet luckily. But when I had an allianz trip policy a few years ago I broke an elbow and spent 5 days in a French hospital in Menton for surgery. They covered everything including the PT and orthopedic follow up in Paris so I didn't have to rush home halfway through the trip. It was week 5 of a 10 week trip.

Our medigap policy covers 60K of international emergency medical care so we could chance it -- you are unlikely to spend more than that on medical care in Europe BUT the big bankruptcy inducing cost in transport home if that is necessary. That can cost anywhere from 50K to 250K depending on what is required. IMHO it is imperative to have a policy that covers that. For years we only carried a Medjet Assist policy annually that covered transport from anywhere in the world to a hospital near us in Chicago. Our work policy and later our medicare medigap covered potential health care costs in Europe. We aged out of medjet assist at 75 so now we just have an annual policy that covers everything and is a lot more expensive. We never tested Medjet Assist and have not yet tested our Alliaz annual policy either -- and hope we never do. The cost for the two of us was fairly modest and would have covered us if we had needed airlifting home from a domestic trip e.g. to visit friends or our kids.

I don't think it is worth being concerned about trip interruption or luggage or whatever; if you can afford the trip you can afford those losses BUT the cost of a flight home in an air ambulance or with a medical assistant etc can be staggering. We knew someone who had to mortgage their home to fly their daughter home from Cairo after she was hit by a car and badly injured

The 3 month trip adds complexity too. I think medigap policies are limited to 60 day trips and many annual travel insurance policies have such limits. So be sure you are insuring for the length of your particular trip. My understanding is that if the trip exceeds the days covered, the whole tirp is uncovered.

You probably need a 3 mos travel insurance policy which at your age will cost a lot but is pretty necessary. We did that for our retirement trips which were also 3 mos..

Sue first check if you have a Supplemental policy with your medical coverage. We discovered last that ours (Premera) covers us in Europe 100% even though Medicare doesn’t. Some Gold type cards cover your for evacuation travel insurance. Check the coverages you already have Their websites and google can help you sort through them.
Safe Travels.

Check out annual policies. They're much cheaper than policies for individual trips. I'm checking some out now, and am trying to figure out what the gimmick is.

Now, some don't cover trip cancellation, trip delays, or lost luggage. Geoblue, for example, seems to cover just medical. But it's under $500 a year for two of us, in our 70s, under 300 with a lower deductible. Allianz seems to be much more comprehensive. I'm still looking, but this does seem too good to be true.

I am an American who used WorldTrips for my travel insurance in europe. I buy annual insurance which is much cheaper than insurance for just one trip. This also forces me to take advantage of it by scheduling additional trips to europe!

I don't know if this is common in regard to emergency evacuation insurance or not but hopefully my story gets a chuckle. November 2021 in Paris and somehow hurt my knee. I did not fall, stumble or bump into anything but yet could not walk without pain. Went to the hospital, twice but no meds would alleviate the pain. So finally I called WorldTrips. You need to get me home, it's a medical evac situation--"I'm in Paris and I hurt my leg and can't walk." I'm sure she wanted to ask if my leg was still attached to my body? Was there uncontrolled bleeding? Do I need an amputation?

Agents were great but I was still insisting I was in Paris, PARIS, and it was extremely painful to walk. How do you visit Paris without walking? Well I did not want to damage the leg further, so by some miracle was able to change my plane ticket Thanksgiving weekend, get to the ER fin the US and all it took was staying off the leg for 3 weeks to let the stress fracture heal! So leaving and not walking was the right decision. No they did not med evac me back home!

Two visits to the Paris hospital, exrays, MD visit was $250 and they bill you. So charges were very inexpensive. For precise information note American date of birth versus european in case that can cause issues with your insurance. I just needed to make copies of meds, pharmacy bills, etc and WorldTrips reimbursed me. I had a $250 deductible because, of course, I bought travel insurance never expecting anything to happen to me but my US secondary insurance covered that.

I was glad it was nothing more serious but believe it was the uneven payments in Paris that was the problem. I went back there in April and are heading back again next week, again with WorldTrips insurance for a year. Don't be part of a travel horror story and not buy insurance.

janet_kupfer, thanks for sharing your experience. I'll buy the annual insurance, but will probably wait until a little closer to our trip time. Or not; it's also good in the US if we're more than 500 miles from home, I believe. That's on the allianz policy, and at least one other I looked at.

I just had some medical experiences in Austria, I'm waiting to see if I get reimbursed (not counting on it, since these are insurance companies we're talking about).

My suggestion would be to avoid things like trip delay and lost luggage, focus on your health needs. My policy had evac but only to the nearest good hospital, I usually buy Medjet to get back home but didn't have it this time (and almost needed it). So strongly consider getting at least that.

The other option is to self-insure, meaning you just bring enough credit cards to cover the possibility of doctors/hospitals/surgeries etc. and hope you don't need them.

Well if you have Medicare and secondary insurance, that should cover you in the US so would not pay for a 500 mile from home addition.