Medical evacuation...small odds...but...

A friend was recently evacuated from Spain to the US on a medical jet with staff, MD and RNs, $70,000 out of pocket, no trip insurance.

Always pay the extra for insurance for peace mind

Most travel policies have medical evacuation coverage. But they USUALLY will only evacuate you to the nearest hospital than can treat you. There is a company named "Med Jet Assist" that has a number of different membership plans. It in NOT medical insurance -- just med evacuation coverage. As long as you are more than 150 miles from home they will fly you back to your home hospital in a medical jet with medical personnel.

In the past four months I've personally encountered two cases of people having to be evacuated: one woman was taken off our trans-Atlantic ship at the first possible port, the Bahamas, but eventually she would be transferred to the US. Impossible to stop in Bermuda due to storms.

The second was in the French Caribbean department of Guadeloupe, where we met two Parisians with spinal injuries from a boating accident who were being evacuated back to metropolitan France the next day lying flat in a chartered airplane. We know the Parisians had insurance; not sure about the cruiser. I'm following janettravel's advice and getting a yearly evacuation plan (AARP discount available for MedJet).

We (I mean Americans) tend to worry about the wrong things. In my state, people are obsessed about imaginary pedophiles scoping out teen-drivers from "Youth Driver" stickers, while most parents fail to negotiate with their children about hard issues of calling for a ride home, or refusing to drive in a car with more than two teens in it. The latter is, peer-reviewed research shows, ... deadly.

You have to think about what your risks are. If you read travel newsboards, you read endless posts about bag-grab and drag incidents. I know someone who fell off a cliff in the Caribbean and has never been the same. Our ski-tripping, older, neighbors just spent weeks in a hospital in New Mexico. It's no fun to be trapped in a strange place when you're 80.

No doubt you have a (swaggering ?? sorry) aversion to "betting with an insurance company." Insurance is for offsetting risk. If you have a risk you want to mitigate, you buy insurance. If you think you'll get back without illness or injury, feel free to skip insurance. But please don't ask me to contribute to your Kickstarter campaign to get out of debt if you lose your bet.

My 91-year old mother just was hospitalized the day before a (ours, not hers) flight from NJ to Colorado. I've been buying travel insurance (which got much more expensive when I turned 60 myself ... ) since she got old and infirm. I look at it as just another expense of traveling. (BTW, because I use a big, reputable company, it turns out they DON'T CARE about HER prexisting conditions! They only care about the TRAVELERS' prexisting conditions. Know what you're buying.)

Edit: I am the one who mentioned "betting with an insurance company".

Since the question was asked, I'll say that we currently use Travelex, and some years ago, used Travelguard. But something (I forget what) changed about the Travelguard policies, and I dropped them. Note that these are comprehensive travel insurance products - I doubt that either company sells Evacuation Only insurance (which was Lee's question.) If I wanted Evacuation-only, I would strongly consider the company that was previously mentioned. One reason is that it's an annual premium, not a per-trip premium. I think it is fair to use the term "luxury product", if only because I learned about it from Andrew Harper Travel.

Can someone post some links to companies offering reputable med-evac insurance policies?

Two local girls here were vacationing in Thailand . Young girls in their twenties.
Car accident, one girl died . Other girl on terrible shape .
Gofundme page going to raise money , so far its at about 75000 to bring the one girl back, but her hospitial bills there are already over 65,000 ...and now they have to pay for expensive medical exvacuation.

Quite a few folks are discussing the foolishness of them travelling with NO insurance , they figured they were young and healthy .
Cost of medical insurance for my daughter when she spent two months in europe was about 60 bucks .

Only morons pay thousands for trips then cheap out on insurance.

Then Gofundme .

Did someone delete a post? I do not see anyone talking about "betting with an insurance company.".

I always purchase travel insurance from Travelguard with a very hefty medical and medical evacuation rider . http://www.travelguard.com/

This year, I decided to get an annual travel plan with Travel Guard - the Business Traveler annual plan. This plan was suggested by one of their agents over the phone when I told him that I want to self-insure our travel costs (flights/accommodations) but want insurance mostly for medical and evacuation while traveling. Being a business person is not a requirement.

For our trip to Egypt in January I went ahead and purchased insurance. I did for our trip to China as well.
I typically do not - but I'll decide for future trips on a case-by-case basis.

For Egypt I purchased from Diver's Alert Network..."DAN". I did a lot of research and, in looking at customer service reviews, none of the companies made me super excited. DAN did answer the phone promptly and had a knowledgeable person who answered. Their prices were good for what I wanted - ONLY evacuation and medical bill coverage. I don't care about trip cost or accommodation cost insurance.

I think we paid about $60 each for our 14 days of coverage. It was $500,000 for evacuation and $50,000 for medical.

I should add - for China we went with MedJet Assist. They fly you home. DAN does not fly you home - they fly you to the nearest "good" hospital but I thought that was fine for the Egypt trip because I wanted some medical coverage as well and MedJet was getting pretty pricey as it was.

One thing to keep in mind - MedJet will also transport the person traveling with you, which seems like a no-brainer but I don't think it's quite that simple. I called DAN about this - do you transport my travel partner or do you leave them in Cairo while you fly me to what would likely be Germany? They told me their policy does not address this but that their practice is to fly the travel partner as well.

I took him at his word, which, as a lawyer, I hate to do. But I did.

I did want to point out that it is good to find out what coverage may be provided through your credit card. Some credit cards provide for medical evacuation as long as you purchased at least part of your trip through the credit card. Chase Sapphire Reserve is an example of this. I encourage people to do a little research to see what (if any) coverage is available through credit cards in their planning.

One minor point to mention regarding medical evacuation. I recently learned from the experience of someone here that while insurance may fly the injured party home, they won't transport luggage so it's up to the traveller (or their relatives) to arrange that on their own. I've had to deal with medical issues during travels, but fortunately I was flying commercial, so luggage wasn't a problem.

One other thing to mention is that if the injured traveller will be using commercial flights rather than a dedicated medical evacuation, they must get pre-approval from the airline or they won't be allowed to board the flight. In my case, my travel agent arranged all that (which is one reason I like to use a travel agent for international flights).

Medical evacuation insurance is a no brainer for me.
I work for a third party administrator for companies that self-insure their employees' medical coverage.

Air ambulances/evacuation has little if any governance and they can charge whatever they please. There is no " reasonable and customary".
We are currently negotiating for the evacuation of a child born prematurely in Ecuador back to the US. The air ambulance has billed just under $740K.

I'll pay whatever I have to for evacuation coverage. In the past I've purchased a $200K max. And I'll put this out there .... it's also a good idea to ensure the coverage includes transport of mortal remains, if cremation is not your cup of tea.

Since I rarely leave for Europe from home in Tucson, most "door-to-door" insurance is useless for me. Now I only buy medical, including all the bells and whistles that I might need. Not only am I trying to make sure that I'll be taken care of over there, but also I want to be sent back home, alive or dead in an urn, if need be.

Even at the higher costs for some one my age (now 71) it's a very small price to pay in comparison to the trip cost. Beyond the need for care or transport, I think of it as a form of asset protection. If I never have to use it, that's fine with me.

Valerie, where did you read that Medjet Assist will take you to any hospital you want whenever you want? That was not what I understood. I just got off the phone with them and was told that you have to be admitted to a hospital and require further healthcare to be evacuated to the hospital of your choice.

I think that this is important to have even if you're going to Europe, but it's particularly important for other parts of the world. A friend from church and a university professor was doing field research in Africa this winter. She goes almost every year. This year she was in an horrific car accident. She was evacuated back to NYC and 4 weeks later she is still recovering. I'm not sure if she is home yet. I can't imagine what it would have been like to add financial worries to the health concerns.

@Darcy - I should not have been so blasé with my phrasing. There is a medical necessity requirement but when I did my research, reviews indicated that many companies, even if you have coverage that allows you to go to a hospital of your choice vs. the closest hospital that can help you - had frustrating approval processes and MedJet assist did not. Their policy language about approval is this: MedjetAssist staff is on hand, in consultation with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, to communicate with attending physicians caring for members anywhere in the world (through translators, if necessary). Sorry for my inaccurate phrasing:) I edited my post:)

Thanks for the clarification, Valerie!

This depends on variables:

Do I trust the local medical care to carry me all the way to recovery? Normally getting medical care overseas is a great money saver (ref medical tourism).

Am I ever straying from ambulance service coverage?

Am I engaging in backcountry skiing, mountain climbing, scuba diving, or higher risk activity?

If yes consider medical evacuation insurance, normally seems silly for Europe.

"If yes consider medical evacuation insurance, normally seems silly for Europe."

Evacuation insurance is probably not necessary for most people, although it could be needed in some cases. A few thoughts based on my own experiences......

• If the patient is not able to return home using commercial air travel or requires medical care during transport, a Medevac flight will be required.
• People who are injured or become ill overseas often prefer to return home as soon as possible, either for a higher standard of care or to minimize foreign hospital expenses. The decision on when to return home may be dictated by the insurance company or the Physicians in the foreign hospital.
• Flying while injured requires prior approval from the airline. Without that the passenger will not be allowed to board a flight.
• Unless one has a Medevac policy where the insured is able to choose the mode of transport, the decision on whether to use a commercial flight or a Medevac flight will often be up to the Physicians in the hospital which is treating the person.

In most cases and for most people, evacuation insurance is probably not needed while travelling in Europe, but may be prudent for travel in less developed countries where medical care isn't up to the same standards as in North America. However for older people or those with specific medical conditions, a Medevac policy may be advisable.

Another company is Global Rescue. Don't have a link, but you can Google it.

pat, whenever my kids have travelled, I have insisted on them getting travel medical insurance. Even if they are willing to take the risk, because they are young and healthy, I told them that no way would their dad and I not help them out if something happened, and we can't afford to go broke doing that.

When I was working my health insurance covered medical evacuation. Now that I am retired I buy Medjet Assist for me and my husband; no idea if it really works and hope to never find out. We do travel in the US e.g. we will spend a couple of weeks on the west coast in March and by having an annual policy, it covers us for the need to be flown back to Chicago from there also. I also bought travel insurance for the first time for our trip this fall; I fell down the stairs of a ruined medieval fortress in southern France and ended up spending 5 days in a hospital in Menton for elbow surgery. My travel insurance paid the hospital directly (about $4000) and then reimbursed me for about $350 of follow up medical expenses in Paris before my fight home. I was injured 5 weeks into a 10 week trip and the cost was around $1000 for the insurance. Most travel insurance policies don't fly you home -- just to a place you can get treatment.

If you are young and can get cheap insurance, it really is foolish not to.

Some elderly friends of our with all sorts of pre-existing conditions recently returned from Myanmar after the husband collapsed and was very ill. The insurance flew them to a hospital in Bangkok and then flew an American nurse to accompany them in first class back home; he needed care and oxygen but they were with the assistance of the nurse able to fly on a commercial jet.

I have spent the majority of my working career doing employee benefits. Right now, I do not buy medical evacuation insurance. I am lucky enough to have a policy through the AD&D policy at my work. It pays for evacuation and travel by a partner, etc. My medical insurance through work will pay for care if I need it. Since I am traveling in Europe, I don't feel the need to buy anything additional.

However, if you have Medicare be aware that it will not cover any expenses outside of the US. If you have a supplement, read it to make sure that it will cover costs that Medicare will not. Many only cover the cost if Medicare pays. So if you are injured outside the US and Medicare will not pay the bills your supplement may not either. You may want to consider additional insurance.

My husband and I purchase annual evacuation coverage from Divers Alert Network for $55/family rate. It covers medical evacuation as well as repatriation of remains if needed, and is in effect any time we are more than 50 miles from home.

We thankfully have never used this insurance but the friend who recommended DAN broke her leg in Europe and after she was stabilized in a hospital, they flew her & her husband back to Denver first class.

The Divers Alert Network (DAN) annual membership is an excellent value as it includes medical evacuation, but the Member Handbook indicates transportation is..." to the nearest appropriate medical facility where appropriate medical treatment can be obtained." Further, DAN will not cover costs..."to transport the Member or Covered Family Member to their place of permanent residence if there are closer medical facilities which are capable of attending to the Member’s medical condition."