Retired U.S. Military travelling abroad....travel/evacuation repatriation insurance needed?

You get insurance to insure against the unknown or unexpected. There are a variety of insurances - trip interruption, medical, evacuation, etc. You buy what you need. You can compare polices at insuremytrip.com, or squaremouth.com. We don't worry about trip interruption or medical since medical costs abroad are relatively low. We do carry Medijet for evacuation in the event of something really serious.

I have no idea what your insurance will or will not cover. Ask them, not a bunch of strangers. Your medical carrier will tell you exactly what they will cover. You don't what to believe someone here who says your covered and then find out that you are not.

Whether or not you get insurance for your father is decided based on his health and perceived need.

I am a nonmilitary retiree whose company insurance covers me while abroad. I generally never buy travel insurance, though I do carry a membership with Divers Alert Network (DAN) that covers me for a lot of things like med evac, necessary airline upgrades, flying someone to accompany me if I am traveling solo, and lots more. I always make sure that I am covered for med evac but my medical insurance is more than sufficient by itself. I don't believe that Medicare covers someone while abroad unless they have special supplemental insurance (I'm not that age, so I don't know).

If he has Tricare for Life as his secondary, call their number and ask a real person your questions. I am fairly sure the answer for both Medicare and Tricare will be "no" but I have been known to be wrong on occasion!

here is my newly found respect for trip insurance.....nothing to do with military retirees, tho.....
a friend was on a tour of france/england this summer and had to leave the trip due to illness....yes, so far she was very impressed with the "cost" of being hospitalized in England, but there were the other expenses.....finding a close hotel accommodation for her husband, and ultimately the cost of new plane tickets for both of them.....and she had to upgrade to first class because she was not able to sit upright for take off ......anyway......she is saying that trip insurance saved their bacon!!!

We also have a Divers Alert Network (DAN) membership, which provides emergency evacuation & other services whenever you're more than 50 miles from home. You don't need to be a diver to use it. It's just $55 per year for my husband & myself, so we renew annually and are always covered. We have never needed to use it but a friend did, and was impressed with their service.

Hi Linda, you might try contacting the Veterans Administration at 800-827-1000. They can help you with questions regarding health and life insurance.

I asked this question to an ex-pat, retired military I know over here. He assumes the individual probably has Tricare Prime or Tricare for Life. He wasn't sure about emergency medical services, but getting seen for routine issues on military bases is out of the question, because you need to enroll in Tricare Overseas... which you can't do unless you live in Germany permanently. He thinks it may cover emergencies if seen at a German hospital, but he's not sure. And except for Landstuhl, none of the US bases are equipped with emergency rooms anyway.

Should you get insurance? If you break your leg 5 days before your trip or become extremely ill with the flu, will your father continue on without you? And could you absorb any non-refundable costs (plane tickets, hotel stays) from missing your trip? And likewise, if he falls ill and is hospitalized, will you leave him in the hospital (or even at home, comfortable) and go on the trip without him?

With trip cancellation/interruption insurance, both of you could recoup money spent on your trip and reschedule at a later date, if you wished. My in-laws had to cancel European trips with my husband and me within days of departure (my F-I-L one time, my M-I-L the next). They were completely covered (for around $75 each) and we could have likewise been completely reimbursed for all expenditures (airfares, hotels, train tickets) had we decided to postpone our trip - for around $45 each. (Those particular policies also included MedEvac and repatriation.)

Read YOUR policy information carefully before purchasing and understand EXACTLY what IS and ISN'T covered!!! Many policy booklets (available online) will show their entire areas of coverage, but you may not have bought all the coverage that they offer! You just have to slog through all of it :-( (There may be 18 'chapters' in their policy book, but you have to understand which chapters apply to YOUR coverage; perhaps only chps. 1-5, 7, and 3 paragraphs of chp. 17.) Especially watch out for limitations concerning pre-existing conditions...Call/Email and get Written Clarification on any points you aren't absolutely sure about. Some airlines offer trip cancellation/interruption coverage at the time of your airline ticket purchase; my personal experience is that has been my best deal.

Sorry I don't have any info for you on just plain ol' health insurance outside of the USA; there are others who are more qualified to help with that. But as far as cancellation/interruption/MedEvac insurance goes - I'm familiar with a case of a middle-aged, seemingly healthy, man who traveled to Europe recently. He was going on two tours, and doing some traveling on his own. On about the third day of the first tour, he became ill enough to require hospitalization, aaaannnnnd that was the End of His Vacation. After several days in hospital as doctors stabilized his condition, he returned to the USA for more treatment. So - that's about $1500 in airfare, plus out-of-pocket $$$ for his new flight home; around $6000 in tours (RS'); non-refundable hotels; rail tickets; $15,000 in European medical charges (if I remember accurately)...and he didn't have insurance (wincing). Ouch. If one of the four of us (us and the in-laws) had become ill/incapacitated/died in Europe (or anytime after stepping foot on our first airplane), all of us would have been covered. Or had my sister-in-law or my brother been in a serious accident or similar health emergency, all of us would have been covered to return to the USA. So that's a $45-75 or whatever I'll always shell out! I like to pinch my pennies, but I'm not penny-wise, pound-foolish. That insurance allows me to sleep at night.

I've never priced insurance for an 88-year-old; it can't be cheap but just think of it as part of the price of his airline ticket.

I hope the two of you have great - and uneventful - trips!

Everyone: Thank you all for the detailed replies. I know my dad has a Tricare plan of some kind and I will speak with him about getting extra insurance coverage because, no doubt, it is not the Tricare plan for overseas travel. In the past, I have used Travelguard for some of my own trips and will probably sign up again for this February trip. Nice that so many RS posters are expats and some are retired military. One of the reasons I come here on the Forum. Mostly, I am a lurker. Thanks again.