Travel Insurance

I've been to the InsureMyTrip site already. I went to Europe for 18 Days five years ago and to France for 10 days two years ago and didn't even contemplate travel insurance. It's only from reading this board that I even am considering it now.

This is one of those questions that really turn on individual circumstances. Rental car insurance is another.

I think your coverage should be just fine, with the possible exception of emergency evacuation. The first post reply you received was helpful for general situations or, particularly, senior citizens, but you specified that you have coverage and access to health care equivalent to what you have here at home.

I think the best answer would be to go over your own personal coverage with your HR department or insurance agent. At the end of the day, personal circumstances will dictate the "right answer". Generic answers or blog articles may not cover your situation.

I always go over my car insurance with my agent when I go; but I haven't worried about supplemental health coverage with the plan I enjoy.

Should have added that we won't be driving at all - just taking trains once we are across the Atlantic.

I think I'm going to see about Evac Insurance as a stand-alone product. But something tells me that I will only find it in a supplemental health insurance package, which will still cost $100+ for the two of us.

I could always just roll the dice and assume we won't be a statistic. Odds of winning the lottery are probably comparable.

Now that I am older I've decided it's a good idea to get emergency evacuation insurance. I bought that for my last trip to France in April 2010. The volcano disrupted flights in the middle of my vacation. I thought, "A lot of good my insurance would be if I needed it and there are no flights to the States, anyway."

I have Regence, which also has out-of-country benefits but does not cover repatriation or emergency evacuation in case of injury. Does your insurance cover emergency transportation back to the U.S. if you break your leg or something?

If evacuation is covered and if you don't need repatriation coverage for any required immigration purposes, I suppose you don't need to worry about it. You certainly won't worry about it if you die.

I am one of those who never travel without supplemental insurance. When I prepay for a tour, it's insurance for trip cancellation as well as supplemental med evac insurance. My employer's health insurance is in effect while abroad, just like yours, but depending on where I am going, I purchase extra med evac insurance. (And no, it's not safe to assume that the suggestion to buy extra insurance is only made by older travelers on Medicare - I'm not one of them.)

My brother-in-law's mother became ill while in Costa Rica on a tour. They had to pay $30,000 UP FRONT to have her med evaced back to the US on an air ambulance. Could you handle that kind of expense if you are in an accident and need to be brought home? Even if you are in excellent health, anyone can be involved in an accident.

I am pretty certain your insurance, like all policies I've heard of, does not cover evacuation back to the US. So without the insurance you run the risk of having to pay for a $25-50K or more for a medical evacuation flight back to the US should you be in an accident. Odds are small, but if your number comes up... Also you should see if your policy will cover charges overseas directly, or whether they just reimburse you (meaning if you have a $15K hospital stay you have to front the money for your insurance company and hope they decide to cover all the claims). Even if overseas providers are "affiliated" there may be surprises, nor is it certain if you are in an accident that they'll take you to an affiliate member.

I'm not sure where you looked, but on http://www.squaremouth.com/ I just bought a 3-week policy for about $40; they have a checkbox where you set the trip value to $0 if you don't want the trip expenses covered, but the policy I got has $1K in trip interruption anyway. I used to use insuremytrip.com but tried this new site after hearing about it on the RS forums, and they found several policies in this price range when insuremytrip didn't find one.

Its funny that most Americans are over-insured in some areas, yet could be considered under-insured in others like travel. Many people pay for low-deductible collision coverage, for example, yet if they raise the deductible they will save the difference in coverage in about 3 years (and if you're not at fault there is no deductible, anyway). But they run the risk of a large expense when they travel. For me, at least, insurance isn't to cover expenses I can afford even if I won't be happy doing so (like replacing my luggage if lost or stolen), but against potentially huge expenses that would weigh me down for years to come.

Many travelers will buy additional medical coverage because they realize that they will be traveling out of network and their benefits for their primary coverage will probably be reduced to out-of-network levels.

Package policy with trip cancellation/interruption coverage can easily cost $200 - $300 however, you can remove the trip cancellation/interruption coverage by entering a zero (0) trip cost. Doing that will greatly reduce the price of coverage and will provide you with all of the other coverages that are contained in "package" plans. On the negative side is that by removing the trip cancellation/interruption coverage you will no longer be eligible for the waiver of pre-existing medical conditions which requires full trip coverage, however, if that is not a concern than you can enter the zero (0) trip cost and save a lot. Best place to get quotes is at www.QuoteWright.com.

Appreciate the tip of setting trip cost to zero in order to get the lowest rate for Evac coverage.

"On the negative side is that by removing the trip cancellation/interruption coverage you will no longer be eligible for the waiver of pre-existing medical conditions which requires full trip coverage"

Some policies have text that requires you to buy coverage for the full trip, some do not. You'll need to check each policy to find out. For example the MH Ross Advantage Complete says "WAIVER OF THE PRE-EXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSION The exclusion for Pre-Existing Conditions will be waived if this plan is purchased within 15 days of the date Your initial Trip deposit is paid." But the Travelex Travel Max policy says "The Pre-Existing Conditions exclusion is waived for You if You enroll in the Plan at the time You pay the deposit required for the Covered Trip (or within thirty (30) days of the initial deposit) and You purchase the coverage under the Plan for the full cost of the Covered Trip"

It's good that you pointed this out.