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Squaremouth Travel Insurance

If you are on Medicare and traveling outside of the USA, you have no comprehensive medical coverage. There is a clause that you may be entitled to a $50,000 LIFETIME reimbursement under certain conditions. Medicare will not cover any substantial medical problems and most definitely will not cover air ambulance which is inordinately expensive. I have purchased travel insurance several times and most recently from Squaremouth (Tin Leg). We had a trip delay of 8 hours at CDG in France which caused us to miss a scheduled private tour in Casablanca. The trip coverage was for just under $30,000 and the tour company broke out this tour as being $450. Squaremouth requested a variety of receipts including a letter from Experience Morocco which documented the claim but also all of the airline itineraries, airline payment, copy of my credit card bills, etc. After all of that, they found some fine print clause that they applied to my claim despite the fact that I had no control over the delay. If Squaremouth goes to the extent they did for such a small claim, I feel lucky that nothing catastrophic occurred! I will never use this company again.

P.S. Looking through the forum it appears that many travelers have issues with these insurance companies. As an Orthopedic Surgeon for decades, I should not have been surprised and can now add travel along with automobile, homeowners, etc. to the list of how we all experience increasing premium costs while insurance profits skyrocket.

Posted by
30013 posts

Insurance companies are expert at pointing to the fine print to justify rejecting claims.

I believe in this case, it is Tin Leg you should point the finger at. As far as I know, Squaremouth is just a platform representing a lot of insurance companies (a convenient place to make initial comparisons about what is available), and those companies' policies probably differ.

Posted by
3655 posts

Welcome to the forum, gba. Acraven is correct, Squaremouth is not the insurer, they offer a way to compare and purchase travel insurance. There are many of these services (another one is Insuremytrip) but the claim processing is done by the insurer (in this case Tin Leg).

It is understandable you are disappointed with your experience. This is posted under "tourist scams" but many people, including myself, have made successful travel insurance claims. There is a lot of fine print and insurers definitely have ways to err in their favor, but I wouldn't call all travel insurance a "scam."

Edited to thank markcw for correcting the Tin Leg/Squaremouth relationship. There are other company policies offered on Squaremouth so they do also act as a referral service.

Posted by
1403 posts

Squaremouth is not the insurer, they offer a way to compare and purchase travel insurance.

I'm not so sure. Tin Leg says

Tin Leg was founded in 2014 by the travel insurance industry experts at Squaremouth. Designed to meet the most common needs of travelers, these policies offer comprehensive Trip Cancellation and Trip Interruption benefits, and a range of Emergency Medical and Medical Evacuation limits.
https://www.tinleg.com/about-us

And on their homepage https://www.tinleg.com/ it says "TinLeg A Squaremouth Brand" at the top left of the page

Posted by
1811 posts

The actual policies are issued by the following:

Tin Leg’s award-winning customer service department, dedicated 24-hour emergency support, and revolutionary claims process have established the company as a trusted leader in the travel insurance industry. Tin Leg’s products are underwritten by Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance Company, Starr Indemnity & Liability Company, and Spinnaker Insurance Company.

The policies contain the terms and conditions used to determine valid claims - these are determined by the underwriters.

Reading through several sample policies, the trip interruption coverage is rather limited. You would have been better off if you'd been in a car accident on the way to the airport.

Posted by
25108 posts

Since I presume that you are posting this all over the internet, you need to focus on the complaint which has nothing to do with medicare or evacuation insurance. The side topic just makes your post longer and is less likely to get read and provides more fodder for distraction. Also make the connection between square mouth and tin leg so that those responding dont go off on that wild goose chase. And then rope in the claims you got from intenet chat rooms. For instance the insurance sector does a 2 to 10% net profit depending on a lot of factors, which becomes another topic that will distract from your core complaint.

We all travel differently, and we all have different risk tolerances but when it comes to travel insurance (not medical), if I had spent even $50 each trip on insurance, in the last 20 years I suspect I would have spent several hundred times more on insuracne than I gained back because of a covered event.

Posted by
2606 posts

The search function and available policies on the Squaremouth website work well in my opinion. Determine risks worth covering or not. My opinion is that medical "events" are the largest potential risk and least likely to happen. Still....such can happen, as a family member was hospitalized for several days during one of our trips.

Posted by
216 posts

I like Squaremouth. As Mr É points out, we all have different risk tolerances and different insurance needs. As for Medicare that the OP mentions, coverage is different depending on the specific plan's Schedule of Cost Sharing and whether it is Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan. My Medicare Advantage PPO plan covers me for emergency and urget care services and has a yearly out of pocket maximum that includes services received out of the US. My Medicare insurance agent has a client with my same Advantage plan who submitted a claim last year for urget services while in Europe and received reimbursement at the same cost as if the services had been provided in the US. It does not cover any follow-up (non-urgent) care/services received outside the US. I would recommend anyone on Medicare to get the specifics on their plan's coverage and limits.
My Medjet membership will provide medical transport if I am over 150 miles from home, if the doctor approves me to be stable enough to travel.
I have been using Squaremouth to compare insurance providers for travel and find it user friendly. The amount and type of coverage I buy varies, depending on the specifics of the travel and my risk tolerance for loss of my trip expense.
I've only made one claim. It was last year, for delayed baggage. The airline was required to reimburse me for my essential purchases while on my trip. I received full reimbursement for all my purchases... shoes, clothes, toiletries, makeup, and new luggage. The airline delivered my delayed luggage to my home 4 days after I returned home. So my claim was covered/reimbursed by the airline, not the insurance I had purchased.
I have spent a lot on travel insurance and never had to make an insurance claim. I enjoy travel with less worry. I will continue to use Squaremouth as a tool to compare insurance options.