Insurance for Your Trip and Your Health, Outside the United States
By Teresa Ambord
Travel Health Insurance
You may have the best health insurance in the country, but if you travel outside the United States, are you covered? Maybe not. Medicare and Medicaid probably won’t pay a penny if you need medical care outside the borders. Even if your health insurance does cover you, most likely you will have to pay all the costs upfront and wait a long time for reimbursement. You may also have higher copays and lower rates of reimbursement.
If you are traveling in an area with limited acceptance of credit cards, you will have no choice but to pay cash, or forego treatment. If you travel to a remote location and have an accident that requires evacuation, the expense could be enormous. Even insurance plans that include evacuation often cap out at a fraction of the actual cost.
Like other health plans, traveler’s health insurance will likely also require you to pay up front. But claims are usually paid in 7 to 10 days. And these policies generally cover pre-existing conditions, provided your trip begins within a certain number of days after you pay for the travel, usually 21 days or less.
Other Travel Insurance
Travel professionals recommend trip cancellation and trip interruption insurance. Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 made travel at home and abroad more uncertain, travel insurance has taken on new significance.
After the attacks, many carriers ceased operation. You may have shopped for a great deal, but even if you get a refund from the defunct carrier, it probably won’t be enough to secure an equivalent trip on short notice. If your carrier files bankruptcy, you can forget getting a refund.
Trip interruption insurance saves your bacon if you are forced to terminate your trip in the middle. Suppose you were enjoying the vacation of a lifetime in Europe when you get word that your mother is having emergency surgery back in the States. You can return home early to help out and have part of your expenses reimbursed.
You can also cover yourself for extra costs if you lose your passport while abroad and get stranded while it is replaced, or if you damage a rental car driving through Europe, and you can insure yourself for “assistance service” which provides collect telephone advice and help 24 hours a day while you travel.
How much does travel insurance cost?
The cost will depend on your age and the length and cost of your trip. But a fairly reliable estimation is 8 to 10 percent of the trip cost. If you are over 70, it may be wise to figure up to 12 percent of the trip cost.
Before you rush into buying insurance for your trip, make sure you aren’t doubling coverage. Travel insurance can range from real benefits, to expensive duplications of coverage you already have but may not realize.
In the interest of economy, here are some areas of travel insurance you may be able to do without:
- life insurance if you already have plenty.
- lost luggage insurance is available, but may not be worth it. If the carrier loses your luggage, it will probably give you money to buy necessities, and chances are, your luggage will turn up in a day or two.
- your personal property may already be covered by homeowners or renter’s insurance, even outside the country, according to the Independent Insurance Agents of America. But… items like jewelry, cameras, and computers will likely not be covered. (You can get insurance for your computer at companies like Safeware.
When you buy your travel tickets, find out if the credit card you intend to use offers travel insurance. Some cards offer it if you buy your airline or cruise line tickets with the same card, and may also include rental card damage. Credit cards may offer accidental death insurance and additional life insurance while traveling.
Here’s one Web site where you can compare over 100 different policies to find the best price for what you need. Click here to get quotes:
Here are a few other travel insurance sources you might like:
