Travel/med evacuation/covid insurance

[DMF Sailing]

Greetings, Forum!

Who has advice on a good short-term personal travel insurance policy that covers medevac, covid-related problems, and whatever else I'm not thinking of?

I'm a U.S. resident with typical crappy pro-forma health insurance that will cover nothing outside the borders of the USA, about to spend a couple of months cruising between the Americas and Europe.

Appreciate any and all practical suggestions!

Thank you

[El Pinguino]

A few leads here
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/trave...vel-insurance/
Top of the line AMEX cards have started offering free travel cover again but not for Covid.

I've bought two policies so far this year - in Australia - that cover Covid and the current one is backed by CoverMore who I think are international and are in turn backed by Zurich.
Make sure you get the cover letter stating clearly that you have Covid coverage as this is a requirement in some countries. The two I know of are Chile and Thailand - I'm sure there are others.

[Rucksta]

Try DAN Divers Alert Network www.dan.org

[svRaison d Etre]

We got AIG, we found it affordable for us (65, 66) no previous condition.

[svRaison d Etre]

Just double check we got it using AADY dot com. For 6 month to Canada or Columbia $978. for a trip cost of $5000.

[skipmac]

I used DAN when I was diving a lot and understand they now cover general travel, boating, etc. They offer medevac home and I think from any where in the world. Check with them with any questions about coverage.

The only issue I found was you must arrange the medevac through them using someone in their network to be covered. So if you're in an accident and the locals arrange transport to the nearest emergency room that would not be covered.

[shimari]

Read the policies carefully not all evac insurance is alike. Some will move you to the nearest hospital that can treat your problem. Some will take you home, and some will take you where you want.

A limitation of all evac policies is that the attending physician and the insurance physician have to agree that you're medically stable to evac. Thus, you'll probably want some sort of international health insurance coverage in addition to evac.

We have medjet assist for evac coverage https://medjetassist.com/, and fortunately haven't had to use it. They have policies for expats (single trip longer than 90 days) and short trips.

Medjet started to provide COVID evacs in late 2020 or early 2021. I'm not sure what the current policy is.

[goboatingnow]

My own view is that unless you are somewhere very dodgy, in an emergency I’d want to be taken locally as time is of the essence. Then once stabilised you could take a view on evac.

[shimari]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

My own view is that unless you are somewhere very dodgy, in an emergency I’d want to be taken locally as time is of the essence. Then once stabilised you could take a view on evac.

Exactly - this is why he also needs to get some sort of international health care as well.

[DMF Sailing]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

My own view is that unless you are somewhere very dodgy, in an emergency I’d want to be taken locally as time is of the essence. Then once stabilised you could take a view on evac.

I figured the evacuation you need to cover is if you're at sea and you need to be evacuated off the boat and to shore. Am I mistaken?

[dannc]

Originally Posted by DMF Sailing

I figured the evacuation you need to cover is if you're at sea and you need to be evacuated off the boat and to shore. Am I mistaken?

The main concern we had was covering the cost of health care outside of the US AND being able to get us back home if we were still injured.

I read of a woman, I think she was Australian, who was on a boat in the Pacific Islands somewhere, who was bitten by a shark. Very unlikely she would have survived at the "hospital" she was taken too but she had evacuation insurance. A jet plane was flown from Australia to the island and took her back to a hospital at home. The plan had a nurse and doctor on board. It took a couple of days to fly out and fly back to Australia. That did not come cheap but it saved her life.

Oddly enough, my kids were streaming some travel "disaster" show years ago. I think the show was from Canada because the people being discussed were all Canadians. One of the incidents was another woman bitten by a shark in Mexico. The treatment in Mexico was a horror show all around but she eventually got a on commercial flight back to Canada even though she was seriously injured. She had trouble getting into a hospital in Canada, but her doctor finally got her admitted, and said if she had delayed another 12 or 24 hours she would have died.

So we get evacuation insurance to cover the overseas health care costs AND to get us back to the US. Getting back home is not to just make sure you get the best care possible, but if one is seriously injured, one might require weeks or months of treatment, and need to be back home with friends and family. Having a loved one stuck in a hospital, in another country with no family or friends to help, is a nightmare. The added cost of family having to stay in a hotel would get expensive fast.

I know a person who have had this happened on a business trip and to say it was stressful is an understatement. The person had a serious injury from tripping over a cracked sidewalk in Paris. They got good health care but being treated in a foreign company, by doctors who do not speak your language, without friends or family, was horrible. Eventually, some family flew over to help but that added to the cost, and they had to stay in a hotel for awhile before they inured person was well enough to fly back home.

Later,
Dan

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by DMF Sailing

I figured the evacuation you need to cover is if you're at sea and you need to be evacuated off the boat and to shore. Am I mistaken?

Could be wrong but I don't think civilian medivac has the capability to lift a patient off a boat. As far as I know that would take coast guard or other military type operation.

Also I think the range of CG and similar is about 300 miles or so. Beyond that the option would be to transfer to commercial vessel that might have better medical resources or at least can get you in range for a chopper faster than a sailboat.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by dannc

The main concern we had was covering the cost of health care outside of the US AND being able to get us back home if we were still injured.



I read of a woman, I think she was Australian, who was on a boat in the Pacific Islands somewhere, who was bitten by a shark. Very unlikely she would have survived at the "hospital" she was taken too but she had evacuation insurance. A jet plane was flown from Australia to the island and took her back to a hospital at home. The plan had a nurse and doctor on board. It took a couple of days to fly out and fly back to Australia. That did not come cheap but it saved her life.



Oddly enough, my kids were streaming some travel "disaster" show years ago. I think the show was from Canada because the people being discussed were all Canadians. One of the incidents was another woman bitten by a shark in Mexico. The treatment in Mexico was a horror show all around but she eventually got a on commercial flight back to Canada even though she was seriously injured. She had trouble getting into a hospital in Canada, but her doctor finally got her admitted, and said if she had delayed another 12 or 24 hours she would have died.



So we get evacuation insurance to cover the overseas health care costs AND to get us back to the US. Getting back home is not to just make sure you get the best care possible, but if one is seriously injured, one might require weeks or months of treatment, and need to be back home with friends and family. Having a loved one stuck in a hospital, in another country with no family or friends to help, is a nightmare. The added cost of family having to stay in a hotel would get expensive fast.



I know a person who have had this happened on a business trip and to say it was stressful is an understatement. The person had a serious injury from tripping over a cracked sidewalk in Paris. They got good health care but being treated in a foreign company, by doctors who do not speak your language, without friends or family, was horrible. Eventually, some family flew over to help but that added to the cost, and they had to stay in a hotel for awhile before they inured person was well enough to fly back home.



Later,

Dan

Having been in hospital in a foreign , sure the experience is disconcerting but the key is the quality of medical care not the language. Civilian Evac can take time to set up , it’s not really an emergency process

Not arguing against evac insurance. I have it also.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Having been in hospital in a foreign , sure the experience is disconcerting but the key is the quality of medical care not the language. Civilian Evac can take time to set up , it’s not really an emergency process

Not arguing against evac insurance. I have it also.

Communication is key in health care.

As someone who has had too much experience, with too many incompetent doctors, who speak my native language, I know how important communication is for proper health care. We have a family member in pain at the moment, actually several, but one in particular has had pain for quite some time and we had a scan done a months ago. The doctor said the scans were fine. No problem. We spent more money investigating other possible sources of the pain. Eventually, we went back and checked the scan ourselves and the radiologist noted issues in his report. It was obvious the doctor did not read the scan report so we are off to another doctor this week with the report and scan in hand.

If that report was in a language we did not understand....

Just one of too many experiences.

Can one get proper health care without speaking the local language? Sure they can, but the odds are much better if one can communicate clearly, and even then, it can be a crap shoot, but it will lower the stress level to some extent. For serious emergency care, you will get what you get, and communication is less important, it is the after care where language enters the equation.

Later,
Dan

[DMF Sailing]

Thanks everyone.

Using your helpful advice, reading the fine print, and walking through it with an agent, I have settled on a policy that looks like it will work for me.