subject: Do You Need International Travel Medical Insurance? [print this page] Your health care insurance policy will probably cover medical expenses when you are on an international vacation. However, you may still want to purchase a trip insurance plan because it may offer benefits that your domestic medical insurance contract is unlikely to.
Most health insurance plans will cover you for emergencies anywhere you might travel. Your cost share will probably be the same as it would be if you were in network even if you are not if you seek treatment during a health care emergency. The carrier doesn't expect you to drive to the nearest network hospital when you have just fractured your arm or had a heart attack.
Medicare and some other domestic insurance plans will provide no coverage of any kind while outside the country. You should read your contract to make sure that coverage is provided in any country you might travel to.
Routine care is rarely covered well when your are on an overseas trip. Your policy may not provide any coverage for routine care when we do not use network doctors. This makes sense because you can usually control or schedule when you need routine care.
Most of us are able to schedule our vacations so that we won't need any routine health care care while we are away from home. This is fortunate because when we seek to use a non-network provider for routine care, most insurance contracts won't cover it or won't cover it well.
Some medical insurance contracts will cover routine care when you use non-network providers with a higher cost share. It may not be covered at all. You will probably pay more for the care if it is covered.
If you have adequate health care insurance and are comfortable with the way it will pay if you have a health emergency while out-of-network, you may not need to buy a separate travel insurance plan to have your health care bills covered. There may be other reasons that you might want an international travel insurance plan however.
The travel insurer may have more experience dealing with claims from other countries. They are likely to be more able to handle correspondence in other languages, for example.
International travel insurance plans will often have emergency evacuation coverage. This means that if you cannot get the care you need where you are, your contract may pay to fly you home so that you can get that medical treatment.
Travel insurance policies are usually very inexpensive. This makes the idea of dripping your domestic insurance while you travel internationally is a tempting idea.
However these policies should only be used as a temporary insurance that supplements your domestic coverage. Trying to save money by dropping your stateside medical insurance while you travel internationally could backfire on you.
When you come back home, your travel insurance plan will no longer cover you or will only cover you for a brief period after you get home. This means that In order to have health care insurance after return to your home country, you will need to apply again. There is no guarantee that your old insurance company or any other company will accept you as an insured.
It is better to have a mediocre regular medical insurance plan than it is to have a great travel insurance policy and potentially have no coverage when you get back home. Consequently, it is usually wise to keep your regular medical insurance while your are on an overseas trip whether you buy a travel policy or not. If you end your plan when you go overseas, the carrier may not be under any obligation to provide insurance for you when you end your trip.
by: Alston Balkcom
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