Quote: (11-12-2014 06:01 AM)CodyB Wrote:
I work in travel insurance. These are some statistics.
Rarely costs more than 5% of your prepaid travel cost (it will go up a lot once you reach your 70s)
1 in 17 people claim
1 in 26 people make a claim > $1,000 (Aud)
Out of 1.5M people insured per year, roughly 400 need a specialist medical evacuation
Anecdotally, all sorts of fucked up shit happens outside of the travellers control. Earthquakes happen, relatives die, weather shuts the road to the airport, people put their passport in the washing machine. Shit, something as benign as an inner ear infection will ground you for a week.
Take it out. It's a few percentage points, and most decent policies cover electronics like Ipads / Laptops and shit like that.
Hi Cody, thanks for this info! Since you're in the industry, who do you recommend that's good, specifically for the medivac? Busted laptop I can handle, it's for an elderly relative that I'm more concerned about
Quote: (11-12-2014 06:22 AM)Seadog Wrote:
My grandmother actually had to get a medical evac from Florida back to eastern Canada about 10 years ago.
Honestly it was a painful experience, and I really don't think very high of insurance companies. Basically she had cancer like 3 years prior, but her doctor up here gave it the all clear, and then it came back down there.
They decided to send here back to Canada via Air Ambulance, and then the insurance company didn't want to pay the $37k because they said it was preexisting. The doctor said no it wasn't, but the insurance company said yes it was. So then we had to get the lawyers and doctors involved, but it eventually got paid.
Also be careful with relying on credit card coverage because I know some of them don't cover trips for longer than 15 days. Similar to the free rental car insurance a lot of CC's offer.
Sorry to hear about the messed up experience. So did you have to initially pay the $37k upfront and then try to get reimbursed?? This is probably my biggest fear as I don't just have $30k lying around for an emergency. A few thousand, yes, but don't want to be put in a difficult situation.
Also, do you mind telling the name of the insurance company?
Thanks in advance!