Travel Insurance 101

Ted.  My goodness! I spent nearly as much time researching this subject as I did the RTW plane ticket. The options for travel insurance seem infinite and the cost can run to several thousand dollars. What does one really need and what does one already have? I thought I’d share a bit of my findings for those who are curious.  

Medical Insurance

I checked with my HMO, Kaiser-Permanente and they cover medical care outside of the US. Judy’s Medicare doesn’t cover her but her Medigap does so we’re set.

Trip Cancellation & Interruption Insurance

We aren’t taking and planned tours or cruises so we don’t really need this. However, should we ever do that (for a trip lasting less than 60 days) we can pay with one of our credit cards (United MileagePlus Explorer Card Visa Signature) and we’re covered for up to $10,000 ea. So, nothing to do here.

Rental Car Insurance

While we will no longer own a car, we will want to rent one from time to time. Using our United Visa (described above) we get free auto rental CDW (collision damage waiver) – PRIMARY coverage. It’s good in most other countries and saves us the $15-$25,day we would otherwise need when we rent a car. Note most cards have secondary coverage, which only backs up the coverage from your normal car insurance. So, we can waive the rental car companies’ offers. This doesn’t give us liability protection though, so we are getting a “non-owner auto policy” from our State Farm agent which will give us that protection in the US and Canada. It’s around $900/yr but that beats paying the car rental folks $15/day. In other countries, we’ll get it from the car rental company.

Evacuation Protection

We plan to visit some pretty exotic places and are a bit concerned about how we will get to a safe place should we have a medical or non-medical emergency. So, we decided to enroll for a year in a program called Medjet Horizon (see MedJetAssist.com). It is not an insurance company but they will pay for the transportation if a member becomes hospitalized more than 150 miles from home and they wish to be transferred to another hospital for treatment (even within the US). Similarly, they will pay for your evacuation in the event of a crisis such as a natural disaster or political instability.  Various plans run from $200-$800/year and AARP members get a discount!

Just do your research before you take your trips so you will be prepared.  The bottom line is that insurance is all about peace of mind but we are all different!