I am just trying to understand and hoping someone can tell me in plain language before I buy the policy.
We are traveling to Italy in the fall and are on Medicare with no supplement for overseas insurance. I don’t want to insure the trip, I just want medical insurance. If I understand things correctly, I need a primary insurance for foreign travel. Geo Blue told me this, " Geo Blue is considered “secondary insurance” but when you are outside the US all of your claims will go through GeoBlue and it’s only if you submit a large claim GeoBlue will reach out to your domestic insurance to see if they will coordinate benefits and if they don’t agree to GeoBlue had already paid the claim, they just reserve the right to reach out.
This to me is rather a muddled explanation. Is GeoBlue saying that if something happens, they reach out to your US insurance and if there is no benefit coming from that source, then GeoBlue pays?
Thank you for any help in clarifying this for me.
Confused Onward
My Medicare broker recommended getting the Patriot Lite plan through IMG for international medical travel insurance. The premiums were pretty reasonable last time I checked. It includes coverage for an acute onset of a pre-existing condition provided you are under 70.
I’m interested in seeing the replies to your post.
I’ve bought policies through SquareMouth before, and usually in order to have pre-existing conditions covered, the policies need to be purchased within the first two weeks (three weeks is less common) of the first deposit paid for the trip. There are policies that offer primary medical coverage.
S is traveling next month - his primary medical insurance here expires at the end of the month. So, am interested in learning about travel insurance, primarily for medical reasons. The squaremouth site seems to list policies for as little as 50$ for him, including primary medical coverage.
Question – he’s back in the US the following month, but won’t have insurance until mid August. If he did take this travel insurance for the month of June, can he find something else for July-August? One option we had considered was him taking COBRA for the three months - but that’s close to 2000$ for three months.
@arisamp he could apply to Medicaid or other marketplace ACA plan depending on his income.
My kid’s health is too risky for any gap (type 1, epilepsy, celiac) which is lucky because after graduating they got hit by a car and had a $400k bill. We had her on Medicaid between graduation and a job, and the months long care was covered.
You never know…too many young people are going without insurance!
Yeah, my middle kid didn’t want to get insurance. I told him he would have to get it in order to keep living at home, so he moved in with a friend until he got back overseas. Now he’s covered very well in Poland.
We bought a policy found on square mouth that allowed the purchase within 20 days of the trip purchase. It had healthcare/medical as primary. My DH is still working and our BCBS would cover international travel, but I decided to buy the trip insurance with primary medical anyway
My kid is on a three week international trip as part of her medical fellowship. The fellowship provides their international medical insurance, but I don’t know what they use. When I can communicate with her, I’ll ask. IIRC, because this fellowship involves significant and sometimes last minute travel and often to developing countries…they have coverage all the time. That way they don’t need to get it for each trip.
We’ve purchased policies thru SquareMouth that provide primary medical coverage. In order to have pre-existing conditions waived (and to be honest it’s kinda murky what they mean by this) you usually need to do two things. (1) buy the policy shortly after your first payment to anyone for the trip, often within two weeks. (2) Insure the full cost of all non-refundable expenses. The quickly makes the coverage costly since the insurance will cost 5% or more of those expenses.
Another thing I’ve long wondered about is whether the insurer (even if primary) actually pays directly or if they just reimburse you. I’ve seen stories that seem to imply the latter, but I’ve never had need to use the insurance so I don’t know first-hand.
On the Rick Steves forum I’ve read good things about this agency https://tripinsurancestore.com/ where the agents and owner are said to be well-informed and helpful. So maybe you’d want to call them. I’ve never used tripinsurancestore myself (maybe I ought to). I’ve called Squaremouth before and it’s useless, they’re pretty much reading back the same stuff that’s on the web and don’t seem knowledgeable.
A tip I read is that to insure the trip for a nominal amount but make sure the medical coverage is high. The premiums are cheap that way. If you only need medical coverage
If you have Original Medicare with Supplement G, do you still need international health coverage? It appears you get 80% health coverage up to $50,000 (lifetime) - do you need more than that for international travel, at least until you use it?