That sounds excellent and I will definitely keep that in mind for future international travel, especially as we age.
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Hmmm…. I don’t remember that being the company they recommended who was the provider for the USAA travel insurance in the past
The company is Travel Insured International and links directly from the USAA website. My initial quote from them also included the term USAA Alliance Service LP.
I had looked at USAA for the flights but read terrible reviews of the travel agency they were using, apparently a change from an old one. The travel insurance is entirely separate, thank goodness, and got good reviews, such as I could find.
Back when I looked at the USAA travel insurance the company they used seemed to have limited medical benefits
For the lower cost plan and the plan with better medical benefits was expensive. I was with a relative at the time who was very focused on that because he had a lot of medical concerns and recommended that we look at plans with good medical benefits, and there were better options with better pricing. I was surprised
I just priced it out for my 88 yr old mom for $2500 travel cost, and the premium was around 450. It’s a bit expensive.
the rates vary by age - I am sure it is high because of her age. I travelled with my 30 year old daughter and her premium was 1/3 of mine (63 at the time). (this was GeoBlue)
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I get a lot of travel protections via AmEx Platinum, including emergency medical evacuation. The card fee is high, but it comes with a lot of benefits.
We are using TravelEx for our travel insurance.
We’re in our earlier 70’s and five days coverage was $68.90 so that seemed fair.
If you’re mainly interested in medical coverage, you can input a lower travel cost. Someone gave me that tip and it has worked well for me.
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Same - I checked USAA as well when planning for my trips a few years ago, they never came out the best option so I quit looking. Maybe I need to check them again.
Most of our trip is fully covered under the Globus insurance, which was about $700 for two weeks. That’s our big money commitment so needs major coverage. We then only wanted to cover medical for the few days afterwards; hotels is with points and the bigger airfare can be credited if cancelled. I checked various companies but only USAA had a plan mainly for medical; nothing else came close in price.
My mom has traditional Medicare (A&B) and federal employee retirement health insurance (BCBS) as a supplement to Medicare. She doesn’t pay anything out of pocket because BCBS will cover anything that Medicare doesn’t cover.
When she travels overseas, will she need medical insurance? I guess we could call BCBS directly…
I agree it’s safest to call BCBS directly. I was told for H’s BCBS, they’d cover up to usual and customary charges as out of network if we incur international medical expenses. We have only purchased travel insurance for our 1986 honeymoon and canceled so we’re glad we had it. We switched from international to domestic (US) honeymoon.
They may cover medical expenses.
But what if she needs to be flown home in a medical ambulance? Or has to change the dates of her flight because of a hospital stay or surgery? What if she needs surgery and wants to fly home so needs to change flights. Needs a nurse to accompany her on the flight? Or tragedy strikes and passes away on a trip and needs to be flown home?
Medical insurance is only one of the issues encountered when traveling. Especially overseas.
I’m sure there are other factors that would cause expensive issues when traveling.
Generally Medicare doesn’t cover oversea travel. Check out GeoBlue, they are part of Blue Cross and are reasonable. They also will cover pre existing conditions. You can get a trip covered or a year of travel.
Agree that medical evacuation is one of the more costly things that can occur, especially when traveling internationally. Most medical plans do NOT provide coverage for this. Some premium insurance cards DO provide some evacuation coverage. Most transport companies will require money up front to provide medical transport–via high limit credit card or other means.
GeoBlue plans cover medical evacuation (up to $500,000) and reparation of remains ($25,000).
Good to know—I guess I should have written most PRIMARY medical plans don’t cover evacuation nor repatriation.
We bought a very cheap repatriation plan for FIL (it was like $100). when he passed years later in SF, it paid for his body to be shipped back to HI to mortuary which we had specified. Made things easier and less costly. I think we bough the plan via local mortuary.