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International Health Insurance
04-06-2016, 06:47 PM
For those of you who use World Nomad or some "travel" insurance plan...
One question is, do you use it as your primary policy, or supplementary policy (i.e. you have local health insurance along with travel insurance)?
Have you ever actually filed a claim, and how did it go?
Another question I have when I found these tidbits in their fine print:
1. Coverage terminates once you return to your home country (this seems to conflict with World Nomad's brochure bullet point of keeping you covered in your home country as long as you're 100 miles away from your home address).
2. The insurance company can either determine if they will pay for your treatment at a hospital in the country you're in, OR they may offer to pay for your flight home.
Now, let's say you get in an accident. You go to a hospital in your poosy-paradise country. The doctor decides you need lots of medical care that runs into the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. He calls your travel insurance provider, and instead of covering the medical procedures your doctor wants to do, they offer to fly you home on their dime. That's nice, but once you get home, they no longer cover you (see point #1 above)... and if you don't have coverage at home, you're basically fucked, right?
It seems like a sneaky way to get out of paying for high-cost medical coverage. For that reason, do you buy local health insurance wherever you go, on top of travel insurance?
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International Health Insurance
04-07-2016, 04:37 AM
That's why you need coverage in your home country in addition to travel insurance. I'm insured for inpatient and catastrophic illness or injury in Thailand and usually buy insurance when I travel in the region. Spent a lot of time researching plans and to be honest, found a lot of the info confusing and the local reps not very knowledgeable; +1 for Canada even with it's flawed system.
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International Health Insurance
04-07-2016, 05:19 AM
Not familiar with World Nomads, but...
Travel insurance probably isn't what you need if you're planning to emigrate. Those plans usually only cover emergency medical and some travel-related expenses like lost luggage, cancelled/missed flights, etc. Also keep in mind that you usually need to have a return ticket to your home country, otherwise the policy may be invalid.
Better and more comprehensive medical insurance plans are available for expats. Some of them cover travel medical expenses as well as treatment in your 'home' country. The larger ones have a list of preferred clinics where you can get treatment without having to pay, collect invoices, lodge claims, etc. - you just go there and get treated.
You'll probably find it cheaper to buy a worldwide (excluding US) expat policy (Allianz, AXA, BUPA, etc. or contact one of the brokers I listed earlier). Then buy short-term travel insurance for your trips to the US as that's usually the expensive part.
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International Health Insurance
02-11-2019, 02:09 PM
Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but I have a question I have been researching for weeks and cannot find an answer to. Not on this forum, not on reddit, not on DuckDuckGo, not anywhere: Does anyone have experience filing a claim with expat/international health insurance?
Note: I'm not talking about travel insurance. I'm talking about insurance that will cover your treatment wherever you are (outside US/Canada, etc.) even if you don't have a permanent country-specific insurance. Stuff like Cigna Global, Aetna International, IMG Global, Integra Global, to name just the most popular ones on this and other forums. There is a lot of options out there, and I can read insurance documents but I need some assurance that when s**t hits the fan, bills get big, which is the only time when having insurance actually matters, my insurer won't pull all their lawyers to dodge the claim. All I can find is paid-for positive reviews or very bad reviews, most likely sponsored by the competition. So, once again: Has anyone here ever filed a claim with international/expat health insurace? If so, how was the experience?
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International Health Insurance
02-12-2019, 03:41 AM
Quote: (02-11-2019 11:10 PM)tatted-mormon Wrote:
Found this recently. $40/m for international coverage. I'm probably going to be using it on my next trip.
https://www.safetywing.com
SafetyWing is a travel insurance, not international health insurance.
Quote: (02-12-2019 12:58 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:
One claim was covered but didn't pay out because it amounted to less than the deductible. The other was denied due to "pre-existing conditions", but that's not the problem.
Do you think the refusals were legit? Who was the provider?
Quote: (02-12-2019 12:58 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:
I'm now weighing the option of going with a local insurance provider that does have a contract with hospitals here (and buying travel insurance whenever I fly to other countries), or just paying routine medical expenses out of pocket while maintaining an international policy purely to cover catastrophes.
Yeah, I'm trying to find the latter - international health insurance with high deductible (5k-10k). But the former might make much more sense. Which country are you thinking of to get a local health insurance?
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International Health Insurance
02-12-2019, 03:51 AM
^ about the refusal, I don’t like it, but objectively, it’s legit. Can’t really argue against it.
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International Health Insurance
02-13-2019, 04:50 PM
Oh, the other thing about travel insurance: I know that 90% of you guys will ignore this advice, but always read the actual insurance terms of competing insurance policies before making a purchase -- especially the exclusions section. Obviously, extreme sports and things such as hand gliding and mountain climbing will be excluded (or perhaps you don't know that either), but I have seen travel insurance policies that excluded any injuries or accidents stemming from alcohol use. Have a few drinks and accidentally step in front a car and you need to cover $100,000 in medical expenses? So sorry, not covered. You should have read the policy. If two travel insurance policies cost about the same amount and have similar coverage, but one has an exclusion for alcohol use, which policy would you purchase? If you never bother to read the fine print, you just might buy the policy with the alcohol exclusion.
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International Health Insurance
02-13-2019, 06:47 PM
I haven't seen a policy without the alcohol exclusion.
Is there such a thing?
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International Health Insurance
02-14-2019, 04:34 AM
Unfortunately, GeoBlue is only for Americans.