Actually, no. You screwed up by moving it back. What about the “I pit shitty drivers” thread?
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Thanks for the advice.
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I just moved it.
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Any additional discussion of this thread’s location should go in a PM or email or a thread in ATMB.
Thanks!
Gfactor
Pit Moderator
It’s been a while, but I think the last time I bought health insurance for a trip to the US, I bought US$1M. Not sure of the exact figure, but that sounds about right. Are there really policies for sale in Europe that only offer US$700 in benefits?
I cannot imagine going to the US with less than $1M of umbrella coverage–my Canadian plan will pick up the first (small) bit, but I’d have to make good on the rest, and the plans for sale here for vacationers will do that.
It sounded ridiculous to me too, like the kind of policy you’d find in a box of Kellogg. But from what I heard there is such thing.
She can afford an overseas holiday but goes full Basil Fawlty over 120 Euro? Jeebus.
At least £10million? (over US$16 mil) I mean, U.S. health care costs are exorbitant, but that seems slightly excessive.
Yes, that sounds a bit excessive. It’s not likely you’ll need cancer treatment, or a kidney transplant while on vacation. The most likely scenario of doom is heart failure, accident or appendectomy, things that can’t wait. 20 M will cover all three of those and then some extreme makeover.
For a £30 premium you get all this cover for a 14 day trip to the USA:-
https://www.direct-travel.co.uk/Quote/SelectCover.aspx
If you click onto “view full benefits” of the Gold Standard you will see that it includes £10 million medical cover.
I think that the large insurance coverage is for a worst case; some catastrophic accident which would have you in hospital for a while until you could be medi-vacced home.
Also if you are older (me Mum turned 80 just before her last trip), she had to take out more insurance.
Yes there’s the rub. The £30 premium I quoted above is for some one under 65. Anyone over that age wanting the same cover would have to pay £145. It’s all a matter of risk.
I have no idea what the premium was, but the fellowship I had from my local govermnent while I was in graduate school in the US included medical insurance.
The insurer was basically a middle man; my government would pay for any medical procedure that’s covered by Spanish SS, hospital stays, etc; in case of a serious condition which required hospitalization but allowed for travel I was to be sent home (expenses paid by the policy/my government).
The school refused to consider it “sufficient coverage” and made me pay for their own, much less comprehensive policy, because a policy explained in four pages and saying things like “non-elective treatments of any kind and hospital stays are fully covered” wasn’t clear enough…
And yes, that covered cancer treatments and kidney transplants, although I probably would have been shipped back in order to get them.
My point exactly. Even if you have coverage for a catastrophic condition, if it still allows for travel, evacuation is almost always what you get.
ETA: I am still curious as to where the heck you get less-than-a-1000 dollars coverage. It sounds like some kind of freebie. And does the Spanish gov. cover your medical expenses when you are on vacation (I doubt it, but still curious)?
I imagine that 700$ coverage must have been SOV, Seguro Obligatorio de Viajeros (Compulsory Travellers’ Insurance), which basically covers the cost of a BandAid.
SS doesn’t cover health costs for people travelling abroad (except through the European SS Card, which entitles you to “the same benefits as locals would get” if you’re carrying it and get sick in one of the countries where it works). My insurance was part of a fellowship; if the central government had covered all that stuff, my local government wouldn’t have needed to do it.
That’s a mistake may Brits make when travelling to other European countries and only taking the the European Health Insurance Card. They assume that they can use it instead of taking out stand-alone travel insurance. Although it will pay for basic health care it won’t pay for such things as repatriation back to your own country. Plus, of course, you are not covered for such things as lost luggage or flight delays.
I have reported you to the moderators of this board