So my mom (83) and dad (82) are coming to visit me in the US in a couple of months. They are both healthy for their age and can manage the trip fine
They are trying to get travel health insurance, an increasingly difficult task as they get older (and the US health care system becomes more dystopian).
The issue they’ve hit this time is my mum has a minor appointment coming up in March, its a minor matter that has no chance of suddenly blowing up into a massive expensive medical emergency a month later. But the insurance company they are dealing with (Saga) said it’s a deal breaker, and won’t cover them. I’m assuming they don’t want people to basically use travel insurance as a cheap alternative to paying for private health coverage (or they are just looking any excuse to not cover them because of their age)
So what is the best advice for them to try and get round this? (The obvious one of “don’t tell them about the appointment” is not an option. Even if it was morally and practically an option, there is zero chance of my dad agreeing to that)
Is this likely something all insurance companies are likely to flag? Or could they just get quote from someone else? I am likely going to try this myself.
What are the chances they will approve the policy if they just wait until after the appointment? At that point they can truthfully answer “we don’t have any upcoming appointments”. Though we then have to fork out for fairly last minute flights.
Any other suggestions? (No “don’t come to the US it’s a fascist hellhole right now” responses please)
I have no idea if tripinsurancestore.com handles this kind of insurance, or even clients outside the US, but I have used them for several trips, and have been very happy with them. (I live in the US and used them for two international trips and one domestic.
They represent several insurers and will give you straightforward and detailed explanations of what you should consider and what the pros and cons of each option are.
Although you can get automated estimates on the site, I suggest you call and talk to Steve about your particular situation. It’s possible they don’t handle the type of policy you need, but they may know who does.
Travel medical Insurance isn’t something you have to get months in advance. I’d wait until after the medical procedure to buy it. Then you can truthfully say that you have no upcoming medical procedures.
My experience is with trying to find insurance for “hazardous activities” but the same principle may apply.
I was going to New Zealand and wanting to do things like horse riding, white water rafting, a bungy jump and a walk on a glacier. Every insurance company I looked at had different policies some refused to cover a specific activity while others would include it or do so if an additional premium was paid. Every company was different however, one might allow horse riding with no premium but not allow bungy jumping, another might allow a single bungy jump but not include horse riding and so on.
It is definitely worth looking into other insurance companies, the worst that can happen is they say they will not cover her either and you might get lucky.
Though my mum and dad won’t be comfortable buying the tickets until it’s sorted though, then we are into last minute (ish) prices. I guess I could buy them cancellation insurance for the tickets (if not getting travel insurance is a reason to get reimbursed through cancellation insurance)
The issue is it’s entirely possible they will get past that question then they will find another reason to not cover them
Then I guess you need to ask Dad how bad does he want to visit his beloved son? It sounds like his reluctance not to disclose every little medical detail is the real hang-up. Or like other said, explore other travel insurance companies? I generally use Allianz and don’t recall them asking too many questions about current medical conditions other than recent hospitalizations or severe chronic illnesses. This might be something Saga is doing because they specialize in insurance for travelers 50 and older.
It’s the opposite. He is too honest and is completely disclosing everything exactly as described on the form, and the company is saying no. You or I might be a bit shifty about it. I know I might be tempted to conveniently forget about the appointment, there’s no way in hell this appointment would actually result in a medical emergency, and I’m very skeptical they would ever be able to discover it happened if there was a medical emergency they needed to pay for. But there is no way in hell my dad is going to do anything by follow the letter of the law precisely with no short cuts.
I just played around a bit on their site, and attempted to get a quote for two 70-year-old UK citizens, traveling to the U.S. I was told that they could not offer me coverage, though it did not say exactly why.
I might guess that their target is US citizens traveling abroad.
The point is, whether you buy insurance honetly or not - when there is a problem and the insurance company is on the hook, they will look for a reason why they will not pay for the (yuge!) charges you’ve already incurred. I assume this means they have full access to your medical records, so anything that they can label as a pre-existing condition that would have caused the issue, they may take depending on how the company operates. So be wary of hiding medical issues already on the record.
There are occasional stories in our news about Canadians who travel to the USA and find themselves on the hook for large medical expenses their insurance doesn’t cover. OTOH, “snowbirds” - seniors wintering down in Florida or Arizona - is a common thing, so it’s not impossible.
(A lady I worked with had a mild heart attack not long after she retired. She had to winter in British Columbia for 2 years, the insurance companies said if she was 2 years clear they would cover her medically again. As opposed to the fellow related to a friend, who spent winters in Arizona… his neighbour found him lying in bed with a stroke, his nephew flew down, and put him in the van and drove non-stop to the Canadian border. No insurance.)
The British Insurance Broker’s Association have a special online search function for this on their website. You can specify the medical condition and they will find a broker.
However, maybe it’s because I’m using a search engine in the UK as opposed to the OP, but I’m getting hundreds of hits for travel insurance for older travellers with pre-existing conditions. So I’m not sure a broker will be necessary for such a small value purchase.
I know nothing about medical insurance for travelers, but I’ve worked in the general insurance industry for decades, and this is the usual order of things. Except where policy forms are mandated by state law, there tend to be a lot of variations in both pricing and coverage.
So it turns out a decent number of the US companies such as this one do actually cover non-US residents. Though InsureMyTrip gave me a scary quote (over a grand for three.weeks!).
I looked around and found one, Squaremouth, that did it for under 600 bucks.
No medical questionnaire required unlike the UK ones that my dad tried to get quotes from.
The UK quotes were many times more expensive. Though my dad thinks they do cover preexisting conditions (which makes sense given they had very involved medical questionnaires which US ones did not). This a big concern for him as when you’re his age, everything that is not being hit by a car is a preexisting condition.