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TRAVEL INSURANCE HORROR STORIES - WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER TRAVEL WITHOUT IT

M

MULTIZ321

TUG Member
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Location
FT. LAUDERDALE, FL
Resorts Owned
BLUEWATER BY SPINNAKER HHI
ROYAL HOLIDAY CLUB RHC (POINTS)
I don't know why anybody, regardless of their age, would go anywhere without travel insurance.
I worked with a guy who used to routinely travel to Buffalo and Niagara Falls NY (2 hrs from his home) for a weekend of shopping. On one trip he got T-boned at an intersection by a drunk driver who ran a red light in the middle of the day. My friend wasn't too badly hurt due to getting hit on the passenger side, and having a fairly new car with lots of airbags, but he should have taken the paramedics advice and gone to the hospital to be checked. Since he didn't have any type of travel insurance he figured he wait until he got back into Canada to avoid the high cost of US medical attention or treatment. He ended up spending many hours of dealing with his car insurance company and trying arrange for a 1 way rental car that would allow him to drive it across the border. He was in a lot of pain by the time he got to the Niagara Falls Ontario hospital and was found to have a partially dislocated shoulder as well as a concussion and whiplash. He never even went across the border for lunch after that without taking out extra insurance.

My mom and dad used to always get a good travel insurance policy for their winters south in their motorhome. As they aged, and were diagnosed with more health problems, naturally the cost of the coverage increased, but dad knew it was worth it. On what ended up being their last trip, my mom, who was not taking her medications properly or at all, due to her dementia, ended up in a Florida emergency department with congestive heart failure. The insurance company decided it would be cheaper to fly mom home for treatment once she was stabilized, than to keep her in the FL hospital. Mom was flown home in a Lear jet with a nurse and doctor and arrived at the hospital near home within a few hours of the insurance company making that decision. The insurance company asked dad if there was anybody who could fly down to accompany him on the drive home in the motorhome or should they arrange to have it shipped and fly him home. Since they had a dog, dad told them my DH would come down to help with the drive home. At 81 years of age we didn't want dad driving all that way alone. Dad was told to keep all the receipts for gas and campgrounds for the drive home and submit them along with the cost of DH's plane ticket for re-imbursement. We saw a copy of the bill for mom's 3 day hospital stay and it was over $100K, so that and the cost of getting them all home, was well worth the nearly $2,000. premium for the travel insurance.


~Diane
 
I remember a couple of years ago a story about one woman who went traveling to Thailand and felt paying for insurance was an unnecessary expense. Lo and behold, she was hospitalized and had bill of about $60,000 (or so, IIRC). So guess what? She and her family started a Go Fund Me page to help pay for her medical bills. :rolleyes:
 
LannyPC said:
I remember a couple of years ago a story about one woman who went traveling to Thailand and felt paying for insurance was an unnecessary expense. Lo and behold, she was hospitalized and had bill of about $60,000 (or so, IIRC). So guess what? She and her family started a Go Fund Me page to help pay for her medical bills. :rolleyes:
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I gave $50 to a person that was in a wreck. I kind of know of them as in I think I said hi once. No trip insurance and a really bad wreck that was not her fault. I think they raised the $30,000 they were after on go fund me. Mostly I see go fund me for funeral expenses. Trip insurance awareness should include thoughts on that last trip most do not think of.

Bill
 
I will admit that when I was younger I did go on trips without buying extra insurance. I would likely have been OK since I was covered by work. Then around 20 years ago my brother took a dirt biking trip to the Nevado desert and on the first day went over his handelbars and broke his pelvis. Had to be air evacuted out of the desert and spent several days in US hospitals. Insurance covered it all so now I spend the few $ to know I'm covered.
Joan
 
I purchased the Global Travel insurance through Interval. Good for one year for emergency evacuations. Has anyone had any experience with that?

I have an Alaska cruise scheduled for late August for which I think I should purchase specific trip cancellation insurance along with medical, and I got a quote from Visitors Coverage and from Allianz. I'd not heard of Visitor's Coverage but it showed up on the site that was listed as having a good timeshare purchase summary and mentioned tug: elliott.com

I've now read some bad reviews so I'll cross it off my list unless I hear something good about it. It is rarely clear whether bad reviews are just due to inflated expectations or really bad experiences with a thoroughly bad company. The good reviews I read, however, seem to be more about how easy it is to purchase it on the website.
 
Due to my health insurance covering just about everything no matter where I am plus Credit Card Coverage, I seldom buy supplemental insurance. The only time I had reason to draw on the coverage was on a trip to Germany when my wife caught pneumonia. She spent four days in the ICU of a German Hospital in Bonn since that was the place that had the most English speaking staff.

Cost me $500 “ransom” to get her discharged which was reimbursed by the health insurance company. All other charges were paid directly to the hospital. No clue how much that was but I doubt it was trivial.

If I were to travel to a less developed area or country, I would purchase insurance including evacuation but other than that, I am quite happy with what coverage I have already.

Cheers
 
x3 skier said:
Due to my health insurance covering just about everything no matter where I am plus Credit Card Coverage, I seldom buy supplemental insurance....I am quite happy with what coverage I have already.
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We have good coverage too through my employment. We also have good coverage on car rentals through our car insurance. However, before I go on a trip, I review what coverage I have and if we need any supplemental coverage. If we do need it, then we will get it. It's not that much extra of an expense in comparison to what we're spending overall on the trip.

I just find it hard to sympathize with someone who takes the attitude, "Nah, it will never happen to me. No need to pay a little bit more for such insurance," but then go to Go Fund Me with a sob story about how (s)he can't afford to pay the medical bills encountered.
 
Try GeoBlue Trekker Choice. We bought GeoBlue Trekker Choice multi-trip annual plan for medical and evacuation for several years. We stopped this year because we had no plans to travel overseas. GeoBlue only covers non-US destination.
 
Not a fan of the gofundme solution either. But it seems to be the go to.
 
I should mention that we had 3 trips planned for 2020 that we had to cancel due to Covid. We had bought travel insurance on each of them, and since we didn't take the trips, the insurance will carry over for future trips. We could have been refunded, but chose to take future credit.

We are confident that WE WILL TRAVEL AGAIN!

Jim
 
Passepartout said:
We are confident that WE WILL TRAVEL AGAIN!
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Yes, and hopefully sooner rather than later! I will be on the RCI website booking something as soon as we've had our 2nd vaccination. :)


~Diane
 
moonstone said:
Yes, and hopefully sooner rather than later! I will be on the RCI website booking something as soon as we've had our 2nd vaccination. :)
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I'm having a hard time holding my DW back from putting deposits down on any number of cruises. We cancelled a T/A Barcelona to Buenos Aires, and she's anxious to replace it. All the suites are sold out as well as the 'better' balconies, so she'll probably put down a deposit without telling me. Having insurance all nailed down helps the decision.

Jim
 
am1 said:
Not a fan of the gofundme solution either. But it seems to be the go to.
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Pretty much. Just take the attitude, "I don't need to pay for travel insurance. On the off chance that I do get it with a big medical bill, I'll just go to Go Fund Me with a sob story to bail me out."
 
Have traveled all over the world for thirty years, never bought insurance. Don't need it. Will eat the costs as they occur, have saved enough over hundreds of trips to pay for many unexpected outcomes.

Our health insurance is good globally. I did once buy medijet evac insurance for a cruise involving eight caribbean countries. But that was an unusual situation.
 
letsgobobby said:
Have traveled all over the world for thirty years, never bought insurance. Don't need it. Will eat the costs as they occur...
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As long as you're "[willing to] eat the costs as they occur" and you can actually pay them yourself without having to beg publicly with a sob story hoping that people will sympathize with you. What got me about the woman who went to Thailand was how she was not prepared to "eat the costs as they [occurred] but rather went to Go Fund Me with a sob story of how she couldn't pay for her needed medical bills when buying a fairly low-priced policy would have covered her.
 
When I was young and before the internet it just never occurred to me to get travel insurance. It wasn’t until we took our first big family trip to Europe that I started purchasing it.
 
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LannyPC said:
I remember a couple of years ago a story about one woman who went traveling to Thailand and felt paying for insurance was an unnecessary expense. Lo and behold, she was hospitalized and had bill of about $60,000 (or so, IIRC). So guess what? She and her family started a Go Fund Me page to help pay for her medical bills. :rolleyes:
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This is all too common these days. People figure they will just deal with it when it happens and then they end up with their hands out. As awful as it sounds, one's lack of planning shouldn't be my problem.
 
First time we traveled out of the country with three young children we bought the $15 rider for travel insurance. Sadly, my mother passed away unexpectedly and it covered all our flight changes, including returning home after the funeral. Now that we're older, we have annual coverage including a large amount for repatriation.
 
I hope some of you can help me out. We've never purchased travel insurance but are now wanting to do so. Not for just a one time trip but an annual policy. We don't have any plans do international traveling at this time but would go back to St. Thomas and Hawaii.

1. I thought I read other people saying that travel insurance carriers aren't covering anything that can in any way be COVID related. Is this true for your travel insurance company?

2. Are there different types of policies, levels of coverage, and what would you suggest?

3. Who is your travel insurance carrier, have you ever had a claim with them and would you be 100% comfortable in recommending them?

Thanks in advance for any help.
 
Jan M. said:
I hope some of you can help me out. We've never purchased travel insurance but are now wanting to do so. Not a one time trip but an annual policy.

1. I thought I read other people saying that travel insurance carriers aren't covering anything that can in any way be COVID related. Is this true for your travel insurance company?

2. Are there different types of policies, levels of coverage, and what would you suggest?

3. Who is your travel insurance carrier, have you ever had a claim with them and would you be 100% comfortable in recommending them?

Thanks in advance for any help.
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Jan, we buy exclusively through www.squaremouth.com/ We have indeed had claims. The largest by far is covered in a link to a TUG thread in post #4 above.
Squaremouth has a comparison tool that allows you to compare policies from many companies side-by-side.

I can't address each policy's response to Covid issues, as we cancelled the 2020 trips that were insured. We kept the insurance, though to use when we start traveling again.

When it comes to travel insurance (especially for expensive international travel) we are believers.

Jim
 
@Jan M. I found this article quite helpful.

www.doctorofcredit.com

Reviewing Our Options For Health Insurance While Traveling Abroad

Below is a guest post from my friend Dawnzerly. The perennial question for travelers: do I need travel insurance? My answer is maybe, it’s complicated. Let’s first briefly discuss general travel…
www.doctorofcredit.com

IMHO Our health plan covers U.S. travel. I believe credit cards like CSR will handle any travel refunds. We buy it for international medical coverage. (We never purchased until a few years ago. We frequently traveled internationally on business and assumed (perhaps wrongly?) we were covered. We never bought for personal international trips including skiing in the Alps and scuba diving. We didn't know what we didn't know and were lucky that we didn't need it.)

We are now considering the annual plans in the article for our next international trip (including Mexico) and comparing with Squaremouth as they appear to be the same price as the one-off trip policies. We've had a good experience (but no claims experience) with Squaremouth. They found us a policy last year for skiing that was $300 less than competitors and covered us for lost ski days, rentals and on-mountain evacuation.
 
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