Reader question:

I’m going on spring break this spring. Normally I’m insured through my school, but do I need a different health insurance for this?

July

Depends.

I think the first step for you would be to ask your school’s health insurance provider what their rules are for traveling while insured. Most school plans will at least cover you if you go home over break or during the summer. It depends on the school, but that might cover you regardless of where in the country you go. However, if you plan on traveling outside of the country for spring break, then that is a whole other story.

A lot of insurance companies for travel health insurance have certain plans for young people every year around the time for spring break. There’s nothing exactly for college and university students, usually, but a lot of times the plans are offered for people under thirty. One extremely cheap options is from Travel Guard Insurance, which has a program for people in their twenties and under which can cost from $29 on up for every trip. The cost of the insurance is dependent on the cost of the trip, but you only pay one time per trip.

One travel health insurance plan that might be particularly appealing to young people traveling during spring break, or even for any other break, is the Lifeguard plan offered by Champion health insurance. This costs about $47 for a trip averaging around fifteen days in length, and if you plan on doing anything risky, such as white water rafting or mountain climbing, you can add on a high risk provision for 15% more, averaging at $54. Champion’s CEO states that his company wants to raise awareness of the need for travel insurance when going on vacations or any other trek out of the country, because many people aren’t aware of not being covered while traveling.

There are a bunch of things that you will need from a travel insurance company that are usually offered. This things include provisions for if your trip ends up being cancelled midway, emergencies, delays in your travel plans, and losing your things through the airport. You might figure that coverage isn’t necessary, but you never know what you will need. Your insurance company should also have a all day all night help line which you can call from anywhere in the world to ask questions about your coverage.

If you get travel insurance, you should make sure that you are covered for being transported back to the U.S. in the case of your death. It’s not something you want to think about, but it’s always a possibility, and no one knows when they’re going to die. If you die in another country, they have no obligation to follow the traditions of your country or to send you back, and transporting a body can be expensive.

Most of all, just make sure that you make yourself safe for your trip, know where to go for medical help wherever you are at, and have fun!

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Reader question:

We’ve just started making enough money so that we can seriously think about taking vacations every year. We’re planning the first one now (way ahead of time), and we’re trying to make sure that we do everything right, because we want to travel internationally and we’ve never been out of the country before. What should we plan for with international health insurance?

Mike & Susanne

Great question.

Everybody knows that they should have health insurance at home just in case something happens, and it doesn’t make sense that there are people who don’t think the same for international travel health insurance. It’s much easier to get into trouble when you’re in a place that you’re completely unfamiliar with. What if you end up driving in England? Accidents would be more likely while you’re getting used to their different driving styles. Getting a travel health insurance plan is extremely important, even if you will only be gone for a short amount of time. Here are some tips.

• MEDICAL EVACUATION.

This is one of the most important features for your international health insurance plan to have. If you just stuck with your regular health insurance plan, then you might get at most $1k for medical transportation, which is great at home, considering that an ambulance usually costs around five hundred dollars. However, if you travel outside of the country, one thousand dollars won’t life light you home, so you’ll need a much higher cap for a travel plan.

There are so many cases where Americans will go to a country and get injured or sick, only to arrive at an out of the way local hospital where their needs might not be met. These customers will then have to be transported via helicopter to a hospital more up on Western medicine, and those costs can come up to as much as $50,000–just for the flight!

You might think insurance isn’t necessary when you go on a cruise, but it’s the most important time to get it, especially medical evac coverage. If you’re on a ship, it costs more to get a flight, and the distance will most likely be longer since in most cases you will be being transported back to the states.

• Expect the unexpected.

I think it’s wonderful that the two of you are planning your trip so thoroughly, but there may be one aspect of planning that you’re missing: the possibility of cancellation or delay of your vacation. You might have your insurance, have your bags packed, your tickets paid, your hotel room reserved and everything, only to come down extremely sick the night before you leave. No one wants to go on vacation with a fever, so this can throw all the plans down the drain, especially it comes during that short one week vacation that you only get one time a year.

That’s why you need trip cancellation or interruption insurance. If you get this, then if something comes up so that you don’t get to go on your vacation, the insurance company will pay for any of those tickets, reservations, and so on that you can’t get your money back for. Same goes for if you have to end up coming home early.

• Terrorism.

It’s no fun to think about all of this stuff when you’re planning an exciting trip, but terrorism is becoming more and more prevalent, even in what are considered the safest areas. There have been many acts of terrorism even in Switzerland, where the crime rates are incredibly low. So anywhere you go, there is the possibility, just as there is if you stay at home.

Normally you can get your expenses reimbursed if the U.S. State Department hands out a warning about your destination country due to terrorist activity. You can also usually get your money back if an act of terrorism has been perpetrated in your country or city (depending on the insurance company) of destination within thirty days of your trip.

• Have fun!

The most important thing about your trip is to have a good time. Having international health insurance will make this easier, making you more secure while you’re away from home and able to know that your health is in good hands. Getting with a company that has a twenty four hour customer service line is the best way to keep yourself happy and comfortable with your plan while you are enjoying your trip.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

If you intend to go out of the country and get travel health insurance to cover you while you’re away, you will need to put more care and research into your coverage than you would with a normal health insurance plan. Why is that? Because you will be so far away from home that if something goes wrong, you will be basically helpless. In order to protect yourself while you’re away, you need to know that you have a health insurance company that you trust.

One important thing that you have to look into are the credentials of your travel agent. Find out if the company that you’re going with is certified. Ask if they have a certified travel counselor working there. A CTC is someone who has studied to be in the business for an extended period of time. It’s the same reason why you would want a certified nurse to hook you up to an IV.

Don’t forget the background check. One of the most important things is making sure that your institution is financially stable. Check with credit agencies for its history. Also, look into consumer complaints. Find out how it really handles people who come into trouble while they are outside of the country. Call the Better Business Bureau and see how they would rate your travel health insurance company.

Your agent may make a lot of promises, but remember that nothing is true unless you get it in writing. They can make as many promises as they want, but you won’t be covered for them. Either have them put it into your written plan, or don’t take the promise into mind when making a decision. You should be positive that things such as total cost are in there, as well as additions or changes made in the last minute.

Finally, pay for your insurance and your trip with a credit card. Having proper records of all your transactions can help you avoid being the victim of insurance fraud, or being the victim of fraud while you are away.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Reader question:

What is temporary health insurance?

Annie

I’ll tell you.

Short term health insurance is a great medical health insurance option for people who are on the road in life but haven’t yet arrived. You may be between jobs, or not have a job at all, or it’s possibly that you are temporarily working for a company that does not provide its employees with health insurance coverage. If any of these situations apply to you, then you might want to consider getting temporary health insurance, which is often one of the cheapest medical health insurance options around.

Sixteen million people in the United States take out a new medical health insurance policy every year, and if you’re going to be one of them this year pay attention. It is possible to get cheap medical health insurance, and you don’t have to get catastrophic health insurance to do it. Not everybody has to pay terrible, high rates to get their medical care covered.

Most of these short-term health insurance plans come with up to two million dollars of coverage, and they are intended for people who are already in good health and don’t have any pre-existing conditions. This type of coverage is good for using to go to your check ups so that you don’t develop anything, or to cover any problems that you may develop during the coverage period.

There are many limits to these temporary health insurance plans, so before you settle on one you should make sure that you understand your plan’s limits and they are okay with you. If that is the case, it is also important to understand that short term health insurance really is very short term. For the most part, policies are taken out month by month and can last up to twelve months, although some companies offer policies that extend to thirty six months.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.

Reader question:

I live in Kentucky but I’ll be going to England next summer for a student program. Do I need international traveling health insurance while I am there?

Miranda

Absolutely!

Health insurance is always a necessity, in whatever part of the world you are. Outrageous medical bills are among the leading cause of debt in American society, and debt leads to bad credit and poor opportunities, which also leads to more difficulty in getting medical health insurance in the future. It’s especially important to be insured when you’re going to a strange place that you are not familiar with, where you might meet up with unknown dangers. That isn’t to say that England is a scary place, but accidents tend to happen on trips when you are in unfamiliar surroundings. You don’t want to be caught unprepared.

Not only is the lack of familiarity a problem, but getting the care you need once in England could cost you a lot of money, which is why I want to stress the important of international traveling health insurance. If you have medical health insurance within the country, almost all of the time that will not be accepted abroad. Government programs like medicaid and Social Security go the same way. If you go out of the country, you have to have other plans. Consider that a medical evacuation out the foreign country and to the United States often costs upwards of $50,000.

Some medical health insurance policies do carry a international traveling health insurance coverage, but if yours doesn’t, you should think about getting temporary health insurance for the duration of the time you will be out of the country. A lot of medical health insurance plans exist that specifically cover people who are traveling, so it shouldn’t be too hard.

One way that you can get a hold of some international traveling health insurance is through your travel agent. They often can help lead you in the right direction towards what you will need. If you get this kind of insurance, it can bring coverage for things even as expensive as medical evacuation to the U.S.

The key to finding a great international traveling health insurance policy is to look around among the companies that exist and compare quotes. You want to get a good deal, but remember that it is very important to get good coverage while you’re abroad, because while you’re that far from Kentucky, you won’t have anything to fall back on.

Cheers,

Fashun Guadarrama.