- Emergency evacuation isn’t always the best option
Travel health insurance plans pay for emergency evacuation for serious medical conditions. But when emergency evacuation isn’t possible or isn’t the wisest course of action, you can still get reimbursed for medical costs if you need medical help in a foreign land. The downside of not being transported to a hospital in your insurance network is that you have to foot the initial bill yourself.
- Repatriation is not the same thing as medical evacuation
If your travel health insurance plan will pay for medical evacuation, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going home if you need to get to a hospital. It just means that the insurance company will pay for you to be transported to the nearest hospital that will accept you. Repatriation, on the other hand, means that the insurance company will fly you all the way back to Nigeria if you have a medical problem that warrants an emergency return trip.
- Travel insurance covers footworms
Remember to wear shoes if you vacation to Guatemala. If you go walking around in the mud in Guatemala, you may wake up the next day to find worms wriggling around under the skin of your feet. According to travel writer Sarah McMillian, travel insurance covered the cost of a trip to the nearest clinic as well as a bottle of medicine that helped kill off the parasites. If you travel to an exotic country and come down with a strange flu or catch a parasite, travel insurance will kick in and save the day.
- If you were drunk during the time when you had an accident, the insurance company may deny your claim
If you are visiting a foreign land, it makes sense to stay sober. Criminals prey on unsuspecting tourists, plus it’s easy to get lost or have an accident while under the influence. Because of the added risk involved with drinking alcohol abroad, some travel health insurance companies will deny your claim if they can prove that you were drinking during the time of your accident. If you do decide to drink, make sure to do it in the safety of a hotel room or restaurant– not in the streets or out in the wild.
- Most travel health insurance companies will deny mental health related claims
Unless you can prove that you sustained a physical injury during your vacation, you will be unlikely to get your claim approved by a travel health insurance company. If you or someone you love has problems with depression, be sure to get cleared by a mental health professional before traveling abroad. If you tend to become anxious when confronted with new situations, bring along a friend to help you if you start to stress out.
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