Travelling to the US without medical insurance...

[MontyVeda]

Come to think of it... i didn't have any insurance last time i went.

 

[MontyVeda]

No wish to go to the States, ever.

Thank you for your insightful input. Your contribution has been noted and will be taken with the consideration it deserves. Nobber

 

[ianrauk]

Thank you for your insightful input. Your contribution has been noted and will be taken with the consideration it deserves. Nobber

I hated every minute I was there. I mean, who would want to go to shyte holes such as these places?

 

[mjr]

I hated every minute I was there. I mean, who would want to go to shyte holes such as these places?

Would you go without travel insurance, though?

 

[ianrauk]

Would you go without travel insurance, though?

It helps if you read the whole thread before commenting.

 

[srw]

I'm picking on one example, but all of you saying that travel insurance is cheap have probably never tried to get medical insurance for someone with a chronic-but-harmless illness - that is, one which I'm told if treated has no effect on life expectency because the treatment basically reduces the risk of being killed by the illness sufficiently that the beneficial side-effects of the treatment outweigh the residual risk. In other words: the main difference between them and a member of the general population is simply the diagnosis... and a fraction of the general population will have the same illness, undiagnosed, with the elevated risk... plus the diagnosed people are routinely checked for a range of other conditions like diabetes, so insurers will usually know if they've got that.

But simply by being diagnosed and treated, the insurance gets loaded - I'm paying about 5 times as much as if I didn't have a chronic illness. Unless the medics are blowing smoke up my arse about the benefits of treatment, I think this is a market effect rather than actuarial adjustment. I have to buy from a smaller market of insurers who seem fairly close on price and even those won't give a representative price until you go through screening - despite a range of starting prices, the wildly different loadings seem to put most within £30 of each other, usually within £5. Some of the large providers are known for flat-out declining certain conditions so you can't ask them else you have to answer the "have you ever been refused insurance?" type question with "Yes" and that shrinks your potential market even further. It seems like a market for lemons.

And that small market is before you start excluding insurers with onerous restrictions on physical activities like cycling.

All this takes farking hours and often phone calls, too. And that's if you know it's coming and keep your own medical notes (I do... I've been ill a long time). Some of the medical specialist insurers even ask if you've had a common cold in the last year!

I still wouldn't travel without insurance but I can understand why people take the risk.

This comment I posted recently seems pertinent....

@User is absolutely right, especially given this...


https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=n.....69i57j0l5.4069j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Take a trip into town, and talk to someone. You stand little chance of finding an insurer by random googling or asking on here, and every chance of finding one by asking a broker - it's their job, and they won't get paid unless they find a solution. It might not be cheap - essentially you're asking an insurer to trust you and Mrs S to keep her medication current and active. You and I both know that it's very likely that you will, because the alternative is unpleasant, but equally given those conditions a very simple sprain or stomach upset could turn out to need repatriation if she's not given the right treatment.

The insurers are no longer insuring random events, they're insuring your behaviour.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

@MontyVeda
I use insurance to cover the things I couldn't comfortably cover the cost of personally, so I don't have specific insurance for my domestic appliances, cameras, lenses, bikes etc. Where the potential cost exceeds what I could comfortably cover from my own funds, I will always take insurance - and for a trip to America where medical care can be very expensive, I wouldn't dream of not being covered.

Can you afford to cover even moderate (by US standards) medical costs should the need arise?

I'd say if you can't afford to budget for travel insurance, you can't afford to go.

 

[MontyVeda]

@MontyVeda
I use insurance to cover the things I couldn't comfortably cover the cost of personally, so I don't have specific insurance for my domestic appliances, cameras, lenses, bikes etc. Where the potential cost exceeds what I could comfortably cover from my own funds, I will always take insurance - and for a trip to America where medical care can be very expensive, I wouldn't dream of not being covered.

Can you afford to cover even moderate (by US standards) medical costs should the need arise?

I'd say if you can't afford to budget for travel insurance, you can't afford to go.

fair point. Just got a quote via my booking agent's partner insurer at £56, which isn't going to break the bank.

Still a gamble though, which is what insurance is... and i didn't even think of getting any last time. I just booked a flight and went.

[edit] ...and if i am insured, I might be subconsciously inclined to be more reckless

 

[mjr]

This comment I posted recently seems pertinent....

The insurers are no longer insuring random events, they're insuring your behaviour.

My behaviour is lower risk than random events because I know of one condition that I do have and it's controlled, while there's at least another three more common (and expensive!) ones that we now know I don't have. It seems like insurers are harming public health by basically rewarding people for not getting themselves tested.

Anyway, that recent comment seems mostly irrelevant to my situation. Unlike asthma, I would have to skip my treatment for months (far longer than the maximum permitted trip duration on my policy) to change much (and they could refuse a claim if I didn't tell them or increase premium if I did), yet I still get hit with a 400% increase. It makes me strongly believe that the insurance market is dysfunctional. I feel that insurers are effectively discriminating against disabled people because they're allowed to refuse to insure people (thereby reducing the insurance market size for us) and they're not effectively required to cite any public statistical evidence for the loadings they use (it should be in the policy schedule/summary/keyfacts).

 

[Milkfloat]

[QUOTE 4742442, member: 9609"]

the whole thing is a minefield, and I would hate to have to rely on the good will of an insurance company.[/QUOTE]

That is why you need to get Legal Insurance

 

[mjr]

[QUOTE 4742442, member: 9609"]Is there guidelines on what you need to declare ? [...] Can you ask your GP for a list of things you should declare ?[/QUOTE]
No, there is no standardisation here. If there was, customers may actually be able to compare policies efficiently enough to have some confidence in getting the right deal!

What you need to declare varies. It will usually say on the form or notes what you need to declare. I just grabbed the main medical question from my travel insurance and it was:

"1 Have you or anyone travelling with you ever had treatment for: any heart or circulatory condition; a stroke or high blood pressure; a breathing condition; any type of cancer; any type of diabetes?

2 In the last two years have you or anyone travelling with you been: treated for any serious or re-occurring medical condition; asked to take regular prescribed medication; been referred to a specialist or consultant at a hospital for tests, diagnosis or treatment?

3 Are you waiting for tests or treatments of any description or has your doctor altered your regular prescribed medication in the last 6 months?"

[QUOTE 4742442, member: 9609"]the whole thing is a minefield, and I would hate to have to rely on the good will of an insurance company.[/QUOTE]
You always have to rely on the good will of an insurance company - you could be 100% in the clear and a bad insurer could still decide to try avoid paying and hope you don't either have the resources to challenge them or feel that you've nothing to lose and should challenge them anyway. That's part of why I read the policy documents and avoid ones who are daffodils and put in things like requiring safety equipment for cycling because clearly they want every excuse not to pay out.

That is why you need to get Legal Insurance

And can you get legal insurance against the legal insurance refusing to pay out?

 

[BrumJim]

@MontyVeda
I use insurance to cover the things I couldn't comfortably cover the cost of personally, so I don't have specific insurance for my domestic appliances, cameras, lenses, bikes etc. Where the potential cost exceeds what I could comfortably cover from my own funds, I will always take insurance - and for a trip to America where medical care can be very expensive, I wouldn't dream of not being covered.

Can you afford to cover even moderate (by US standards) medical costs should the need arise?

I'd say if you can't afford to budget for travel insurance, you can't afford to go.

Very sensible response. A lot of people seem to buy insurance on price, and so insure things that they don't need to insure, but not those things that they do. I agree that you should only insure against eventualities that you cannot pay for yourself. So would never go to the US without medical cover.

 

[gavroche]

Thank you for your insightful input. Your contribution has been noted and will be taken with the consideration it deserves. Nobber

Why am I a nobber because I don't like the USA? Please explain.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Why am I a nobber because I don't like the USA? Please explain.

I did not read the quote, I assumed immediately the nobber was @Marmion

 

[Dayvo]

No wish to go to the States, ever.

Thank you for your insightful input. Your contribution has been noted and will be taken with the consideration it deserves. Nobber

Why am I a nobber because I don't like the USA? Please explain.

Not sure you're a 'nobber' (although I'm sure you've been called worse ) but how can you not like the USA if you've never been there? If it doesn't appeal to you, well, fine, but to totally dismiss it is a bit, er, narrow-minded, non?

But each to their own...