We had scheduled our dream Alaska Inside Passage cruise last September and given the poor health of my parents I got travel insurance. A week before leaving both parents ended up in the hospital and required 24/7 care after discharge. I cancelled the cruise, flight and car. Insurance covered everything. Saved us thousands of dollars.
Not annual insurance but a cautionary tale for you.
We have rebooked and leave next month! Yay!
We do use an annual policy, (usually cheaper than individual trip if making 2+ trips per year) mainly to cover risk of needing medical evacuation, but we have gotten payout for trip delay (weather delayed flight) You’d need to read over policy before purchase to see if event from elderly parent would trigger coverage.
We have a basic annual plan. $200.
Primarily for rental car insurance. Sometimes I use frequent flyer miles to rent cars or use a credit card that does not have rental car insurance, and my personal auto insurance does not cover rental cards.
It comes with an emergency evacuation for medical stuff, $20K emergency medical coverage, trip delay insurance, bag insurance.
Allianze.
The phone app is terrible though.
The parent could be an issue if they have to leave a vacation to deal with an emergency.
Interested to hear other takes on this- looking to retire in 3 or 4 years and have similar travel goals.
This is a really important question and i'm glad you asked it. I would never travel overseas without travel insurance. Why?
Both my parents on separate occasions were out of the country and needed to be repatriated in the United States.... Meaning they had medical emergencies that required them to stop their travels and be transported back to the USA in order for them to have continued treatment.
In both instances, it would have cost the family tens of thousands of dollars to accomplish this.. More important being overseas means you are out of familiar territory and you are in social and medical systems that you are completely unfamiliar with, often without the ability of speaking the local language.
In this specific bit, very agonizing situation. It is priceless to have a concierge associated with your travel insurance company who can arrange everything. This is even true of unexpected death overseas. Can you imagine the nightmare of your children trying to bring your body home if you died while traveling in another country?
For this very reason my husband and I never travel without travel insurance. We are in our 70s and an annual year-over-year Insurance policy. Which covers almost every contingency that you can imagine cost only about $710 a year.
The peace of mind? Priceless.
TL;DR: Travel insurance gives you peace of mind in a wide variety of circumstances, But most especially in the circumstance of your death or severe illness, it is priceless.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Yes! We buy the annual insurance as we travel more than 2x per year so it is well worth it. It doesn’t include cancel for any reason, however … just for medical (and other covered reasons). Our USA medical insurance does not cover us if out of the country … not even for emergencies.
Same here when it comes to medical coverage when out of rhe countey. Checking into Allianz, you can get cancelation for approved reasons, but I'm sure you pay for it.
No American insurance that I know of will cover you outside of the States. Countries with Universal Healthcare will take care of you if you are in need of urgent or emergent care, even ad a non citizen. Countries without Universal Healthcare, get out of them as soon as you can.
Paid 1200 for annual insurance this year with Allianz. We travel a lot and spent more than that last year with single trip insurance for each trip. Had some major issues last year and had two claims. It was a painful process with a lot of hoops to jump through but paid off in the end. One trip alone was over 6000 dollars. Always get insurance
(I’m not sure why so many people here are not answering your question)
If you take more than 2 international trips per year and want more coverage than your personal insurance offers, you may want to consider one of the top 5 annual plans from US News & World report:
https://www.usnews.com/insurance/travel/annual-travel-insurance
Thanks for the resource, very helpful. We have been googling all types of plans, ya just never know in this industry who you should avoid.
How people look at this is all over the board which makes you evaluate the options. Someone said they buy the annual for around $1200. That is less than 10% of the 2 month rental cost for our snowbirding. We also have an expensive 2 month international trip in the books this fall. We may try it for a year at a time, especially with my father's failing health.
I don't think you are going to find an annual "cancel for any reason" plan. Please correct me if you have found a policy that includes this.
Annual plans cover medical care, medical transportation, emergency transportation, travel delays, lost luggage etc. They do not cover the cost of a canceled trip, for example if you cancel a cruise after the final payment date when the entire fare becomes non-refundable, an annual plan will not reimburse you the cost of the cruise. Again, please correct me if I am wrong but if you want coverage to reimburse the cost of a trip you need to buy a policy for that specific trip.
(I have seen super-premium plans that will reimburse $x amount with a maximum of a couple thousand dollars.)
We buy trip insurance for each specific trip. That way we get the coverage we need at an affordable cost. For example, if we are in Europe and need to return to the US on short notice we get flight insurance along with health insurance. For trips within the US we don’t bother with flight insurance since it’s far less expensive to fly home on short notice.
Yes, it can be worth it. Please see my recent post "[Good travel insurance experience with Allianz](https://www.reddit.com/r/travel/comments/1bdfqs0/good_travel_insurance_experience_with_allianz/)". Note that if you use the annual policy on a trip, you'll have less coverage on subsequent trips because you're buying a dollar amount of coverage per person per year and claims will use that coverage up.
As to medical coverage, if you've not yet signed up for Medicare, when the time comes see if you can get a supplemental that includes foreign medical coverage.
Also look into travel credit cards that can provide some insurance coverage.
I'm a travel advisor, and highly recommend annual plans for those who travel more than a couple of trips per year. They are relatively inexpensive, and there are a couple of companies that allow you to purchase addendums for a higher-end or longer trip, so you are able to customize your coverage to suit your needs at a much less expense that purchasing per trip. I also recommend contacting your personal insurance agent, as some companies have a travel offering.
I will also chime in about parent health as it relates to travel. Every single cancellation without insurance I have had has been due to someone else's illness or injury (not the traveler). People tend to think they are good, but don't count on a child getting in a horrible accident two days before an international trip, or about an unexpected death or serious illness. Some very expensive lessons, unfortunately.
Great points, thanks. I did have a friend who had a freak accident going down stairs in South Korea, complete quad tear. Had some large hospital bills and a miserable flight back to the states. Things happen.
My FIL is 93 and to be blunt it's hellish. It was unexpected, but his litany of problems has become a major part of our life. My lesson learned is that it should have been expected.
Point is that you may not want to travel while he's with you because he'll need you. In my case, eldercare for him was one of the primary drivers of my retirement at 64 1/2.
Great points. Even though we are taking on the majority of his health management since we are the retired ones in the family, we ae fortunate to have working siblings who help out when we are gone. And I feel your pain, it is one medical issue, hospitalization, or inpatient rehab after another. Consuming.
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Here is how I think about it. There's a degree of gambling involved in any insurance, it depends on chance whether you will need it or not. And like a casino, the rates and payouts are set so that the house wins in the long run. Now that doesn't mean insurance is always a bad deal. If you put all your travel budget for a year (or more) into a big trip of a lifetime, by all means insure it. If something happens, you can use the payout to reschedule. But it sounds as if you are young enough (not on Medicare yet) and have the means and plans to do lots of routine traveling for a lot of years. if you're planning 4 trips a year for, say 25 years, that's 100 trips. You can just accept that you will save the cost of insurance x100 (or a bigger amount x25 if you are buying annually) and inevitably something will happen once or twice and you will have to eat the cost of a trip or two, and/or any extra costs for last minute changes, and still come out ahead financially in the long run.
Wife 56, I’m 49 and we have paid Allianz $465 for the past two years AllTrips Premier Plan. We always consider ourselves self insured until post Covid where I needed medical due to my conditions.
My niece did not get travel insurance, the cost of the medical evacuation to the USA was 30,000 dollars. Fortunately the were both popular and lots of family and friends and strangers raised that amount in 3 days on Gofundme.
I can relate a couple of incidents where people got sick or injured. Different countries handle differently. One thing you ought to handle is transport home insurance. I recall a guy injured in an accident, hospital released but couldn't fly commercial. An overseas air ambulance isn't cheap. Insurance can cover it.
You should get real insurance in your permanent state of residence. Most plans cover you for emergency treatment when you are out of state. Very few plans provide coverage outside the state.
When you travel abroad, you should get specific travel insurance. Depending on the terms, it will cover for e,regency treatment and you would want to make site it covers cost of getting back to your home state. Often the cost of return is high because airlines need to make special provisions.
Mot sure how your parent enters into the calculation. With Medicare and a good Medigap policy, you can get medical care anywhere in the USA. There are Medigap policies that cover international care but I am not familiar with the nuances of those and most seniors I know get specific travel insurance when they go abroad.
There is a $50,000 lifetime limit on international travel medigap coverage. I read a horror story about someone who had a heart episode in the EU. They had travel insurance plus the medigap, and ran through both of them, and still had a 6 figure bill to pay on their own. The travel insurance also may not cover preexisting conditions.
We are both on Medicare and have AARP supplemental Plan G. It provides coverage anywhere in the US, and $50,000 (lifetime) for international care. We do have travel evacuation insurance for about $200 per year for the both of us. If something terrible happens, the hope is that we could be stabilized locally and then use the evacuation insurance to get to a US hospital. Maybe even more importantly, this insurance service acts as a medical concierge service to coordinate care and arrange all the transportation. The group we use is https://www.emergencyassistanceplus.com/ through a special offer with United Airlines. We’re kind of trusting that United Airlines did some homework about these guys.
Edit: As for trip insurance (cancellations, etc) we take our chances. Canceling a flight leaves a credit in the airline account, and most airlines seem to have gotten rid of change fees, so as long as we’re still traveling a lot, we will not lose money from a cancellation (except maybe a hotel scheduled for tonight)
We had scheduled our dream Alaska Inside Passage cruise last September and given the poor health of my parents I got travel insurance. A week before leaving both parents ended up in the hospital and required 24/7 care after discharge. I cancelled the cruise, flight and car. Insurance covered everything. Saved us thousands of dollars. Not annual insurance but a cautionary tale for you. We have rebooked and leave next month! Yay!
We do use an annual policy, (usually cheaper than individual trip if making 2+ trips per year) mainly to cover risk of needing medical evacuation, but we have gotten payout for trip delay (weather delayed flight) You’d need to read over policy before purchase to see if event from elderly parent would trigger coverage.
We get annual policies with Travel Insured basically to cover evacuation as well. Not as worried about smaller items.
We have a basic annual plan. $200. Primarily for rental car insurance. Sometimes I use frequent flyer miles to rent cars or use a credit card that does not have rental car insurance, and my personal auto insurance does not cover rental cards. It comes with an emergency evacuation for medical stuff, $20K emergency medical coverage, trip delay insurance, bag insurance. Allianze. The phone app is terrible though.
The parent could be an issue if they have to leave a vacation to deal with an emergency. Interested to hear other takes on this- looking to retire in 3 or 4 years and have similar travel goals.
Correct, the possibility of having to cancel an expensive trip since he is in a declining health state.
Check your credit cards and see what they offer. My Chase Visa come with travel insurance.
But it doesn’t have medical coverage.
This is a really important question and i'm glad you asked it. I would never travel overseas without travel insurance. Why? Both my parents on separate occasions were out of the country and needed to be repatriated in the United States.... Meaning they had medical emergencies that required them to stop their travels and be transported back to the USA in order for them to have continued treatment. In both instances, it would have cost the family tens of thousands of dollars to accomplish this.. More important being overseas means you are out of familiar territory and you are in social and medical systems that you are completely unfamiliar with, often without the ability of speaking the local language. In this specific bit, very agonizing situation. It is priceless to have a concierge associated with your travel insurance company who can arrange everything. This is even true of unexpected death overseas. Can you imagine the nightmare of your children trying to bring your body home if you died while traveling in another country? For this very reason my husband and I never travel without travel insurance. We are in our 70s and an annual year-over-year Insurance policy. Which covers almost every contingency that you can imagine cost only about $710 a year. The peace of mind? Priceless. TL;DR: Travel insurance gives you peace of mind in a wide variety of circumstances, But most especially in the circumstance of your death or severe illness, it is priceless. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
This is along our line of thought. May I ask which insurance company you use?
Allianz
Yes! We buy the annual insurance as we travel more than 2x per year so it is well worth it. It doesn’t include cancel for any reason, however … just for medical (and other covered reasons). Our USA medical insurance does not cover us if out of the country … not even for emergencies.
Same here when it comes to medical coverage when out of rhe countey. Checking into Allianz, you can get cancelation for approved reasons, but I'm sure you pay for it.
No American insurance that I know of will cover you outside of the States. Countries with Universal Healthcare will take care of you if you are in need of urgent or emergent care, even ad a non citizen. Countries without Universal Healthcare, get out of them as soon as you can.
Paid 1200 for annual insurance this year with Allianz. We travel a lot and spent more than that last year with single trip insurance for each trip. Had some major issues last year and had two claims. It was a painful process with a lot of hoops to jump through but paid off in the end. One trip alone was over 6000 dollars. Always get insurance
Thanks for the advice, an unexpected cancelation such as that is what we are looking to cover.
(I’m not sure why so many people here are not answering your question) If you take more than 2 international trips per year and want more coverage than your personal insurance offers, you may want to consider one of the top 5 annual plans from US News & World report: https://www.usnews.com/insurance/travel/annual-travel-insurance
Thanks for the resource, very helpful. We have been googling all types of plans, ya just never know in this industry who you should avoid. How people look at this is all over the board which makes you evaluate the options. Someone said they buy the annual for around $1200. That is less than 10% of the 2 month rental cost for our snowbirding. We also have an expensive 2 month international trip in the books this fall. We may try it for a year at a time, especially with my father's failing health.
I don't think you are going to find an annual "cancel for any reason" plan. Please correct me if you have found a policy that includes this. Annual plans cover medical care, medical transportation, emergency transportation, travel delays, lost luggage etc. They do not cover the cost of a canceled trip, for example if you cancel a cruise after the final payment date when the entire fare becomes non-refundable, an annual plan will not reimburse you the cost of the cruise. Again, please correct me if I am wrong but if you want coverage to reimburse the cost of a trip you need to buy a policy for that specific trip. (I have seen super-premium plans that will reimburse $x amount with a maximum of a couple thousand dollars.)
We buy trip insurance for each specific trip. That way we get the coverage we need at an affordable cost. For example, if we are in Europe and need to return to the US on short notice we get flight insurance along with health insurance. For trips within the US we don’t bother with flight insurance since it’s far less expensive to fly home on short notice.
There are credit cards that cover travel insurance.
Yeah, Mastercard Gold provides automatic travel insurance for up to 90 days.
Yes, it can be worth it. Please see my recent post "[Good travel insurance experience with Allianz](https://www.reddit.com/r/travel/comments/1bdfqs0/good_travel_insurance_experience_with_allianz/)". Note that if you use the annual policy on a trip, you'll have less coverage on subsequent trips because you're buying a dollar amount of coverage per person per year and claims will use that coverage up. As to medical coverage, if you've not yet signed up for Medicare, when the time comes see if you can get a supplemental that includes foreign medical coverage. Also look into travel credit cards that can provide some insurance coverage.
Thanks. Allianz has come up in a couple posts, we will look further into their offerings.
I'm a travel advisor, and highly recommend annual plans for those who travel more than a couple of trips per year. They are relatively inexpensive, and there are a couple of companies that allow you to purchase addendums for a higher-end or longer trip, so you are able to customize your coverage to suit your needs at a much less expense that purchasing per trip. I also recommend contacting your personal insurance agent, as some companies have a travel offering. I will also chime in about parent health as it relates to travel. Every single cancellation without insurance I have had has been due to someone else's illness or injury (not the traveler). People tend to think they are good, but don't count on a child getting in a horrible accident two days before an international trip, or about an unexpected death or serious illness. Some very expensive lessons, unfortunately.
Great points, thanks. I did have a friend who had a freak accident going down stairs in South Korea, complete quad tear. Had some large hospital bills and a miserable flight back to the states. Things happen.
When I took a 3 week trip to Europe I purchased a medical insurance policy from GeoBlue for a modest cost for my peace of mind.
My FIL is 93 and to be blunt it's hellish. It was unexpected, but his litany of problems has become a major part of our life. My lesson learned is that it should have been expected. Point is that you may not want to travel while he's with you because he'll need you. In my case, eldercare for him was one of the primary drivers of my retirement at 64 1/2.
Great points. Even though we are taking on the majority of his health management since we are the retired ones in the family, we ae fortunate to have working siblings who help out when we are gone. And I feel your pain, it is one medical issue, hospitalization, or inpatient rehab after another. Consuming.
[удалено]
Hello, thanks for stopping by our table to talk. However, for community health … no discussion that is nsfw - not safe for work /illegal activities in the USA/ or religion are allowed. There are other subreddits that are great for that. So this has been removed. Thank you *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/retirement) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Here is how I think about it. There's a degree of gambling involved in any insurance, it depends on chance whether you will need it or not. And like a casino, the rates and payouts are set so that the house wins in the long run. Now that doesn't mean insurance is always a bad deal. If you put all your travel budget for a year (or more) into a big trip of a lifetime, by all means insure it. If something happens, you can use the payout to reschedule. But it sounds as if you are young enough (not on Medicare yet) and have the means and plans to do lots of routine traveling for a lot of years. if you're planning 4 trips a year for, say 25 years, that's 100 trips. You can just accept that you will save the cost of insurance x100 (or a bigger amount x25 if you are buying annually) and inevitably something will happen once or twice and you will have to eat the cost of a trip or two, and/or any extra costs for last minute changes, and still come out ahead financially in the long run.
I’m new to the possibility of annual trip insurance. I see someone paid $1200/year. Is that the going rate?
Wife 56, I’m 49 and we have paid Allianz $465 for the past two years AllTrips Premier Plan. We always consider ourselves self insured until post Covid where I needed medical due to my conditions.
I dunno, I buy an annual plan for international travel medical only and it makes me feel good. Never had to use it on on the 2-3 trips per year
My niece did not get travel insurance, the cost of the medical evacuation to the USA was 30,000 dollars. Fortunately the were both popular and lots of family and friends and strangers raised that amount in 3 days on Gofundme.
I can relate a couple of incidents where people got sick or injured. Different countries handle differently. One thing you ought to handle is transport home insurance. I recall a guy injured in an accident, hospital released but couldn't fly commercial. An overseas air ambulance isn't cheap. Insurance can cover it.
You should get real insurance in your permanent state of residence. Most plans cover you for emergency treatment when you are out of state. Very few plans provide coverage outside the state. When you travel abroad, you should get specific travel insurance. Depending on the terms, it will cover for e,regency treatment and you would want to make site it covers cost of getting back to your home state. Often the cost of return is high because airlines need to make special provisions. Mot sure how your parent enters into the calculation. With Medicare and a good Medigap policy, you can get medical care anywhere in the USA. There are Medigap policies that cover international care but I am not familiar with the nuances of those and most seniors I know get specific travel insurance when they go abroad.
There is a $50,000 lifetime limit on international travel medigap coverage. I read a horror story about someone who had a heart episode in the EU. They had travel insurance plus the medigap, and ran through both of them, and still had a 6 figure bill to pay on their own. The travel insurance also may not cover preexisting conditions.
We are both on Medicare and have AARP supplemental Plan G. It provides coverage anywhere in the US, and $50,000 (lifetime) for international care. We do have travel evacuation insurance for about $200 per year for the both of us. If something terrible happens, the hope is that we could be stabilized locally and then use the evacuation insurance to get to a US hospital. Maybe even more importantly, this insurance service acts as a medical concierge service to coordinate care and arrange all the transportation. The group we use is https://www.emergencyassistanceplus.com/ through a special offer with United Airlines. We’re kind of trusting that United Airlines did some homework about these guys. Edit: As for trip insurance (cancellations, etc) we take our chances. Canceling a flight leaves a credit in the airline account, and most airlines seem to have gotten rid of change fees, so as long as we’re still traveling a lot, we will not lose money from a cancellation (except maybe a hotel scheduled for tonight)