Travel Health Insurance

Q&A: Don Forster, Adventures Incorporated, GoAway Travel, On the Merits of Insurance

OP: You’ve worked in adventure travel for many years. Is there a particular story where travel health insurance was a Godsend?

DF: (Years ago on a trip in Zaire) the roads were so muddy the trucks had chains on the tires with four-inch spikes. [At one point the trucks got stuck in the mud.] They put rocks under the tires for traction, told everybody to stand back, but just as they [did] one of the passengers saw a rock slip and moved toward the wheel. The woman got sucked under the back wheel. It ripped open the inside of her thigh badly…Because the driver had a GPS—this was in the middle of a rainforest—he could give their exact location, while the other walked to town. They were able to contact the UN base there, who flew a helicopter in. [She was then flown] back to the U.K. All covered by her travel health insurance. The UN’s involvement was a mercy mission. But there was a cost to getting the helicopter off the ground, and the insurance company covered all of that, plus her boyfriend flying back with her.”

OP: How typical is that kind of care?

DF: “If you get the right kind of insurance that type of service is there.”

OP: Credit cards often have health insurance for when you leave the country. What do you think of these plans?

DF: “Credit cards might say medical, but it’s not going to be for the amount we need, like in the horrible situations I mentioned. This is why most [insurance] sales reps say don’t rely on credit card insurance because there are too many hidden fine points. Go for the experts—you’ll pay a bit more but you know you’re covered. Having said that, travellers can use their credit card or employer’s plan to give them even more coverage…It’s not a common occurrence [on trips] people getting sucked under wheels of trucks. But it can happen is the point!”

OP: What about that fine print?

DF: “Travellers should make sure the dollar amount for health care is as much as a [travel] company requires—to get a jet in somewhere might cost $200,000, and if you’ve only got $100,000 in insurance, you’re up for the other hundred grand. Most companies ask for $1 million USD in coverage. That’s average. You might have enough to cover if you’re in a hospital in Harare, but if you want to get home and don’t have repatriation insurance, you won’t be allowed to do it. Or if you do it, it’ll cost you.”

OP: Many insurers won’t cover certain adventure activities. What do you think of this?

DF: “The industry is becoming tougher. We were in Mexico and across from the ruins there is a guy who runs microgliding. When I first started it would be in our trip notes. Due to insurance issues it’s been pulled. But you can’t avoid seeing the mircogliders overhead…so we would stand with our driver as a witness and say, ‘the company does not endorse this.’”

OP: So if travellers want to go off-script they need extra insurance?

DF: “It depends on what the activity is, [like] skydiving is off-script and viewed by [insurers] as higher risk. But insurance companies can be quite good, if you just let them know.”

OP: Can travellers count on insurance companies to come through for them when something happens?

DF: “When it comes to health issues, generally speaking if [your case] stands on its own merits, and if you’re with a good insurance company, a reputable one, you’ll be safe and secure.”

Note: The information in this article is intended as a guideline only. For more info on insurance call your provincial or territorial government’s financial services office or branch. Always take time to fully investigate and compare policies between companies before buying. And always get individualized medical advice from a doctor or travel health clinic before travelling.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 13th, 2007 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.