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Health insurance

mgolby

New Member
Time of past OR future Camino
3-sept-2013 - 20-October-2013
Hi everyone. I am sixty-seven and will start living the dream I have had for twenty years. I will be departing SJPP on 3-September. Before I depart I would like to have health coverage including emergency evac and transportation. Can anyone give me the name of a US provider.

Thank you,

mark.
 
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Hi, Mark,
Welcome to the forum. If you do a search using "travel insurance" or "health insurance" as your search terms, you'll find lots of threads with information.

The bottom line, I think, is that there is no one easy answer. I bought insurance two years ago with medex, and then learned that the coverage was probably not all that it was cracked up to be. So this year I just didn't worry about it, probably a bad idea but fortunately I was ok.

Your age and the type of coverage you want will make a big difference -- do you want medical coverage or does your insurance cover overseas treatment? The first thing to do is to find out exactly what your insurance policy and your credit card will cover. Then -- Do you just need emergency care? Do you want evacuation and coverage for "repatriation of remains?" You have to be careful with the policy language, because as I wrote in one of those older posts, when a friend went looking for a policy, he learned that for one company, "arranging for evacuation" meant "making the phone call to find a company who will evacuate" and not "paying the cost of medical evacuation."

I know there have been good recommendations for World Nomads, so maybe that's a place to start. Good luck and come back with more questions once you get a feel for what's out there.

Buen camino, Laurie
 
mgolby said:
Hi everyone. I am sixty-seven and will start living the dream I have had for twenty years. I will be departing SJPP on 3-September. Before I depart I would like to have health coverage including emergency evac and transportation. Can anyone give me the name of a US provider.

Thank you,

mark.

mark,

For a discussion of heath insurance while on the camino see these earlier Forum threads.
medical-issues-on-the-pilgrimage/topic7980.html
and
el-camino-frances/topic12867.html
and
el-camino-frances/topic5676.html

Stay safe and healthy,

Buen Camino,

Margaret Meredith
 
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
Those were some of the ones I was thinking of Margaret, thanks.

I also got good advice on this one (particularly the comment from someone who had insurance and then learned that the coverage was not at all what they had assumed):
el-camino-frances/topic13762.html

BTW, based on my recent searching, it seems that World Nomad has raised the maximum age it will cover to 67, so that might be a good one to start with since it has gotten good reviews here.

Buen camino, Laurie
 
I imagine the travel insurance you buy with your ticket is NOT enough...how about PADI insurance?? I will look into others.
Thanks,
Cindi
 
Technical backpack for day trips with backpack cover and internal compartment for the hydration bladder. Ideal daypack for excursions where we need a medium capacity backpack. The back with Air Flow System creates large air channels that will keep our back as cool as possible.

€83,-
I imagine the travel insurance you buy with your ticket is NOT enough...how about PADI insurance??

It depends on what you are trying to insure and the details of the policy that you bought with your ticket. If it is like most insurance policies that you buy with an airline ticket (that is the ticket, right?) it insures only certain travel expenses in case you need to change your itinerary for a covered reason (ie. illness or something).

I don't know what PADI stand for, so I don't know what type of insurance it is. Bottom line though, you have to decide what you want to insure and then find a policy that does that.

When travelling, I don't insure my plane ticket or any other travel expenses - I rarely have anything prepaid with no ability to get a refund except my plane ticket, and I figure that if I have to cancel, I will use the value of the ticket on another trip within the allotted time, so I am not concerned about that. I DO buy a travel medical policy though because my medical insurance does not cover me outside the country.
 
PADI is Scuba Diver's insurance. They will fly you out whether you were diving or not if I am understanding it right! I will look into it.
Cindi :D
 
???Sure you can purchase flight tickets over the internet, order a hotel room, reserve a table in a restaurant, quite a bit actually - all easily understood and by relying on recommendations of others. Health insurance is not quite the same-there exist dozens of programs and policies all in convoluted language that most of us don't understand or don't want to understand, and available at a wide range of prices. That's why there are insurance agents in the world. Surely you have some sort of life insurance, a health plan, old age policy. Start with your own agent a person you know and hopefully trust, and see what can be offered. You might save some money going blind but when push comes to shove in a far off emergency room or village clinic, it would be best to have the real thing.
 
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