Rest turned into disease >>>> Travel medical insurance

Travel medical insurance.

Leaving on vacation outside your country, it makes sense to take out medical insurance even if its availability is not a prerequisite for entering the territory of another state. Travel medical insurance is a guarantee of health improvement when it will be expensive to treat an injury or illness received outside the home country.

Not being a citizen of another state, a person cannot calculate the estimated material costs for the treatment of a possible illness, that is, the onset of an insured event. All countries have free medicine, which accounts for only a small number of health problems, but these medical services apply only to residents of a given country, and not to tourists or people temporarily staying for work, study or other occasion abroad.

How to get travel health insurance correctly?

A medical insurance policy is an agreement between you and the insurance company about which risks and cases of illness will be covered by this insurance. For this reason, it is recommended that you carefully think over the clauses of this agreement, so as not to face the fact that they do not want to transport you “for free” by helicopter or do not put you in a hospital for treatment.

A standard set of claims is usually held by the insurance company that sells you health insurance. But no one better than you will guess what exactly can happen on a trip and on vacation, because no one knows which types of vacation you will prefer. The minimum of insured events described in the health insurance contract is considered a basic health policy and is cheaper. But you should not save on health if you are prone to extreme rest or suffer from chronic and often recurrent diseases.

How to read and understand a medical insurance policy correctly?

If you have a little bit of legal reading skills, reading and understanding a health insurance contract should be easy. But for those who are not experienced in legal terminology, it is worth knowing that the beneficiary is you, and the insurance company is the insurer from whom you buy the policy, and it is this company that will pay the costs of your treatment, care and transportation when the insurance case, that is your illness or injury.

The insurance policy must indicate the telephone number of assistants. It is on this phone that you will have to communicate with the representative of the insurer who will arrange medical assistance for you. You (or your loved ones) should first of all call this phone in case of an insured event (injury, illness).

The insured amount is not the cost of your insurance, but the amount that the insurance company will pay for you according to the invoices presented by the hospital. The sum insured is much greater than the cost of the insurance itself.

The franchise may be specified in the health insurance contract . This is the amount that you will pay yourself in case of illness. For example, you caught a disease, found a cheaper doctor yourself, recovered and received a bill of 300 euros from the doctor. The insurance includes a deductible, for example, 100 euros. You will pay 100 euros out of your own cash, and the insurance company will cover the remaining 200 euros with its payment. If the treatment costs 180 euros, then you pay 100 euros from your own money, and the insurance company - the remaining 80 euros. That is, the deductible is the amount that is not covered by health insurance, but will become your personal expenses.

In addition to health insurance, travel medical insurance makes sense to include insurance against the loss of luggage, documents, civil liability (in the event of material or physical damage to another person), or insurance in case of a flight delay or inability to leave at a specified time. For example, the flight was delayed or canceled, and there is no way to quickly return home. This means that you will have to spend money on an unplanned stay in another country. These expenses will be covered by the sum insured if they are committed.

And the most important thing is a clause in the insurance contract, which describes the cases and reasons for the refusal of the insurance company to pay for your painful condition. When buying health insurance for a stay in another country, you need to know exactly what you can count on and what not when circumstances occur that are not suitable for the insured event.

How to use health insurance if the disease is not amenable to self-treatment?

In any case, the first action that you must take is to contact by phone with your insurance company or its representative at the phone number specified in the contract. Further, the insurance company will look for options to get rid of your illness (transportation, medical institution, doctor, etc.) and will inform you of the circumstances of its searches and agreements. The insurance company will prepare and send a letter of guarantee to the chosen attending physician (or clinic) to confirm payment for medical services.

There are two ways to pay for an insured event:

All expenses for medical care (transportation, treatment, medicines and maintenance in a medical institution) are initially paid by the insurance company,
You pay the costs yourself, and upon returning to your place of residence, you withdraw the money according to the paid bills from the insurance company.

The first option is safer, but there are times when a minor illness forces you to consult a doctor on your own and pay his bills without waiting for the insurance company to pay. This scenario may occur when you turned not to a large clinic, but to a private practitioner who does not agree to wait for a letter of guarantee, but wants to receive payment immediately.

In recent years, the cost of health insurance in countries with a high level of medical care has increased significantly due to the high cost of providing medical services in such countries. You should also be aware that for elderly people leaving for a sufficiently long period of time to another country (two weeks, a month or more), a doctor's opinion on their state of health and expensive insurance may be required. Sometimes the insurance company may refuse to insure the health of an elderly sick person, since it calculates the risks of an insured event in advance, and is not inclined to pay for a guaranteed illness on vacation or on a trip.

While on vacation and traveling within your home country, you should also look at the special health insurance - the traveller's policy.