Travel insurance and Europe

[uscuba2]

We are going to Munich Germany and Zurich for 2 weeks in August. I am having trouble deciding if we should buy insurance for it. I have bought trip insurance before through DAN (Diver's Alert Network) mainly bc I was going places (2nd world countries) where I wanted "get me the F out of here" for medical and turmoil. But now I am not scared about medical care in Germany. I have been to insuremytrip and I really do not know what coverages I should have or good carriers. who did you use and recommand? What level of package did you have?

[mrsukyankee]

I can't recommend good insurers as I live in Europe, but I would definitely buy travel insurance. I have it for all my travels, including when I go to the US...better safe than sorry - I wouldn't want to have to pay for anything that might go wrong overseas. Good luck on finding a good carrier!

[aurora]

When you say trip insurance, do you mean for medical reasons or to cover your plane tickets if you have to back out? If medical, then first check to see if your existing health insurance covers you abroad. Mine does, so if I'm going to a location where I would be comfortable using their medical facilities (which would include Germany and Switzerland) I don't buy extra insurance. When I am traveling to less well-developed places, I do buy the insurance to fly myself out if necessary as you indicated you have.

[travelingturtle]

If something happens to you and your regular insurance doesn't cover it, then you will have to pay out of pocket which can get very expensive. I remember reading once that Switzerland and Japan are two of the most expensive places, too.

[goldfish]

Here's my reply from another thread:

We used travel safe to purchase 'cancel for any reason' insurance on a trip to the DR last year. It covered medical expenses as well which was fantastic because I went to the hospital with unexpected heart issues (had never experienced before). It only cost $700 out of pocket for the DR hospital but when we returned to the US I incurred another $6000 in medical expenses ($2500 of which my health insurance did not cover).

Travel Safe reimbursed the $700 DR hospital bill AND the $2500 out of pocket expenses that my health insurance did not cover for my tests back in the US. They covered everything related to the incident on my trip for up to a year after.

I had never purchased travel insurance before but now I won't travel without it.

Read more: pandce.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=trav&action=display&thread=33665#ixzz21BsqGR1M

[sunshinedaydreams]

I never used to use travel insurance because I looked at it as a waste of money. Then a couple of years ago, my FIL passed away after the first leg of our flight to the S. Pacific. Thank God we'd booked this trip as a Travel Zoo package that came with insurance or we'd have been totally screwed on the cost of everything. Instead, we had EVERYTHING reimbursed; even the leg of the flight we'd already completed. Now, I don't think I will ever travel without it again. You never know. Just because it's not a 2nd or 3rd world country doesn't mean you won't have an emergency.

[sunshinedaydreams]

Oops, forgot to say we used Travel Guard for that trip and for each one since because they were reasonably priced and fantastic to work with when we had to file the claim. They were very helpful and super quick with reimbursement.

We had one of the "cancel for any reason" policies. Some of these you can opt for extra medical coverage. We usually don't because our primary insurance is pretty good. But when we went to Tanzania last year, we paid extra so we could have medevac, etc. I guess it depends on what your level of comfort is with taking the risk.

[anna7602]

I have been living in France for nearly seven months without any kind of special insurance. So far, our U.S. health insurance covers us here and we've been reimbursed for all of our non-emergency medical expenses, including lung x-rays, kidney sonograms and prescription medications. Look into what your insurance covers in terms of medical care. Obviously, insurance for cancelling flights, etc. is a different issue.