Your health care insurance policy will probably cover health care expenses when you are on an international vacation. However, you may still want to buy an overseas travel insurance policy because it may offer benefits that your domestic health care insurance policy will not.

Most health insurance contracts will cover you for emergencies anywhere you might travel. Your cost share will probably be the same as it would be if you were in network even if you are not if you seek treatment during a health care emergency. The insurance carrier doesn’t expect you to drive to the nearest network hospital when you have just broken your hand or had a heart attack.

Medicare and some other domestic insurance contracts will provide no coverage of any kind while outside the US. You should read your contract to make sure that coverage is provided in any country you might travel to.

Routine care is rarely covered well when you are overseas. Your plan may not provide any coverage for routine care when we do not use network doctors. This makes sense because you can usually control or schedule when you need routine care.

Most of us are able to schedule our vacations so that we won’t need any routine health care care while we are away from home. This is fortunate because when we seek to use a non-network provider for routine care, most insurance policies won’t cover it or won’t cover it well.

Some health insurance plans will cover routine care when you use non-network providers with a higher cost share. It may not be covered at all. You will probably pay more for the care if it is covered.

If you have adequate health insurance and are comfortable with the way it will pay if you have a medical emergency while out-of-network, you may not need to buy a separate travel insurance policy to have your medical bills covered. There may be other reasons that you might want a travel insurance contract however.

The travel insurer may have more experience dealing with claims from other countries. They are likely to be more able to handle correspondence in other languages, for example.

International travel insurance plans will often have emergency evacuation coverage. This means that if you cannot get the care you need where you are, your contract may pay to fly you home so that you can get that treatment.

Travel insurance policies are usually very inexpensive. This makes the idea of dripping your regular insurance while you travel outside the country is a tempting idea.

However these contracts should only be used as a temporary insurance that supplements your regular coverage. Trying to save money by dropping your regular health insurance while you are overseas could backfire on you.

When you come back home, your travel insurance policy will no longer cover you or will only cover you for a few days or weeks after while you are in your home country. This means that In order to have health insurance after return to your home country, you will need to apply again. There is no guarantee that your old company or any other company will accept you as an insured.

It is better to have a mediocre stateside health insurance policy than it is to have a great international health insurance plan and potentially have no coverage when you get back home. Because of this, it is usually wise to keep your stateside medical insurance while you travel outside the country whether you purchase an overseas travel contract or not. If you terminate your policy when you go overseas, the company may not be under any obligation to provide insurance for you when you end your vacation.

Author Bio: Quotes for international travel insurance plus Vermont group health insurance prices and information are available on the author Alston J. Balkcom’s site.

Category: Finances
Keywords: travel insurance,traveling coverage, traveling insurance, travel insure