One other thing to consider if your are taking trips overseas is to take out a temporary travel insurance plan for the duration of your trip to cover the possibility of medical needs (accident or sudden severe illness). In many ways this is preferable to any overseas travel your normal plan might cover, BUT getting the payments coordinated and the overseas providers payed can be more trouble than it is worth. It is much easer to take out these temporary policies for a few 10's of dollars per individual and be done with it.
Again, this is "off the wall" and not really relevant to the original questions, but something to keep in the back of your mind if you do overseas travel.
...
Yep.
We have taken out travel and trip insurance going overseas and staying in the US. We figured there was some risk in some of these trips, and for the US trip there was, and the insurance was used. No problem getting the insurance to pay up.
The problem with getting sick overseas is not just paying for the treatment but getting home if needed. Some places you will NEED to get back to the US and that can be very expensive. One needs evacuation insurance in those situations.
Read about an Australian who was on a boat in one of the Pacific Islands. She got bit by a shark and stabilized but there was no way she was going to get good treatment on that island. She had evacuation insurance and a jet ambulance, with a nurse(s) and doctor on board flew a couple of days out to the island to get the patient back to Australia. Having to pay that out of pocket would have cost a fortune.
On one of our trips we were traveling by boat. One night we went ashore for a party and we were tied up to a floating dock. When we left the boat, we just had to step from the dock to land. No problem. Well, six or so hours later, we returned to the boat and the dock was a good 12-15 feet lower.
The tide had gone out.
It was also raining.
There were two ladders from the land to the floating dock. I picked one. The wrong one.
I picked the ladder that was made from flat bar for the ladder rung where the bar was vertical so my boot would not be likely to slip. The other ladder rungs where made from round pipe and were slippery. So I made the right choice. Or so I thought...
The ladder work just fine until I got to the bottom of the ladder. The ladder ended about 5 feet above the floating dock.
I decided it was safer for me to fall to the dock rather than climbing back up. So I did and did not get hurt. I had the wifey climb down the other ladder that reached the dock. I was REALLY glad we had trip and evacuation insurance. Even more glad that we did not NEED said insurance.
I have read of Irish citizens getting sick in the US and needing to get back home, both because they did not have health care coverage in the US but also because their illness was going to require a long time in the hospital. They had to ask people to fund their air ambulance back to Ireland.
Evacuation AND health care coverage is important along with trip insurance.
Later,
Dan