Annual travel insurance policy???

[Red Hat Cruise Cat]

I will be retiring soon and plan to travel frequently. Rather than insuring each trip, is there an annual insurance policy that would cover all of my travels?

[cruiseco]

I will be retiring soon and plan to travel frequently. Rather than insuring each trip, is there an annual insurance policy that would cover all of my travels?

 

For things like travel delay, baggage delay, emergency evac, medical, etc then yes. But you won't find an annual plan that covers more than the absolute minimum for trip cancellation and trip interruption. The problem is that the insurer has absolutely no way of knowing beforehand what their loss risk is from cancellations/interruptions. Will this traveler be taking three Bahamas cruises at $399 each during the year or will it be six multi-week sailings in a penthouse suite at $10,000/week? That's why most annual plans, if they include any cancellation/interruption coverage at all, might limit it to $1000 or $1500 total for the year. Depending on what your anticipated travel plans are during the year this might be fine.

 

Travel Guard's annual plan starts out at about $250 with $1500 of cancellation coverage. You can bump that up at an additional cost of $6 per each $100 of additional cancellation coverage that you need.

 

Access America's annual plan is $250 with $1000 cancellation coverage but I'm not sure if you can increase that by paying an additional premium.

 

One CSA plan I'm looking at will cover up to $1500 per trip for anyone 56 - 70 years old for $83 per trip. So you're probably going to find you're better off doing it trip-by-trip unless you plan on doing more that three trip/year that you think need insuring.

 

Also, be very careful about coverage for pre-existing medical conditions as many of these annual plans offer no coverage for pre-ex conditions and do not offer any waiver of that exclusion as most single trip plans do.

[old sole]

Also, be very careful about coverage for pre-existing medical conditions as many of these annual plans offer no coverage for pre-ex conditions and do not offer any waiver of that exclusion as most single trip plans do.

 

I am looking at muti-trip insurance from HTH Worldwide. Here's what they say about Sudden Recurrance of pre-existing conditions (which is covered). I don't know what the 0 months means. Does this mean that pre-existing conditions are covered or are excluded?

Sudden Recurrence of Pre-Existing Conditions

 

Pre-existing Condition means a medical condition for which medical advice, diagnosis, care, or treatment was recommended or received during the 0 months immediately preceding the Insured Person's Effective Date of Coverage.

 

... Pre-existing Conditions

Benefits are not available for any services received on or within 0 months after the Eligibility Date of an Insured Person, if those services are related to a Pre-existing Condition as defined in the Definitions section. This exclusion does not apply to a Newborn that is enrolled within 31 days of birth or a newly adopted child that is enrolled within 31 days from either the date of placement of the child in the home, or the date of the final decree of adoption.

[cruiseco]

I am looking at muti-trip insurance from HTH Worldwide. Here's what they say about Sudden Recurrance of pre-existing conditions (which is covered). I don't know what the 0 months means. Does this mean that pre-existing conditions are covered or are excluded?

Sudden Recurrence of Pre-Existing Conditions

 

Pre-existing Condition means a medical condition for which medical advice, diagnosis, care, or treatment was recommended or received during the 0 months immediately preceding the Insured Person's Effective Date of Coverage.

 

... Pre-existing Conditions

Benefits are not available for any services received on or within 0 months after the Eligibility Date of an Insured Person, if those services are related to a Pre-existing Condition as defined in the Definitions section. This exclusion does not apply to a Newborn that is enrolled within 31 days of birth or a newly adopted child that is enrolled within 31 days from either the date of placement of the child in the home, or the date of the final decree of adoption.

 

Looks like a mis-print to me. What plan are you looking at? I'm not aware of any HTH annual plan that includes trip cancellation coverage.

[old sole]

Looks like a mis-print to me. What plan are you looking at? I'm not aware of any HTH annual plan that includes trip cancellation coverage.

 

HTH Worldwide TravelGap Silver and TravelGap Gold - both are Medical/Evacuation only, (well, they do have Accidental Death), but you are correct, no trip cancellation/interruption, baggage, etc. I will either self-insure those or find something cheap with little or no medical coverage for unusually expensive trips. I thought I would still want a pre-existing condition waiver included even for just the medical coverage, correct? The 0 month language is what throws me.

[klfrodo]

HTH Worldwide TravelGap Silver and TravelGap Gold - both are Medical/Evacuation only, (well, they do have Accidental Death), but you are correct, no trip cancellation/interruption, baggage, etc. I will either self-insure those or find something cheap with little or no medical coverage for unusually expensive trips. I thought I would still want a pre-existing condition waiver included even for just the medical coverage, correct? The 0 month language is what throws me.

 

Just a guess but some policies have a 30, 60, or 90 day look back period to determine any pre-existing conditions. Is it possible that the "0 month" would be that the look back period is even for a doctors visit the day before you cruise? In other words, the look back period be begins immediatly?

[cruiseco]

HTH Worldwide TravelGap Silver and TravelGap Gold - both are Medical/Evacuation only, (well, they do have Accidental Death), but you are correct, no trip cancellation/interruption, baggage, etc. I will either self-insure those or find something cheap with little or no medical coverage for unusually expensive trips. I thought I would still want a pre-existing condition waiver included even for just the medical coverage, correct? The 0 month language is what throws me.

 

Definitely strange wording. But I did find the following in the brochure:

 

"Covers all domestic and international trips (up to 70 days duration per trip) in a 12 month period. Participants must be enrolled in a Primary Health Plan. There is no pre-existing condition exclusion. "

 

Two things: It looks like there's no pre-ex exclusion. That's good. But be very sure where you stand with that "must be enrolled in a Primary Health Plan" bit. If you do not already have some sort of primary coverage in place when traveling you have NO coverage with this plan. With most travel insurance plans, if there's no "primary" coverage already in place your "secondary" travel insurance coverage becomes "primary" by default. With HTH, if there's no "primary" coverage already in place their "secondary" coverage becomes void. Be very sure to check with your regular health insurer to find out where they stand with coverage while outside the country before buying this plan.

[old sole]

Thanks. Nice catch. We both have Medicare + a Medicare supplemental plan (retiree coverage from a previous employer). So I would argue that we are enrolled in a primary health plan. But neither covers us outside the country, so caution is definitely in order. I'll ask them how this is interpreted and also see if I can get my hands on the full plan description.

 

I wouldn't even fool with it but these are the only two multi-trip (annual) medical plans that Insure-My-Trip turns up. All the others listed say they aren't available to residents of Florida.

[cruiseco]

 

I wouldn't even fool with it but these are the only two multi-trip (annual) medical plans that Insure-My-Trip turns up. All the others listed say they aren't available to residents of Florida.

 

I went directly to the Travel Guard web site and the Access America web site and entered my state of residence as Florida. Their annual plans come up just fine. insuremytrip doesn't offer every plan that's out there.