Travel insurance - primary v secondary

by **lizziedigs** » February 21st, 2009

I'm a little confused on the whole travel insurance thing.

World Nomads, etc. is a secondary insurance, that is, its a supplement/expanded coverage to your own insurance. Well, what if you do not have primary insurance? Does this mean you are screwed or does World Nomads, etc. then act as the primary, meaning they will pay all the costs? (since there is no primary insurance to bill first)

Is travel insurance enough to cover a trip without primary at home?

Has anyone had horrible experiences/good experiences only using travel insurance and not have having primary insurance?

Any info would be appreciated! Thanks.

by **susanmg** » February 23rd, 2009

hi - i'm doing some research on this as well as i'm planning a year long trip (which means leaving my job and thus leaving my health insurance, unless I decide COBRA is worth it). My understanding is World Nomad's is really only secondary insurance. Their coverage stops as soon as you get back to your home country (so if you get really hurt, they'll pay to med-evac you back to your home country but then you are responsible for all the hospital costs once you get there). Also, as a side note, while they say they cover tons of sports, the actual rider (for the US at least) covers less and looks like you have to be doing it with an official company.

Some of the other traveler's insurance companies don't have that restriction - unfortunately they are more expensive, but my plan is to chose one and just take a high deductible to try to get costs down. I'm contacting each insurance company to confirm their coverage, but here's my current list of options:

- HTH - Global Citizen - looks like covers anywhere, but not cheap
- International Medical Group Patriot - also maybe covers everywhere
- Global Medical Insurance - need to live abroad for 6 months (unclear if thats continuous and/or in one country). This one doesn't work for me because they exclude most quasi-extreme sports and I kiteboard
- Travelex - looks like a full plan for pretty cheap but not a lot of coverage (I've heard to shoot for a $1 million, not sure if that is fully necessary, but the kiteboarding thing comes up again)
- MultiNational Underwriters - Atlas Series - basically just for abroad but does allow 15 days out of every 3 months in home country
- ihi - looks like it covers everything, based out of denmark (not sure if thats a problem or not).

by **La Lluvia** » February 23rd, 2009

Hi, Most travel insurance is what is referred as secondary coverage. So when you have another plan in force travel insurance will pay what is not paid by the primary insurance. If you are not covered by another plan, then plans like World Nomads becomes primary.

There are only a few plans that are Primary, the Travel Plus on this page is one.

Two of the most popular plans BootsnAll sells are the World Nomads plan and the Patriot International Plan on this page.

If you have specific questions, please call me at the BootsnAll Office 866-549-7614 or you can contact me by Skype from the link above.

Dave
BootsnAll Travel

by **ECA84** » March 9th, 2009

Hello all!

I'm planning a year-long trip around the world with my boyfriend and trying to get a handle on travel health insurance. Neither of us will have primary insurance when we go so we will need something that can serve that role. Any recommendations?

But besides that, my main question is about pricing: when I get a quote, it doesn't say whether the amount is for the whole time period I put in or whether it's per month? Can someone please help me with this!

Thanks!

by **cliphy** » March 23rd, 2009

I am pretty certain the quotes you get are for the whole period of coverage, not per month.

by **Jhonthompson** » May 18th, 2009

Hey all as far I know most of the travel insurance is refered to be as secondary. But if you don’t have any primary insurance then it becomes primary insurance to you. But you need to be sure about that. Best of luck!