Travel insurance for non-sequential days

May 22, 2018 9:44 PM

I am travelling from Australia to the USA and Mexico for meetings and a conference, with four private days for sightseeing (in two two-day chunks, two weeks apart). I need health insurance for the private days only. Are there travel insurance companies that will let me do this?

My employer is paying for most of the trip and so the company's insurance covers the actual work days, plus any issue with the flights, accommodation, etc. But they explicitly said I am not covered for health insurance on the sightseeing days. So I need travel insurance for four days (two in the USA and two in Mexico) that are not sequential, and I don't need the insurance to cover stuff like delayed/missed flights, accommodation or anything like that. Only medical.

(If it was anywhere other than the USA, I'd probably take my chances, but I am scared of the US medical system and its ability to bankrupt people.)

I'd rather not get duplicate insurance for the entire period of the trip, first because it seems unnecessarily expensive, and secondly, because I'm concerned double insurance can lead to situations where each company thinks the other should pay. It seems like it should also be cheaper if I could just be covered for medical, for example, rather than the flights/accommodation etc too that always seems to come with it all. Does anyone here know if this kind of thing exists?

posted by lollusc to Travel & Transportation around United States (12 answers total)

1 full month travel medical assurance should set you back US$100 at the very most for a coverage of up to $200,000

Don’t skimp unecessarily on that cost.
posted by Kwadeng at 11:41 PM on May 22, 2018

I get an annual worldwide policy for something like £45 but a single trip is always about £25 so again why bother? Also insurance companies don't magically talk to each other. If you make a claim on one insurance and don't mention it to the other then how would they know that you're covered. Also with an annual policy you could just say that you weren't relying on the insurance on the days that were covered by the other policy.
posted by koolkat at 11:46 PM on May 22, 2018

Every Australian policy that I've skimmed the PDS stipulate that you need to be leaving and returning to Australia but I'm not wordy enough to know if that means that the policy has to start in Australia.

Give Flight Centre (or if you have access to an agent that booked your other work travel) a call - they want to sell you things so they will go the digging for you. The price between policies would be so low for that period of time that it wouldn't be worth shopping it around.
posted by cholly at 12:02 AM on May 23, 2018

Response by poster: Koolkat, where are you getting such cheap insurance? The cheapest I've seen for an annual policy that includes the USA is about AUD $350, about £200 ?

And Kwadeng, where are you finding medical-only insurance? I haven't been able to find that in my searches so far - only insurance that covers all of medical/flights/accommodation/lostproperty/theft etc, and that's much more than $100 for a month.
posted by lollusc at 12:13 AM on May 23, 2018

On travel insurance direct I get a quote for a 3 week USA trip for AU$137.
Probably it’s best just to pay for it, for the peace of mind.
posted by dave99 at 1:16 AM on May 23, 2018

comparethemarket.com I don't really get very good insurance, mostly due to the risk level I am willing to take, but travel insurance in the UK is quite a competitive market. You can usually get Europe wide insurance for free with certain bank accounts and a small additional charge to make it worldwide.
posted by koolkat at 2:22 AM on May 23, 2018

I haven't used them myself, but I've heard World Nomads recommended for this situation (Australian corporate travel insurance covering you for a certain period but not personal time at the end) because apparently they don't require you to begin/end in Australia. This recommendation was a couple of years ago, so please double check that's still the case!
posted by mxc at 2:48 AM on May 23, 2018

Kwadeng, where are you finding medical-only insurance?

You are looking for Travel Insurance rather than Medical Insurance. Well, I'm in Cameroon and a one-month worldwide travel medical insurance with AXA (a reputable French company) is $62 exactly. Prices are probably different elsewhere but shouldn't be all that different. You need to look around and compare prices. Or visit a local broker. I can't vouch for these people, but I see quotes starting at $30.

World Nomads (Australian and recommended by Lonely Planet) says 5 days US coverage for a 40-year-old Australian is 69 AUD and then 66 AUD for Mexico (also 5 days, which seems to be the minimum)
posted by Kwadeng at 3:21 AM on May 23, 2018

It's not always true that having overlapping insurance doesn't cause problems: some companies make you prove that they're your "primary" coverage at the time of treatment. So read the fine print.

Any chance your credit card or regular health insurance company provides travel insurance?
posted by trig at 6:38 AM on May 23, 2018

You might also ask your employer to elaborate on how the days in the middle are not covered. Could you travel home between meetings? I assume not and I assume you didn’t spread your meetings apart to facilitate the four individual days. So please get them to explain how they can’t cover you for the days between meetings when you cannot reasonably be expected to fly back to Australia.
posted by koahiatamadl at 11:55 AM on May 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

I also wonder how you are not covered for the in-between days. When I have done this in the past (from Australia), I was covered for all aspects of the voyage by my employer's travel insurance. The amount of personal travel involved implied some FBT consequences, but I didn't think there was any interruption in insured-ness.
posted by indecision at 5:40 PM on May 23, 2018

Response by poster: They distinguish between "unavoidable days" and "private days". Weekends in the middle of the trip are deemed unavoidable. Weekends at the start and end, which I asked to include specifically so I can do sightseeing, are deemed private. It is only the latter that work insurance doesn't cover (and where I also have to pay my accommodation and meals).

I ended up just buying insurance for the entire trip period, as most of you suggested. Hopefully that won't cause any issues. The medical-only insurance confused me too much with talk of copays and in network versus out of network etc , and I never did find anything that promised it could do non-sequential days or trips that didn't start in Australia.

I did ask our work travel agent but she just tried to sell me a product that very clearly in its terms and conditions said I had to start and end in Australia.
posted by lollusc at 8:17 AM on May 24, 2018