I'm a fairly healthy person by nature. My medical bills are usually limited to an annual physical, though this past year a trip to the Appalachian Trail resulted in a tick bite that required a Lyme disease test (no Lyme disease!). Point is, add in all the costs I've paid in insurance costs vs. the actual costs associated with treatment and I would say the insurance companies are coming out on top.
BUT the other day I had this image of me, lying in a ditch somewhere outside of Kaunas, holding onto my knee in the mud and rain...and I thought hmm, well maybe I should look into health insurance options. And so I share with you reader, what you need to know.
1. If you are going to get some kind of insurance, the very least you should have is evacuation insurance. This gets you home if you are in no condition to be home. I'm sure eastern Europe has come a long way, but waking up in a cold war era hospital is too much shades of "28 days later" for me. Things to look for...the cheaper the insurance, the lower the coverage. Most of the cheapest plans will cover between 24,000 - 50,000 in evacuation costs. The State Department states that getting treatment and transportation abroad can easily top $50,000. That's a government estimate (remember the initial cost of the war??), so think more. A few extra dollars can easily bump up your coverage to a cool mil.
2. the second level, health insurance, covers your out of pocket costs while on the road. Traveling in Europe, one would think that you'd be covered with their socialized health care systems. Not really. The health care system is socialized, not free. If you are not a taxpayer of that country, chances are there will be some fees involved. Travel health insurance works after the fact, so you pay up front and the insurance company pays you back. Obv. this is not the ideal bargaining position. So read up and go with a company you trust - your current insurance company will probably offer something like this. I just called AAA and asked them for a referral. Again, you can go cheaper, but the coverage levels are usually much less. Looking around, I saw programs that covered only up to $2,000. If you need insurance for $2,000...you probably shouldn't be traveling just yet. A little more and you are covered up to 50k.
3. Bundling. The word is out on travel insurance...lost ticket, baggage, and cancellation insurances are pretty much a racket for insurance firms. As more and more people opt out of this, insurance companies respond by bundling travel together with travel health. Try to get it separate, but realize its going to be a bit harder to do so.
In the end, I went with AAA. My travel insurance covers 50k medical, 50k dental, and 1 million evacuation for a cost of about $4/day. Should you go with just evacuation insurance, expect to pay a little over a dollar a day.
Purchased: 2 months travel health insurance $198
Spent: $2100