A few months ago on Avid Travel With Britton Frost, we had a series of insurance podcasts, followed by an insurance story. But people still had questions: What about other modes of travel protection through credit card companies? What about standalone medical plans?
This week, we answer those questions with one of our readers, Joel Gilgoff. Joel is an avid cruiser, in fact, he has done more cruises than I have at over 70 total. He provides great insight into travel protection, and why it is important to look past insurance companies to find more creative solutions on how to protect your trip.
Listen below.
https://soundcloud.com/brittonfrost/avid-travel-with-britton-29
Paulette Hannah says
I just purchased GeoBlue Trekker annual plan for our 2020 overseas travels this year. Thank you to Ralph and Britton for covering the topic of travel insurance, not a simple one, to be sure. My options boiled down to whether to pay for trip cancellation; or medical/evacuation coverage; and what annual plans are available. After researching this, we chose medical/evac coverage. As mentioned, there may be other ways to get trip cancellation coverage besides buying the overpriced (in my opinion) trip cancellation insurance. We’ll take our chances there with our multiple trips planned this year. With primary group coverage from Medicare Plan G, after a $250 deductible my risk is 20% of costs up to $50k (lifetime). So the GeoBlue will cover the rest up to the generous limits of their policy. Reviews were good and the price reasonable. I hope this is helpful.
Ralph Grizzle says
Thank you Paulette. Downloading the sample policy is a good idea too!
Ira Leibowitz says
Does GeoBlue insurance cover pre-existing conditions?
Thank you
Paulette Hannah says
Ira,
Their sample plan document says they do cover pre-existing, up to the limits of the policy. You can download a sample policy document, which I highly encourage you to do. Reading the fine print is worth the time and effort.
Marilyn B says
@Thomas Kelly. The card he highly recommended was the Chase Sapphire Reserve, which he uses for the trip insurance benefits. He also mentioned a CITI card, but did not name the specific one. It could be the Citi Premier or Citi Prestige, but I do not know about the extent of their insurance benefits. He mentioned GeoBlue travel insurance – he uses the Trekker multi-trip option, but there is also a single trip option. He also recommends using a site like insuremytrip.com to search and compare insurance policies.
I hope this is helpful
My husband has the Chase Sapphire Reserve and since we got it we have not purchased trip insurance on our last 5 cruises. For the past 2 years we have also had a Medjet Assist annual medical evacuation policy (discounted to AARP members).
However, having heard other positive recommendations for GeoBlue, I am going to look further into this. I am about to turn 70 so the medical benefit will be reduced, but my Medicare policy does provide some additional overseas coverage. But since GeoBlue covers evacuation as well, it could be a better choice for us. I found this podcast very helpful.
Thomas Kelly says
It would be helpful if some of his recommendations were also in writing. He mentioned some specific insurance companies and credit cards, I am not willing to listen again to “catch” the names.