We recently received a flyer from HTH Worldwide, who offers global travel insurance plans through Travel Insurance Review, and we wanted to share it with our readers.
Last year, a 72-year-old traveler from Florida went to Torremolinos, Spain for a two-month vacation. This traveler purchased an annual plan from HTH: TravelGap Multi-trip Silver (a plan that covers travelers up to age 84 and includes coverage for pre-existing medical conditions). During his trip, he experienced dizziness and suffered a loss of consciousness. He was admitted to a local hospital for diagnosis and treatment.
While this particular hospital did not have a contract with HTH, the administrators agreed to invoice HTH for the traveler’s medical care. After two weeks in hospital, the attending physician released the patient to return to the U.S. but because he was disoriented (due to his condition of Alzheimer’s), the doctor and the HTH team agreed that a nurse would be necessary to ensure he could travel safely. After his hospital discharge, the traveler was medically evacuated to the U.S. accompanied by a nurse and traveled in business class. He was admitted to a local hospital in Florida and placed under the care of his family physician.
HTH arranged for and paid for all the hospital charges in Spain, including the air flight home and nurse escort (image below copied from the HTH flyer).
What can we learn from this traveler’s experience?
A lot of travelers give travel insurance a bad rap because they believe it should cover them in all travel emergencies, but as we’ve shown in this story, travel insurance is sometimes the best purchase a traveler can make.
Unfortunately, travelers typically fail to read their plan’s description of coverage and so they don’t know exactly what their coverage includes and they make assumptions about their coverage. Often, we find that travelers take the easy road, simply purchasing any old travel insurance plan offered to them in the check out process, and then get angry when it doesn’t have the kind of coverage they need.
If you’ve been let down by travel insurance in the past, please review our 5 Common “Loopholes” and How to Avoid Them to better understand how travel insurance works and how to purchase the right travel insurance for your needs.
