[2008] Trip insurance?

Hi Gang,

OK, OK, I admit that I put “trip insurance” right up there with extended warranties and “rust proofing” / polyglycoating (what ever happened to that stuff?) in the waste of money category, but my sister just had something happen to her while in Mexico that has me rethinking at least the “trip insurance” thing.

She and a bunch of her friends went to the Cancun area for spring break with their high school-aged kids. Some of the kids went on a guided ATV tour, where one of the kids ended up trying to stop an on-coming truck with his face. He was pretty messed up – he stopped breathing -- the works.

They called an ambulance, which turned out to be some guy in an old truck, who wanted $2000 (pre-payment by cash or credit card only) to drive this kid to the “hospital,” which turned out to be little more than a filthly garage with stray dogs running through it near Playa Del Carmen, which immediately wanted $7000 (pre-payment by cash or credit card only) before it would take him. My sister (who is a doctor) and her hubby (who is a surgeon) were able to stabilize the kid, but quickly determined that he needed to be in a real hospital with real equipment with a real head trauma specialist looking after him. So another $3000 (prepayment by cash or credit card only) ambulance ride later he was in a hospital ($30,000 pre-payment by cash or credit card only – negotiated down from $100,000 on admission) in Cancun, looked after by a local Mexican head trauma specialist ($5000 pre-payment by cash or credit card only), but certainly not out of the woods.

A couple of days later, the Mexican head trauma doc concluded that the kid was OK to travel back to the states for further treatment, but he needed to travel by air ambulance ($27,000 pre-payment by cash or credit card only).

So my sister, her hubby and all the other adults on the trip ended up maxing out their credit cards to the tune of over $70,000 to get this kid treated and returned to the states in one piece (sort of), where it appears he will be OK. None of these expenses are covered by his medical insurance, which it turns out, is a pretty standard exclusion on most US health insurance policies.

Here is what my sister’s local paper reported on this incident.

So now with an upcoming trip to the Bahamas (for my friend) next month, that whole $100,000 of “air ambulance” coverage included in that $47/year travel insurance through SVO’s partnership with "Vacation Guard" has started to look much better to us.

Does anyone know of any better coverage for this type of thing?

Oh yeah, you can add this incident to my list of reasons why I don’t like traveling to Mexico.

-nodge

Holy crap, thats just god awful!

Ok....scratch ATV riding off list in Mexico.

Insuremytrip.com is a comparison rating site for various types of travel insurance. I haven't used any of them, but given the number of trips I'm taking in the next 12 months, including the Bahamas and Cancun, for $50/year it might be a good use of my tax refund!

I have gotten travel insurance with Travelex. I actually had to cancel a trip to Hawaii because I was sick. With a doctors letter I was fully reimbursed. I don't remember all of the coverage, but was surprised that the reimbursement went rather smoothly, I think I only had to follow up once.

that news is so terrible. that is a parents nightmare come true. i just took out the travel insurance. i have been debating, filled out the forms 3 times and never pressed the process button, today i did.thanks for making up my mind.

barbra

Well, after told the wife about this thread, we are going to purchase trip insurance.

What is meant by "Member Number" in the Vacation Guard Application?

Is that just any of our contract numbers?

DavidnRobin said:

What is meant by "Member Number" in the Vacation Guard Application?

Is that just any of our contract numbers?

Click to expand...

i called starwood and there is an SVN number that is the same on all my units so that is the number they gave me. it is not the contract numbers.

Would that be the number on the Starwood Gold Prefered Guest card?

I"m puzzled by $50/year. We rarely take out travel insurance but heading to/thru Panama Canal for 14 days on a cruise and the cost was close to $600-- I think being based on a percentage of the value of the trip for two of us.

Are you sure $50 covers air ambulance? How about medical care? Is this just for Starwood trips? Very interested in your reply!

Note that you have to allow the Insurer to make the AirVac arrangements. Also note the exclusions. I'm really surprised that ATVing is not listed. They might try to argue that it was "racing."....

This Protection Plan Does Not Cover Any Loss Caused by or Resulting From: Pre-Existing Conditions (please note this exclusion does not apply to Emergency Evacuation and Repatriation of Remains); suicide or attempted suicide while sane or insane (in Missouri, sane only); intentionally self-inflicted injuries; war, invasion, acts of foreign enemies, hostilities between nations (whether declared or not), civil war; participation in any military maneuver or training
exercise; piloting or learning to pilot or acting as a member of the crew of any aircraft; participating as a professional in athletics; being under the influence of drugs or intoxicants unless prescribed by a licensed Physician; commission or the attempt to commit a criminal act; participating in bodily contact sports; skydiving; heliskiing, extreme skiing, scuba diving (unless accompanied by a dive master and not deeper than 50 feet), hang gliding; parachuting; speed contest (shall not include any of the regatta races); mountaineering; any race; bungee cord jumping; spelunking or caving; dental treatment except as a result of Injury to sound natural teeth;
pregnancy and childbirth (except for complications of pregnancy); mental or nervous disorders; and curtailment or delayed return for other than covered reasons; traveling for the purpose of securing medical treatment; any non-emergency treatment of surgery, routine physical examinations, hearing aids, eye glasses or contacts; services not shown as covered.

As PJ stated - the member number is a SVO number that is for all of your SVO VOIs (TimeShares) - I call them to obtain it - the reservation person at first wasn't aware of such a number, then found it after a little persistance.

I ended up getting the insurance - for $47 it seems like a good deal for the coverage (I am not usually one big on Insurance), but considering that we go to STJ-WSJ annually - seems like it could be worthwhile. Hopefully, we will never need it (like any Insurnace policy) - but just in case...

yes - its built for TS

I too have VacationGuard and it is full travel insurance, but also covers my M&T. Best of all - it runs annually and inlcudes exchange fee protection, for less than the per-trip exchange protection offered, while giving far greater benefits. Cruise insurance, like most travel insurance, is age rated, and per-person rated, which we no longer have to buy on TS because of the vg policy. For special upgrades, I can buy the vg "select" upgrade, starting at a whole $39, doubling my medical benefits and adding other coverage. so... it's affordable and backed by Nationwide insurance. One less possible adventure we have to mess with an our TS trips, including getting stuck in travel delays. And remember... not only is air evac not covered under health insurance (what a leading story & lesson), but out of system medcial treatment is subject to higher deductibles, or...like in Canada during a ski trip, we were required to pay up front for xrays, treatment, and all, and then submit for coverage and co-pay after we got back home.

Vacation Guard: If you own any non-Starwood timeshares, you cannot include them on the same discounted Starwood policy with your Starwood weeks. In that case, it is cheaper to insure all your timeshares with one, regular policy. (When the Starwood discount was first announced I emailed them to get a definitive answer.)

nodge--how is the kid doing? will he be OK?

Wow... you learn something new everyday. I've bought trip insurance before but only for trips outside the US. I've only bought it twice. I did use it on our last trip on our cruise in Europe. We had a problem with one piece of our luggage as it did not arrive at the airport. We finally got our piece of luggage about one month after the trip was over. However, with our lost luggage we were able to buy replacement clothes which we needed. The luggage was a garment bag that had all our evening clothes in it. So, I was able to buy a simple black dress and my dh bought pants and 2 dress shirts. All was reimbursed with no problems.

What I didn't know is that you could insure your timeshare vacations. I just figured our medical would cover everything since we only timeshare in the U.S. so far. Does the timeshare policy cover Maintenance fees, too? Does some one have a link to where they purchase timeshare insurance for all their timeshares together? It might be something I want to consider.

Here you go - http://www.vacationguard.com/

And yes it does cover maintenance fees.

Let me go look, I think there may be a TUG discount for this company...

*I had to email Brian and ask him, I may have imagined this!

*Sorry - I made the whole thing up! No discount!

Here is the TUG Advice Article that briefly discusses Vacation Guard: http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47

pointsjunkie said:

nodge--how is the kid doing? will he be OK?

Click to expand...

Hi Pointsjunkie,

My sister hasn't heard much since he has been in the hospital in NYC, where his prognosis at the time was "good." I'll report what I know when/if she gets an update.

Thanks for asking.

-nodge

califgal said:

I have gotten travel insurance with Travelex. I actually had to cancel a trip to Hawaii because I was sick. With a doctors letter I was fully reimbursed. I don't remember all of the coverage, but was surprised that the reimbursement went rather smoothly, I think I only had to follow up once.

Click to expand...

califgal, I do not think Travelex provides travel medical insurance (not to be confused with travel insurance).

I would not travel outside the US without travel medical insurance. Some medical insurers will cover treatment outside the U.S., some won't, and some will but it is a major hassle because they although they say they will reimburse you, you have to pay up front and the documents from outside the U.S. have to be translated into English, copied, etc.

Does Vacation Guard cover air transportation cancellation due to bankruptcy of the airline?

Travel without travel insurance - I don't think so - and get the BEST there is...

[This is a duplicate of a post on the travel board, and it's not Starwood related, so if you want to respond to Barcol's post, here is the link to the same post on the travel board - http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87876 - DeniseM Moderator]

Just to clarify - this thread is from May.

Barb - hope your son is doing well.

BTW, if you need the policy number, go to the link below and "Click here" for more information. About 3/4 of the way down that page under "Program Plan" is a link to a .pdf file that you can open up for complete coverage information. If you open up that .pdf file, the policy number is listed in the title.

https://www.mystarcentral.com/offers/vacation_guard.jsp?IM=enews_vacationguard_v2_i3_vacationguard

If you own non-Starwood timeshares, the Starwood offer is not a good deal. If you buy Vacationguard through the Starwood offer it only covers Starwood timeshares - your other timeshares cannot be covered with the "Starwood" policy. You would have to buy a separate policy for your other timeshares, which makes it far more expensive to use the Starwood "discount." If you buy the exact same policy independently, you can cover ALL your timeshares with one policy, regardless of their affiliation.

DeniseM said:

If you own non-Starwood timeshares, the Starwood offer is not a good deal. If you buy Vacationguard through the Starwood offer it only covers Starwood timeshares - your other timeshares cannot be covered with the "Starwood" policy.

Click to expand...

Can you cover both developer and resale Starwood weeks on one policy?

And, the policy would cover any Interval/SFX/RCI exchanges you made with Starwood weeks, right?

Thanks!

Glorian

P.S. Funny this thread got revived as I just asked a question about travel medical insurance in the travel info board yesterday:

http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87876