Medivac on Grandeur

Even as a rescue professional, I always purchase trip insurance these days. Better safe than sorry. :)

Probably BECAUSE you are a rescue professional. :)

Phoenix Cruiser, if you want to email me I will tell you about it, I don't wish to take up this post to go through the circumstances, but it was very traumatic. My aol email is in in my signature.

Gay

Yes, lots of good info in here. The US does not charge for rescue operations, it's funded through tax payer dollars. This can be true in other countries as well, but not always.

They will only take you to the nearest hospital though, or have an ambulance waiting at their base. From that point on, you're on the hook for the bill. So if the USCG rescues you from the ship up in Alaska, and you need specialized care from a major hospital in the lower 48, you're going to have to get a med flight ($$$) as well as hospital bills on both ends.

Also, as alluded in previous posts, if you were in the Caribbean and were docked or close to port you'd be taken to a land hospital by the ship and all the costs are on you, including a med flight to a US Hospital.

You don't need $1M in coverage though for med evac. Not unless you're on Mt. Everest or something. So don't overpay for something you wouldn't need. Insurance companies like to throw out this big number because they can make extra profit while not increasing their risk.

 

MedJet offers just med evac coverage.

And as i mentioned earlier, MedJet does not cover evacuating you off of a ship. It kicks in once you have been admitted to a hospital. So if something happened while at sea and you had to be emergency evac'd directly off the ship immediatley, MedJet wouldn't cover it.

You don't need $1M in coverage though for med evac. Not unless you're on Mt. Everest or something. So don't overpay for something you wouldn't need. Insurance companies like to throw out this big number because they can make extra profit while not increasing their risk.

Hmm, the insurance I picked for our cruise was cheaper than the others, plus offered higher limits across the board. Including the $1m med evac.

So how are they making extra profit??????

And if you have ever really shopped insurance, raising limits is cheap. I found that for my car insurance, going from a $100,000 to $1m liability cost a whopping $3 per month. Yeap, my insurance company is really raking in the dough over that.

If the maximum risk is 200k then they can offer 250k, 500k, and 1M all at different prices. Or just give 1M to attract customers (Oh wow, look, they have much higher coverage for the same price!) all without increasing their exposure at all.

$3 is nothing to you, but across 100k customers that's a nice extra $300k in the pocket for no work at all. No, it won't be the thing that makes them rich but it's 'free' money.

it was asked I believe the cost for medical transport and a lot depends probably on the distance . I wish to follow up on the total cost for flying my husband from St Johns Newfoundland back to Palm Springs, Ca. I received the print out of what was covered a couple days ago. The entire cost to get my husband home, ( 4300 + miles ) $53,554.00. I was not charged.

it was asked I believe the cost for medical transport and a lot depends probably on the distance . I wish to follow up on the total cost for flying my husband from St Johns Newfoundland back to Palm Springs, Ca. I received the print out of what was covered a couple days ago. The entire cost to get my husband home, ( 4300 + miles ) $53,554.00. I was not charged.

I'm so sorry about your husband. You mentioned previously IIRC Gay, that travel insurance did not cover the cost to get him back to Palm Springs. Was it your regular medical/health insurance that paid for that part? Or how was it covered?

It was our regular Provider, United Health Care through his Federal Plan, he worked for the Postal Service for 33 years. that ended up bringing him home and they didn't even charge me a Co pay. They also reimbursed me the On Board Medical Cost that got charged to my WF Visa, ( $12,032.53 ) although they are redoing the check since the first one was made out to my husband instead of my name and I can't deposit the first one. The Good Sam Travel would only take him to Halifax and would only pay a little over $17,000, I would have had to write them a check for close to $41,000 before they would even come. Our daughter who flew to SJ's the day after we were transferred, was my hero, she got on the phone and began getting things moving. I am not sure I would have held together had she not been there and I am known for being a strong person. We all find out in our lives, our breaking point and I bet I came close to mine. I also as you probably read, there were 227 CC Members who were my support team on the Serenade. :) I hope to soon find many of them again on a future cruise to thank them personally. I am still waiting on his OPM ( Federal Retirement ) to begin sending me his monthly checks. There is documents coming to verify some information then they can send me the first check which will be retroactive back to his last one. This has me concerned because I had to put $$ from my Investments into his acct to pay bills. They assured me everything is ready to go but I haven't gotten the paperwork yet to send back.I knew before we left the ship, that he wasn't coming home to me due to the time he was down before they got the heart started.

Gay

Thank you Gay. I have UHC as well, it is nice to know that they might be available when there is a serious issue.

I lost my mom in October, only child as well. There is lots of stuff to be done when a parent is in distress or passes away. I didn't mean to bring it up again, but thanks for expanding on your original answer.

Your welcome, after my experience I am more interested now in helping others avoid what the daughter & I went through although it might have affected me differently then her since I was there in our cabin when it happened. I expressed my concern to my husband in that he should get a physical before we left as he had informed me he was experiencing being winded. He was also 12 yrs older and we had a big trip which included Iceland and knew how isolated that could be but he shrugged that off. Surprisingly he had no history of heart problems nor complaints leading up to that evening when we left the dining room to go to our cabin for a brief stop before heading to the theater. Let me add, the daughter called an international # since we were in Canada and a Lady from Maryland actually was our contact person, yet the local office is in Salt lake City. They made sure upon his arrival home that he had his room in ICU ready and DR's standing by to take over his care. He left the CCU unit at noon SJ' time and arrived around 7:45 PS time with 2 fueling stops & customs. Something like 12 hrs. I was told.

Gay