Experience with Travel insurance paying secondary medical?

[BullDawg91]

I'm looking at a policy for my parents that has $75k medical secondary. They have Medicare. I am concerned about whether the travel insurance will pay if Medicare denies because of being outside the country.

 

With traditional health insurance, if the primary denies the claim, the secondary generally also denies.

 

Does anyone have experience with this?

[sirwired]

Some annual policies require your insurance to cover at least some of the claim. Most (all?) one-time policies do not require this, but the policy text itself should confirm this.

[BullDawg91]

For what it's worth, I got an answer on this by calling the proposed insurance company, TruTravel Insurance. The rep said that if you have a medical claim where Medicare is the primary insurance, you will have to file with Medicare and receive a denial. When you receive the denial, you then file with TruTravel, and they will pay.

 

She did recommend calling their assistance line as if they are primary if you need medical care.

[CasaM]

I am going to go with Geo Blue multi trip coverage for our upcoming trip. This is medical coverage only, no trip cancellation, luggage or anything like that. And the coverage is for a whole year. The cost is reasonable, so take a look at them.

 

https://geobluetravelinsurance.com/

[BridgeMates]

For what it's worth, I got an answer on this by calling the proposed insurance company, TruTravel Insurance. The rep said that if you have a medical claim where Medicare is the primary insurance, you will have to file with Medicare and receive a denial. When you receive the denial, you then file with TruTravel, and they will pay.

 

She did recommend calling their assistance line as if they are primary if you need medical care.

 

We recently did this exact thing. Insurance was "secondary" so we had to submit to Medicare first and wait a few weeks for their denial, but getting the "primary" insurance was quite a bit more on a long cruise so I didn't mind the little extra hassle. "More time than money!" The only thing insurance didn't cover was the taxi and tip the cruise ship employee spent getting the medicine for us in port.