Check if your travel policy is "First Payer"?

[cruisincdns]

Here is a good article to read about purchasing additional travel insurance on top of any existing extend health/travel benefits you may have and having to make a claim. So important to ask/verify if your travel policy is "first payer" or not as it could affect any existing extended health coverage you may have as part of your employee benefit package at work.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/buy-travel-health-insurance-end-up-with-less-coverage-a-couple-s-hard-lesson-1.3495864

 

Paul

[iuki]

I just wanted to add that just because travel insurance is purchased under primary (first payer) doesn't mean it will be processed that way. It's important to read fine print or ask questions. Generally speaking, if on the claim form you mark yes asking if you have other medical coverage, your "primary" travel insurance will be automatically processed as secondary.

[GeezerCouple]

Here is a good article to read about purchasing additional travel insurance on top of any existing extend health/travel benefits you may have and having to make a claim. So important to ask/verify if your travel policy is "first payer" or not as it could affect any existing extended health coverage you may have as part of your employee benefit package at work.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/buy-travel-health-insurance-end-up-with-less-coverage-a-couple-s-hard-lesson-1.3495864

 

Paul

 

I just wanted to add that just because travel insurance is purchased under primary (first payer) doesn't mean it will be processed that way. It's important to read fine print or ask questions. Generally speaking, if on the claim form you mark yes asking if you have other medical coverage, your "primary" travel insurance will be automatically processed as secondary.

 

It is SO VERY IMPORTANT TO READ THE TERMS OF *YOUR* SPECIFIC POLICY!

 

Also be aware that insurance is regulated (usually or always?), and varies from country to country, and sometimes from state to state within the USA as well.

 

Note that the Canadian coverage in the linked article (where the couple apparently ended up "using up" a lot of their "lifetime allotment" of coverage) had the following terms:

 

"In the fine print of the policy the Milaneys purchased from RBC, it states: "Any of our policies are excess insurance and are the last payers. All other sources of recovery, indemnity payments or insurance coverage must be exhausted before any payments will be made under any of our policies."

[emphasis added]

 

This is not the case in most policies in the USA (or at least none that we have looked into, which is quite a few).

 

Further, for those who are reasonably concerned about the "primary/secondary" situation, which could make the "primary" not work that way at all in some cases, that may be changing.

 

Steve (from http://www.TripInsuranceStore.com) has checked on this after I asked him, and he replied that SOME insurers are starting to change the wording on the claim form.

 

Instead of asking if one has "other medical coverage/insurance", it seems to be changing to asking if one has "other travel insurance".

That's quite different, obviously.