The Importance of Medical Evacuation Coverage in Travel Insurance

Jane is traveling to Canada to see the Northern lights with her friends. As they tread through snow to see iridescent ribbons dancing across the night skies, she accidentally trips and breaks her leg. Through the excruciating pain, she manages to call an air ambulance. At the end of the week, she receives a bill that hurts as much as the broken leg.

Travel medevac insurance covers expensive medevac services. This coverage is crucial if you’re traveling to a remote or high-risk area that requires urgent medevacs. Let’s go over what is medical evacuation insurance, how much medevac insurance costs, and how much coverage you need.

What is Medical Evacuation Coverage?

Definition and Scope

Medical evacuation is a part of travel insurance that can help you pay for emergency medical evacuation and relocation services. Medevac insurance usually covers:

Medical evacuation: Air ambulances and other emergency medical transportation services are covered by medical evacuation insurance.

Relocation of family: Medical evacuation insurance can cover the costs of transporting friends and family to your location to see you.

Repatriation of remains: The insurance policy may help with the repatriation of remains, obtaining the death certificate, coordinating with the consulate/embassy, and other costs.

How It Works

When a medical emergency occurs, parties involved should immediately contact the local medical organization. This typically means calling the area’s emergency helpline for an ambulance. Emergency transport should come to assist you and bring you to a medical facility. A medevac insurance company may also help the patient with coordinating care.

Emergency evacuation can also mean bringing you back to your home country (repatriation) as needed.

Afterward, it’s time to file a claim with your emergency medical evacuation insurance. Be sure to meet any timely filing limits and deadlines. If your claim is valid, you will receive a reimbursement for the medevac services (up to the maximum coverage amount).

Types of Evacuations Covered

Medevac insurance can cover a wide range of emergency evacuation services, including:

• Air medevac: Fixed-wing aircrafts are often used to transport patients. Helicopter rescues can also help transport people during emergencies.

• Sea medevac: If you’re on a cruise or island, sea medevac becomes crucial. Sea medevacs may involve the Coast Guard or other regional maritime security organizations.

• Ground medevac: Emergency ground evac includes ambulances and other specialized medical vehicles. These vehicles can safely navigate rough terrain and are staffed by paramedics who can provide potentially life-saving care.

If you want evacuation coverage for political unrest, personal threats, and other events, you would need political evacuation insurance instead.

The Critical Role of Medical Evacuation Coverage

Importance in Remote and Less-Developed Areas

Remote and less developed regions often face difficulties in providing accessible, high-quality medical care. If there is a severe traumatic injury or acute illness, immediate care can make a huge difference in the quality of care for the patient.

Medical evacuation can bring a patient to a different region in order to access potentially life-saving care. This might even mean transporting the traveler to another country. Medevac transports also typically have life support, nurses, and paramedics on board to help injured and ill patients. Examples of when medevac is useful include:

• Car crash
• Sports injury
• Cardiovascular events
• Exacerbation of cardiovascular events
• Pregnancy complications
• Infectious diseases

High Costs of Medical Evacuations

Medical evacuation is expensive. An ambulance in the United States around $1,000 without insurance. However, if you need an air ambulance, you can expect to pay between $10,000 to $50,000. Unlike ground ambulances, air ambulance services charge you differently, with fixed fees based on numerous factors, and international medevacs are even more costly.

Air ambulance cost: $10,000 to $50,000 in the US; potentially over $150,000 internationally

Helicopter rescue cost: Up to $10,000

Ground ambulance cost: Around $1,000 in the US; potentially over $25,000 internationally

Life-Saving Potential

Emergency evacuation services could make the difference between life and death. If you’re traveling in a remote location and get injured or ill, quick access to medical services can make a big difference.

Here are reasons that travelers need medical evacuation:

• Appendicitis
• Altitude sickness
• Strokes
• Heart attacks
• Severe traumatic injuries and accidents

Who Needs Medical Evacuation Coverage?

International Travelers

According to the US Department of State, traditional health insurance policies do not cover any international healthcare expenses. If you’re headed to a different country, you should check that your travel insurance plan includes medevac coverage.

Emergency medical evacuations in the United States are already fairly expensive, with air evacs costing around $40,000. If you’re traveling across borders, especially to a location with limited medical facilities, an emergency could have you paying over $100,000 for emergency medical transportation.

International travelers should make sure their travel insurance policy includes medevac insurance to avoid costly expenses.

Adventure Travelers

Travel insurance companies classify certain high-risk activities as adventure sports, which are excluded from standard travel insurance policies. However, an adventure sports insurance policy includes medical evacuation, which is recommended for adventure travelers.

Medical evacuation can potentially be life-saving when it comes to adventure sports and hazardous activities, such as:

• Skiing
• Scuba diving
• Skydiving
• Bungee jumping
• Ziplining
• Mountain climbing

When buying an adventure sports insurance add-on, be sure to double-check whether your type of activity will be covered. Some locations and high-risk adventure sports may require travelers to carry insurance before they can participate in group activities.

Business Travelers in Remote Areas

Business travelers heading to remote areas can benefit from medical evacuation insurance. This is because if an incident occurs, medical evacuation services may be needed to relocate you to a more urban, developed area. Larger cities and hospitals have better imaging, surgical equipment, and access to medical care.

Before traveling to less developed regions, research what medical services you can access when there. Knowing ahead of time where to go and who to contact in case of an emergency can make a difference in a crisis.

Elderly or High-Risk Travelers

Seniors should consider obtaining comprehensive travel insurance for seniors, which includes medical evacuation coverage. Older travelers tend to face higher health risks and more pre-existing conditions, which may make medevac services more critical.

Families Traveling with Children

Families, especially those traveling with children, should get medical evacuation insurance. Having insurance cover emergency relocation and evacuation costs for multiple people can help save a significant amount of money.

What to Look for in Medical Evacuation Coverage

Coverage Limits and Exclusions

Coverage limit: The coverage limit of a travel insurance policy is the maximum amount you can be reimbursed for your insurance claim. Comprehensive travel insurance policies can cover up to $1 or $2 million in medevac and repatriation expenses.

Policy exclusions: Restrictions and exclusions may affect your coverage. For example, many medevac insurance policies do not provide coverage if the accident occurs within 100 miles of your home.

Primary vs secondary coverage: If your medevac insurance is considered secondary coverage, you will need to file a claim with your primary health insurance company first.

Quality of the Provider Network

Like with health insurance, a medevac insurance policy with a reliable provider network is important. This ensures better access to well-equipped medical facilities, professional evacuation teams, and legitimate services.

Coordination of Care

Coordination of care is an important element of medical evacuation insurance. Good travel insurance coverage can also cover costs and communications related to arranging transport, hospital admission, and follow-up care.

Medical Evacuation Insurance Cost

Annual medevac insurance policies typically cost around $200. This includes coverage for the entire year.

Single-trip medevac insurance costs around $50 to cover the trip.

Choosing a plan with a higher coverage limit means a greater upfront cost of insurance. It’s up to individual travelers to choose what policy works best for them.

Comprehensive Coverage

Most travelers purchase medevac insurance as part of a comprehensive travel insurance policy. This makes it more convenient to obtain coverage for the entire trip, since travelers who need medevac insurance should also carry travel medical insurance.

Comprehensive travel insurance plans usually include:

• Medical evacuation coverage (between $100,000 to $2 million of coverage)
• Trip cancellation insurance
• Trip delays and interruptions
• Lost baggage
• Travel health insurance

Real-Life Examples and Testimonials

Case Studies

High-Altitude Evac for Mountaineering: Kate has loved scaling mountains with friends and family. She’s climbed peaks like Mount Whitney and Mount Rainier. Now, she wants to head to the Himalayas on an expedition. Knowing that there are plenty of risks associated with trekking, she decides to purchase a trekking travel insurance that covers high-altitude emergency evacuations and helicopter rescues.

While still making her way up, she feels an unexpected bout of altitude sickness and needs immediate medical attention. A helicopter is arranged to transport her to the nearby major city, where she is given medical care. The high-altitude evacuation insurance covers most of the air evac bill, which amounted to $20,000.

Medevac for Safari Injury: Mark has departed on a safari in a remote area of Kenya to see elephants, lions, and other Big Five animals. Unfortunately, his vehicle overturns on a boulder and he ends up with internal bleeding and a broken arm. The nearest medical facility was only a small clinic, unable to treat such serious internal injuries.

Thankfully, he was able to call in a medevac team to bring him to a large hospital in Nairobi. His medevac insurance company helped coordinate both ground and air ambulance services so he could obtain life-saving surgery. The total cost of the medevac was over $150,000, but insurance covered these expenses so that he didn’t need to worry about them.

Expert Testimonials

According to Medical Air Services Worldwide, the scarcity of resources can put lives at risk – medical evacuations thus become a crucial lifeline. However, medevacs can also be very expensive. To ensure you can afford medical evacuation services, it is advisable to obtain travel insurance that has medevac coverage.

How to Choose the Right Medical Evacuation Coverage

Assessing Personal Travel Needs

When choosing medevac insurance, be sure to consider your destination, activities, and health status. Generally, travelers opt for comprehensive travel insurance that has a medevac component. If your trip has a greater risk of needing a medevac, you might want a more extensive medical evacuation insurance policy.

Comparing Insurance Providers

When comparing travel insurance, make sure that the company is reliable, offers good policy options, and has a good record of medevac claims. Read reviews, testimonials, and traveler anecdotes when it comes to buying medevac insurance.

Next, compare different quotes for medical evacuation insurance. Choose the one that works with your budget. Travel insurance usually costs between 4% to 16% of your overall trip costs. As a good rule of thumb, medevac insurance should not exceed 16% of your overall trip budget so you can also afford other essential insurance coverage.

Consideration of Supplemental Coverage

Basic medevac insurance may be insufficient if you’re partaking in a specific activity or headed to a high-risk location that requires supplemental insurance. See if your primary travel insurance mitigages enough of your medevac risk. If not, you may need specialized emergency evacuation insurance.

Conclusion

Medical evacuation coverage is essential for travelers who are heading to remote locations, participating in high-risk activities, or facing greater health risks. Medevac services can easily cost over $100,000 if you’re traveling internationally, and even domestic medevac insurance can go a long way in protecting your financial stability.

The right coverage can help you be prepared for emergencies and even provide life-saving medical care. Check out Insurance Ranked’s best medevac insurance companies to find top-tier medevac insurance today.