CRP | Medical Insurance

Oh, medical insurance, what a palava indeed!  We finally bit the bullet and bought our medical insurance with a whole five days left to spare before we fly.  In fact, I found the whole thing so frustratingly complicated and confusing, I got Dena to write about it.

Of course, again, this is not solid, you-should-100%-do-this advice so please don't take our word as gospel!  It's just the process that we went through and we would always advise you do your own research and go with a policy you are happy with.   Here's our medical insurance lowdown:

Say what you want about waiting times, rubbish GP’s and dirty hospitals; the NHS is wonderful! Medical insurance might have been one of the most infuriating parts of our magical Disney journey. Partly because it costs money and we are a little poor, but also because of making sure you are making the right choice for what you need and want. If you don’t need to worry about money, it probably won’t stress you out so much but there are a few things you need to know.

So, the wonderful United States has brilliant medical care-but it needs to be paid for. It’s expensive and without cover, the bill would be ridiculous if anything happened. Besides that, to work for an American company you need medical insurance; likewise for getting an American visa. In summary, you need it so get it!

Disney offer their own medical insurance for their employees; but only after 4 months of being there. As we arrive in the middle of a month, we had to get cover for just over 4 months as the Disney policy starts at the beginning of a month.

The confusion we faced was between travel and medical; when you go on holiday, it’s usually a two in one deal where you get suitcase cover to death cover. But as we are living in the States, we need full on medical and although travel might be handy, realistically it’s not necessary (who ever claims for a damaged suitcase really!) as we are living there, not on holiday.

Another problem you will face if you just look at the standard insurance websites (world nomads, go walkabout etc) is the lack of a return date. Many companies will not insure you if you do not have a return flight to the United Kingdom.

So in the end, we opted for a medical insurance because it covered everything we needed.

A decent insurance will cover up to $100,000 of appointments, treatments etc. A really handy website we came across was visitorscoverage.com. You put in your details and then a whole list of different policies come up where you can choose which plan you want and how much deductible you want to pay.

Eventually, we opted for Seven Corners policy which was $182 dollars for extensive coverage and $100 deductible. When we went into actually getting the policy, we were asked for a return date which panicked us a little as we didn’t think it was going to be a problem. I emailed one of the visitorscoverage workers and they emailed fairly promptly saying we can just use the date we need our policy to end as our return date. Don’t take this as a given for all insurance companies however, and make sure if you have any questions to simply ask! Insurance companies are strangely helpful when you’re giving them money rather than asking for it so be brave and just shoot them an email or phone call!

 When you look into the deductible, have a think about how you will pay it. Some companies ask for the deductible every time you need to see someone or claim; whereas other companies will only need it for the first time and then you can go back as many times as you need to. Similarly, you may need to pay upfront for your care and then claim back, or you can show your insurance policy and never have to pay a penny. This is definitely worth looking into depending on what you prefer.

There are also some amazing policies which cover you for absolutely everything, but then only pay for 100% of your treatment after you have paid the first $500 or something similar. Basically, be very aware of exactly what you will have to do if something happens-you may think it is very unlikely; you know, you’re young, fit, healthy. That’s what we thought in Mexico, and Danielle nearly ended up in hospital and spent a fortune on scans, blood tests and medication. So don’t be too complacent!

In summary, you need to make sure you know what you’re looking for and what you’re getting! Don’t try and be cheap but don’t go over the top and get some fancy policy which will cost you a fortune.

From reading other blogs, there are some policies out there which are specifically for the program we are doing or at least with our program in mind; but they are more expensive.

Our policy can also be extended once we are out there which is super handy because if Disney works out more expensive we can just extend the one we have for until we leave!

Four days to go :-)