As some of you may have noticed from other threads, I work for a company doing medical assistance for insurance companies customers. When they get sick or injured we are asked to step in and manage the case.

I would definately advise against travelling without insurance. Even in countries with recipricol agreements you may need insurance to cover repatriation. Some EU countries (notabaly Spain) are refusing to accept the EHIC and demanding you pay. Also, if you have an accident in Europe, and you don't have insurance, you will be billed for treatment if you don't have an EHIC, but the big new thing is, if you apply for an EHIC retrospectively, YOU WILL NOT GET THE MONEY REFUNDED like you used to.

If you aren't covered, you will pay, and you won't get it back.

And if you are really sick or badly injured, we're talking life changing, lose your house type amounts here, so, make sure you apply BEFORE you leave these shores.

Even then, in some countries you may be asked to contribute a percentage of the cost, and in some you have to pay for the ambulance. So, the gold standard is, get insurance.

In most even if you have insurance you may have to stump up a fair bit in advance, like several thousand, and the insurance won't set a guarantee of payment immediately, there is a process that has to be gone through first to make sure you have a valid policy, so make sure you have access to a decent amount of fundage for emergencies, say a credit card with a 5k limit.

I would strongly advise against getting multiple policies and stringing them as described above. If you are out of the country for longer than the allowed amount you aren't covered, regardless of whether you used that particular policy for some of the time. They will ask for evidence of travel dates and telling them you only left last week, but now your in Thailand without an air ticket to explain how you got there so fast just isn't going to wash. Also, lots of credit card policies require you to pay for your holiday using the card, tricky if your on a motorbike.

Declare EVERYTHING they ask for. Some companies will take the slightest non declaration as an excuse not to pay. The cheaper the policy, the more likely they are to try and weedle out of paying, because the tighter their margins are. Before treating you for an illness and some accidents they will require a comprehensive report on your medical history from your GP so they will find out. This will also delay cover being inplace, so as above, make sure you can cover the initial costs.

Also your GP will charge you for this report and generally the insurance company won't pay for it, so make sure you have made arrangements for it to be paid. Almost no GP surgeries will take a card or internet banking payment, they are really that backward!

READ THE SMALL PRINT. make sure the activities you are doing are covered and that the countries you are travelling in are covered, there are often exclusions (typically the USA). we are currently managing a case for a guy in the British Virgin Islands. His policy excludes the USA and Caribbean. he will probably have to pay for an air ambulance to move him to Martinique where he can be treated on an EHIC, cost will be knocking on the door of 100k by the time he's finished.

Don't assume only the states is expensive. You get put in intensive care anywhere and your looking at life changing amounts of money.

Your not just paying for medical care, your paying for us to move you in an emergency, either home or to a place of safety. Our most common moves are from African countries to South Africa. We had to move a girl who had an appendectomy in Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, the Zimbabweans delayed giving us the permits to fly in long enough for the surgeon to go back in and have another bash sorting out the mess he made the first time when he inadvertently nicked her bowel and gave her life threatening peritonitis. Even after reconstructive surgery in SA she was a mess. She's only in her 20s, if she had been older she probably wouldn't have survived.

Also, we will recommend you what clinics to go to. Even for Turkey we have a list of what clinics will rip you off or have a high risk of malpractice or poor quality treatment.

Insurance is a rip off, and everyone who works in it crooks, right until you get that $900000 American medical bill (as one man had recently, who wasn't covered) or your laid in a hospital bed in Botswana with a broken back, multiple internal injuries and not much skin left (like a 19 year old we recently moved to SA)

I can't recommend specific companies for this type of insurance because it's not what we usually look after, Our customers are holiday makers and business travelers. But I would strongly suggest finding one. It won't be cheap, not because the insurance companies are ripping everyone off, it's far too competitive a market for that, but because (big shock to those spoiled by the NHS!) medical care isn't cheap. I saw a bill recently from an American hospital for a guy who was admitted for 24 hours with gastroenteritis. Cost, $20000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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1990 Landcruiser H60. Full rebuild completed 2014

Strange since they do provide cover for Australians and Canadians on their "adventurer doing stupid things" plans, and that cover is actually provided through LLoyds.

Few conditions apply as you would expect so don't expect full cover if you have a head on because you have crossed double lines on a blind bend.

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Tony
Click here for Travel Photos & Travel Map

To echo the others...

Don't leave home without it. It's just not worth the risk.

A few things to mention:

You need to arrange it before you leave your home country. Most policies do not allow you to extend it from abroad (as you are usually taking out a new policy once the term has expired and the rules state you have to be in your home country when you take it out.) There are a couple of providers that have got round this and you can effectively extend on the road but you have to take it out initially when you are in your home country.

Most annual policies only cover individual trips of up to 30 days (sometimes up to 60) after which you must return to your country of residence. As Moggy said you have to be able to prove that the planned trip was for less than that period to be covered. The credit card insurance mentioned above will not be valid in a long term travel scenario. You wouldn't even be covered for an incident on day 1 of your travels if you can't show your planned trip is within the allowed period.

Try searching for gap year cover. I got good cover for two years with Amex, at a reasonable price but it couldn't be renewed from abroad.

Make sure it covers medical evacuation, that's what you're really paying for. Don't get bogged down in cover for belongings etc.

As Moggy also said declare any relevant info. They will often still cover you if you have a pre-existing medical issue.

It gets increasingly hard to get long term travel insurance the older you get. A lot of policies only cover under 30s and a few go up to 50. After that it's really difficult.

Good luck.

PS Rules and regulations regarding insurance differ depending on your country of origin. The above applies to the UK (and most likely other countries in the EU).

Rather strangely, the subject matter tends to crop up in various threads.

With the good advice given over the past few days and the real-world anecdotes to reinforce the message, this thread deserves to be a sticky in a "better", i.e. more appropriate, location such as:-

"Staying Healthy on the Road

Medical info, e.g. malaria, vaccinations, travel medical tips, medical insurance, where to find a doctor."

Then there might be more attention paid to this form of insurance alongside the legal requirement (in most countries) for motor vehicle insurance to indemnify third parties involved in accidents.

Maybe a mod or 3 could oblige?

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Dave

if travel a lot then u need travel insurance. ur actually meeting different people, various cultures and of course u are having a great time traveling but u should have at least some protection if anything untoward thing happens.

Thanks for posting your conclusion. Question: is your cover limited by the UK government foreign travel advice?

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

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Various bikes in differing states of repair.

Cam belt. Hmmm, now that one I don't know. It was not a question I had ever thought of or asked.

So off the top of my head I will say this. Having looked at and used the UK.gov website for foreign travel advice I would say it is too fluid to warrant the worry. When I was in Dakar last year I looked at it regarding travel across Mali. The website showed a map covered in portion by red. The advise was not to travel within this zone. I then went to the British embassy in town to get clarification. They told me I should not travel anywhere as it was unsafe. This also included Mauritania, Senegal and Mali. So I respectfully asked them how they thought I should proceed. As Dakar was in Senegal, how should I travel back to my campsite. They were not terribly inspiring or helpful. So I believe unless a system of evacuation for travellers is put into place, eg as in after the terrible events in Tunisia I need not worry. I guess time may tell..........

Generally I've never worried too much about FCO travel advice in West Africa / the Sahel, or anywhere else really - it's really overcautious as the govt needs to cover its arse from the media frenzy that happens if people get into trouble and there wasn't any kind of warning. But in the context of travel insurance it is important, and unfortunately it's not just the red "advise against all travel" areas that you need to worry about. Most travel insurance policies will be invalid if you travel to the yellow "advise against all but essential travel" areas (except where it has just changed from green and you are making arrangements to leave).

One question I have -

All the insurance policies which include motorcycle travel state that you are only covered if you are on a public road. Does this mean;

If you were driving out of someones private property and fell off (say a large property like a ranch, farm or large hotel complex) and broke your leg, you would not be covered?

And what is a public road defined as? If it is on a map would you say it's a public road?