From Travel Guard's Description of Benefits.

Description of Coverage

If insurance is purchased within
15 days of the “initial Trip payment”:

Pre-Existing Medical Condition Exclusion Waived
This is applicable to all coverages contained in the policy. The Insured must be medically able to travel when he/she pays his/her plan cost. In the event that a claim is filed, the Injury or illness must be substantiated to our Claims Department. Applies to the first $30,000 of Trip Cost per person.

Coverage for Financial Default
The Financial Default must occur more than 14 days after your effective date of coverage.

“Financial Default” means the total cessation of operations due to insolvency, with or without the filing of a bankruptcy petition by a tour operator, cruise line, or airline provided the Financial Default occurs more than 14 days following an Insured's effective date for the Trip Cancellation Benefits. There is no coverage for the Financial Default of any person, organization, agency, or firm from whom you purchased travel arrangements supplied by others.

An additional word of warning for travel insurance purchases. Each of the companies I talked to was quite specific in the fact that the insurance could only be purchased up to 12 months in advance of the covered trip. A lot of people book for the next year, and that is more than that. Also, the "initial trip payment" is usually only a 30-50% deposit.

If you are booking for a trip out more than that, then they won't issue the policy. That negates the advantages of "cancel for any reason, financial default, or pre-existing medical waivers, etc".

I booked at Reno SCI in Jan '08 for my Aug '09 hunt, so I just got my insurance the other day when I finalized my airline tickets and paid balance of the hunt off.

Each person should evaluate their finances in relation to the trip costs before deciding whether to purchase insurance or not. Frankly I think the premiums are quite high and would not purchase it myself but I dislike insurance in general and high cost, low risk insurance in particular.

These coverages are reason enough to buy it IF you need them.

[I dont think Global Rescue or Medjet include these either.][?]

"Sportsman Equipment & Personal Effects Loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$2,500
(Includes lost, stolen, or damaged luggage or travel documents)
Sportsman Equipment Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$750
Medical Expense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$25,000"

It depends on the trip cost. I might not insure a ten day plains game RSA hunt, but we have insured our 21 day Tanzania hunt because the hunt and travel costs warrant it. The premiums I feel are excessive and have jumped quite a bit in the last five years or so, but paying about seven per cent of the total is worth it, if you're approaching six figures on tickets and hunt costs.

jetdrvr:

In my post above, I should have added "and tolerance to risk" after "each person should evaluate their finances" before purchasing or deciding not to purchase trip insurance. The seven percent cost means that the purchaser would have to not go on one out of approximately 14 trips to break even. I think those odds are ones I (meaning me personally, and this does not in anyway attempt to deride someone who makes the opposite decision) would rather take than give, meaning I think the chances of most people not taking a "trip of a lifetime" are substantially smaller than that. Of course, it can and does happen so that gets back to one's risk tolerance AND ability to stand the loss. Of course, if one can't stand the loss, one could easily make the argument that they shouldn't be going in the first place.

Of course there are other factors to be considered. How many people are going on "your (generic)" hunt and how interwoven those relationships are, is one. The age of the participants is another factor. If someone has an expensive hunt planned with 2 older adults (parent?) and 2 or 3 younger children and they couldn't in good conscience leave any of them at home alone if they were ill or disabled for some reason, then the plot thickens. Again, each situation is different from the purchaser's perspective and must be evaluated by them.

Enjoy your hunt!

i just got a quote from Travelgards' web site for all the coverages EXCEPT the Hunt and Travel cost [ as MOST are refundable or reclaimable at a later date] for my upcoming RSA 14 days hunt.

Cost was $41.00!

Cheap medical insurance for the trip with some other stuff thrown in! [In RSA and I suspect other places, Your health insurance will not apply and hospital want cash prior to treatment, or some other arrangement.]

quote:

Originally posted by LHowell:
i just got a quote from Travelgards' web site for all the coverages EXCEPT the Hunt and Travel cost [ as MOST are refundable or reclaimable at a later date] for my upcoming RSA 14 days hunt.

Cost was $41.00!

Cheap medical insurance for the trip with some other stuff thrown in! [In RSA and I suspect other places, Your health insurance will not apply and hospital want cash prior to treatment, or some other arrangement.]

Each person will need to check with their health insurance to see if they are covered or not. In my case I was covered but in RSA they would not accept it so I had to pay out of pocket and file a claim with my health insurance when I got back. Thankfully medical care is not as expensive in RSA as it is here in the US. I spent 5 days in the hospital and including all drugs and doctors total bill was about $1800.

I spent two nights in a heart hospital in Tucson last month. I was given a nuclear stress test and released. The bill my insurance company received was $19,000.00.

Know what you mean about South Africa's health care being less expensive I take warfarin (an anticoagulant) and need a blood test every two weeks. Last year, that test cost the equivalent of $6.00 at a clinic in Pretoria. At labs in Arizona, it is $75 to $100.

Bill Quimby

quote:

Originally posted by billrquimby:
I spent two nights in a heart hospital in Tucson last month. I was given a nuclear stress test and released. The bill my insurance company received was $19,000.00.

Know what you mean about South Africa's health care being less expensive I take warfarin (an anticoagulant) and need a blood test every two weeks. Last year, that test cost the equivalent of $6.00 at a clinic in Pretoria. At labs in Arizona, it is $75 to $100.

Bill Quimby

Which clinic is more likely to be forced to pay $1,000,000+ for a lab error?

And dont confuse billed charges for discounted rates. The insurance company will pay 1/4 of that 19K at best.