Why Travel Insurance Is (Often) a Scam

The Sad Reality of American Healthcare

It’s not until you’re outside the sphere of your abuser’s influence that you can clearly see the manipulation they employ.

In today’s dispatch, “abuser” refers to the American system of healthcare insurance.

One of the joys of living life overseas is that the costs are almost always lower than in America (unless, of course, you’re living in a major world city like London, Zurich, Tokyo, etc. Then, all bets are off).

That’s why an increasing number of Americans, particularly retirees, are uprooting their stateside life and settling in Portugal, Panama, Costa Rica, France, Spain, Italy, Thailand, and elsewhere.

Costs are far less onerous, especially for healthcare, one of the most debilitating expenses in the average American’s budget.

Living overseas in Prague for the last five years, I’ve dealt with a Czech national healthcare plan as well as a private insurer.

The quality and efficiency of those programs makes you quickly realize what normal should look like… and just how horrific the U.S. health insurance system really is.

The U.S. system is most assuredly not designed to help people get well. It’s designed to make insurance companies rich. I don’t know this for a fact, but I would not be surprised to learn that health insurers pay employee bonuses based on how much money an employee saves by rejecting otherwise legitimate claims.

Case in point: My recent run in with an insurer known as International Medical Group, or IMG, an Indianapolis-based provider of travel medical insurance.

Now, let me say upfront that IMG is good at what it does. Just last month, for instance, Forbes Advisor named IMG as “Best Travel Insurance Company for 2023.”

Lots of travelers rely on IMG. I’m one. I have regularly purchased IMG policies over the years when I’m on the road, particularly when I head back to America for conferences because I know the U.S. healthcare system can bankrupt a family simply because of an ingrown toenail. (Facetious, yes, but only by a toenail!)

So, there’s no question that IMG is top notch in terms of reputation.

However…

There’s also no question that IMG is a U.S.-based insurer, simply based on how it handles claims.

Like all U.S. insurers, especially the for-profit crowd, their default position seems to be “No!” even when they’re clearly in the wrong.

The story: I traveled to the U.S. last October to speak at an International Living conference in Atlanta and to visit my kids in south Louisiana. So, I popped online and bought IMG’s Patriot America Platinum plan for $124.33 for 11 days of travel and a $0 deductible. This granted me $2 million in coverage, which I figured was probably enough to cover my needs in case of an ingrown toenail flareup.

So, I leave Prague on Saturday, Oct. 15, feeling peachy. Land in New Orleans that night. All is copasetic.

By Sunday, I wake up coughing explosively.

Now, I’ve traveled all over the world. Been on more airplanes than I could ever count over the last half century. And I know exactly how this goes: Funky bug spreads in a confined tube as it jets across the world, and you end up sick.

Not rocket science.

I head to a doc in the box in Baton Rouge for meds.

I give the receptionist my proof of insurance from IMG. She pulls me up in the system, but tells me: “Hmm. I see you in the system, but I can’t bill against this policy. Maybe it’s because it went into effect over the weekend? I don’t know. You’ll have to call them.”

No worries. I paid with my American Express: $200 for the visit and the tests. I have bronchitis. And another $86.98 at Walgreens for three prescriptions: a steroid, a cough syrup, and antibiotics.

Back in Prague, I file the papers with IMG… and months later, IMG rejects the claims as a “pre-existing condition.”

Umm. Sorry, wrong answer. But Vanna has some nice parting gifts for you on your way out.

1. I did not have bronchitis before I left Prague—of this I am quite confident. This is something I picked up on the plane. And having been married to a nurse (my ex-wife) for more than 20 years, I know that at a doc in the box, “bronchitis” is pretty much a catch-all term for any kind of upper-respiratory infection like, say, the kind you regularly pick up on long-haul flights.
2. Even if this was a pre-existing condition (and it wasn’t), buying health coverage for a country you’re visiting, in case a pre-existing condition you have flares up, is precisely a reason you would buy insurance in the first place. Otherwise, why the hell would anyone with chronic conditions travel anywhere outside of their home country and risk the cost?

I don’t expect IMG to give a flip about any of this. It’s a typical American insurer, where profit supersedes customer care. Sadly, it’s just the way the game is rigged against American healthcare consumers.

Insurers happily take our money and promise us coverage… and then look for any tiny loophole to squeeze through to tell us “No” when it comes time to pony up.

Ultimately, I’d still recommend you buy travel insurance. I plan to continue buying it because, well, what other choice do I have. It’s just deeply irritating to have to fight and claw (unsuccessfully) with an insurer over less than $300 in expenses, when I’ve likely spent thousands of dollars over the years buying policies from that insurer.

And, to pull back out to the 40,000-foot view, this personal anecdote is just another in a long list of reasons why I’m happier as an expat.

America has simply jumped the shark in terms of costs.

I was in New York last month (again with an IMG policy) and I was shocked by the cost of living. A lunch of five chicken fingers, fries, and an iced tea was $18.50! Insane is too kind a word to explain that bit of lunacy.

Went to a supermarket to grab some things I can’t find in Prague, like cinnamon sugar, KIND snack bars, and Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal. Again, the costs were mind-blowing.

Like, if the Bureau of Labor Statistics thinks inflation in America really is in the 6% range, then it’s full of more B.S. than is IMG and its “pre-existing condition” kaka.

So, all that said… if you’re increasingly frustrated by the ever-escalating costs of life in America, well the rest of the world is awaiting you with open arms and cheaper costs. Especially for health insurance.

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