It is that time of the month again! Yep, you guessed it! It’s my monthly ‘Ask Jenny’ post! Wait… What did you think I was talking about?
‘Ask Jenny’ is a series where you can ask me about our travels, logistics, parenting on the road, my life before travel, or whatever else you have a question about. I will post a call for your questions on Twitter and Facebook, or you can leave your question(s) here at the end of my post. Once a month, I will write a post to answer one (or more) of them. The only rule I will have is that the questions be kind.
Today’s question comes to me from Valerie at Minimalism With Kids:
My question is: How does healthcare work? When you travel, and also when in one place for some time, how do you get proper health coverage? Is it all out of pocket?
This is such a great question Valerie!
To be honest, when I had traveled B.Z. (before Zoë) I never worried about healthcare on the road. My tendency not to worry that something would happen while traveling somehow was rewarded with nothing happening while traveling. I am sure God was watching my every step making sure that He covered me since I chose not to be covered by travelers insurance.
My whole thought process changed though as we welcomed our new family member into our travel plans two years ago. Our little one year old girl was not someone I was willing to leave uncovered while we traveled.
Chad researched many available travel insurances before we set off for the big trip and he found World Nomads through the BootsnAll travel site. It seemed like the best deal for the money and covered all the places that we had planned to travel.
When we left America, we were covered for the first year and a half by World Nomads insurance. The way that this travel insurance worked was that if we had an emergency we would have to pay up front and be reimbursed after filing the proper forms.
Thank goodness we only had one true emergency while traveling, Z’s seizure in Taipei, and one little accident. Because the cost was so little (and probably because we were traumatized), we decided not to go through the process of reimbursement.
Despite the fact that we never used the insurance, it was incredibly comforting knowing that if something big happened we would be covered.
Now that we are settled somewhere for a little while, we decided that it was time to get something more than just travel insurance (not only that but Chad recently found out that our travelers insurance is null and void in countries under martial law… so we couldn’t be covered here anyways). We met with an insurance broker that came highly recommended by a friend here and bought some awesome health insurance. Here in Thailand the insurance is paid yearly and in comparison to American insurances is inexpensive and has amazing coverage. Even better, the insurance works for emergencies and accidents in all over parts of the world! Not a bad deal at all.
I hope that answered your question, Valerie! Thank you so much for reading and asking such a great question!
*Disclaimer- This post is not sponsored by World Nomads insurance or BootsnAll and all the opinions are my own. These are just the products and sites that we used as we traveled.*
Now it’s your turn! Have you purchased travel insurance before? What did you think of it? Do you have any questions for my next ‘Ask Jenny’ post? Leave a comment and join in the conversation!
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