Travel Insurance for Internship?

Parents Forum
1

<p>Howdy, all!</p>

<p>Our student will be doing an internship in India this summer. We have health insurance here, but the small non-profit she'll be working for has asked us to get travel insurance.</p>

<p>I think this refers to medical evacuation/repatriation insurance. My first few phone calls yielded a numbing assortment of options. Has anyone got tips on what's important (minimums, pitfalls) and reputable companies to contact? Is a trip interruption/cancellation feature important? Your advice is appreciated!</p>

2

<p>We've always used TravelGuard (<a href="http://www.travelguard.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.travelguard.com&lt;/a&gt;) for our trips -- easy process and competitive rates, and they seem like one of the more highly-regarded firms. But we've never had to use them, so I can't vouch for that. You can compare options and rates at <a href="http://insuremytrip.com/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://insuremytrip.com/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>For non-vacation travel, I'm not sure trip cancellation/interruption is important. It's really more for time-sensitive travel. If a trip segment is cancelled or re-scheduled due to a covered event, what will your child do? Probably just wait out the event and eventually get to the destination. That will involve some out of pocket costs, but might not be worth insuring against. Lost luggage coverage? Depends how much he or she is packing.</p>

<p>The biggest issue is the medical and evacuation coverage. Get the best package you can afford. Some parts of India are well-developed with good medical facilities, while others . . . . And check with your insurer on whether your health coverage will stay in force. If not, even more reason to make sure you have good coverage through the travel insurance company.</p>

3

<p>Contact your local Rotary Club and see who they use for their kids in the Rotary Youth Exchange. These kids have to be insured as well.</p>

<p>My son was a RYE participant in high school and will be going to Kansai Gaidai with his college study abroad program for his sophmore year. I was able to get him the same insurance through his old RYE program by contacting them (and I think they even earn a few dollars on it)</p>

4

<p>Read the benefits that come with your credit cards. I accidently found one of mine provided travel insurance including medical evacuation.</p>

5

<p>Good point idad. And some credit cards offer additional travel protection for a fee that is probably less than a stand-alone policy. I know my Diners Club has an outstanding program where they automatically tack on an additional $15 or so to any airplane ticket purchased with the card. And that fee provides some pretty good coverage.</p>

6

<p>Thanks, everyone! So many good ideas.
For posterity (in case someone else comes looking for this kind of information), we decided to go with SOS International <a href="http://www.sosinternational.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.sosinternational.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The university Travel Clinic that turned my student into a human pin cushion suggested the outfit and I got a couple of PMs from CC members who had actually used it. Services seems comprehensive, reports on travel forums are positive, and the price was competitve.</p>