Do – A Step That Travels

My approach towards insurance, and indeed my health in general, has typically been characterized by the thought; “that’s future-Ben’s problem. Sucks to be that guy!”

However, facing the prospect of being out of the country for a year and possibly having to get my leg amputated by some… horse-doctor left me reconsidering the wisdom of my prior policy. The subsequent discovery that this would also allow me to give the finger to Obamacare sealed the deal.

Let me take a moment to clarify that when I am talking about travel insurance here I am referring to travel or global health insurance plans. Not trip cancellation insurance, which I still consider to be a waste.

Having now looked into travel health insurance plans I consider them a great deal, especially if you’re going to be out of the country for more than 330 days as I am. The reason being that travel health insurance is much cheaper than domestic insurance plans.

As with most other aspects of life, Obamacare has made this process needlessly confusing as well. But let me cut through the crap and give you the rough bullet-points on the present situation:

If you’re outside the U.S. for more than 330 of 360 days then your travel health insurance will leave you in good stead.
If you’re out of the country for less than 3 months you can also rely solely on your travel health insurance as you most likely fall into the “short coverage gap” and can reacquire a compatible U.S. healthcare plan upon your return as you’re changing coverage.
If you’re going to be on the road for more than 90 days but less than 330 then you’re screwed. You must have a domestic plan that meets the Obamacare minimums.

Like most folks in my demographic cohort (young, healthy, male) my healthcare premium tripled when Obamacare passed and I now pay about $300 a month for health insurance. And that’s for a plan that basically only provides coverage if I accidentally fall into a wood chipper. However, my new travel health plan has now lowered that monthly premium to about $90. (The sum of all these little bits of savings is the enabling factor in my traveling the world for a year).

Options on the international healthcare front. As part of our trip preparation we were provided a few names: IMG, World Nomads & HCC.

World Nomads seems to get a lot of chatter within the Digital Nomad community and seems to be many folks’ preferred provider. World Nomads expands in some coverage areas that the others do not such as covering trip disruptions or lost baggage. However, as my primary concern is catastrophic injury the caps on coverage were lower than I was interested in.

I chose IMG and went with their Patriot plan. This seemed to be the most popular choice among my fellow Remotes. I chose a high deductible ($2,500) but high coverage ($2 mln) plan that cost me just over $1,000 for the entire year. I tend to favor the higher deductible in favor of the lower upfront payment because my injuries tend to be of the variety that can be cured by just pouring whiskey on it.

If your injuries tend to be more of the “bone-protruding-from-skin” stripe then you may want to consider these services as well: MedJet Assist, ISOS & Global Rescue.

For an even smaller fee, MedJet Assist runs around $400, these services will evacuate you to the U.S. to have your injuries treated. As I mentioned above, if you’re in a situation where you have to keep your U.S. health coverage this might be the best option for you to pursue. If you’re going with a purely international health plan, though, many will have additional options that cover this service as well.

More unique to services like these, though, are options whereby they will rescue you in the event of a natural or unnatural (read: political) disaster. Having seen (or rather heard first hand) the Global Rescue folks in action I can attest that there is a high level of badassery there. But these options may not be ideal for everyone unless you’re traveling in a dangerous area.

The Bottom Line – What You Need to Not Die

For the past… Thirty years or so the “round trip” option has been the one constant in my flight searches. Truth be told, I’d always wondered who these people were who bought one way tickets. People who were moving I suppose? Vagrants (read: Democrats)? Flipping that option, and flipping that option permanently struck a chord with me. More than the one way ticket was the knowledge that I wouldn’t be coming back and that all of my tickets would now be one way. I wouldn’t be coming back anywhere.

There are a thousand blogs about cheap flights and the best way to travel. I hate to break it to you, but I’m not about to blow the doors off the travel industry. I will tell you where I messed up and I’ll tell you about my favorite pages.

First of all, the rigidity in most flight searches really pisses me off. And I hope it pisses you off. What if I want to browse every flight leaving my home airport today? It’s annoying as hell to try to do that! Come on travel industry! Where’s your sense of adventure? Things have improved, though. SkyScanner, Kayak and Google Flights have become some of my staples.

SkyScanner tends to be my opener. They have a great feature that allows you to search for flights across an entire month and across all destinations. It’s not perfect, mind you. The results are dependent on their engine having swept across something you’re looking for. This means the further out you are looking the less likely you are to get immediate results. But they can always find them once you select your dates (like everyone). My use for SkyScanner has been to find the cheapest cities I can visit on side trips from cities I’m visiting longer term. It excels at that.

Most of you are probably familiar with Kayak by now. To make a long story short Kayak is the way to go if you have a slightly tighter idea about when you need to go. I use Kayak when I want to avail myself of the plus or minus three days travel dates

Google Flights. It’s Google, it’s got a pretty map of destinations and costs… What more do you want?

Now you should know this by now. These flight search pages are for-profit enterprises. Many of them get kickbacks for booking flights and that gets baked into the price. Once you have found yourself a good deal… Do yourself a favor and just head over to the airline’s page to book the actual flight. It’s not a lottery win but you can save a couple bucks.

Pretty direct these days. But there are some stupid mistakes to avoid. If you find yourself in my situation where you are suddenly transitioning from a lifetime of weekend warrior…ing… to only buying one way tickets. Don’t get into your own head! My price expectations were extremely anchored (Not to go all MBA D-bag on you) towards the realm of booking round trip flights. When I found a flight to Prague for $700 I thought it was a fucking awesome deal. Let’s upgrade that shit to first class ASAP!

Of course as I was thinking about it the next day (and after I’d sobered up… Don’t plan travel while drinking. That goes without saying, right?) I realized the flight only seemed like a good deal because I was so used to browsing prices that were double what I was now looking for. Obvious now… But if you’re turning into a nomad remember, that simple act will automatically cut your air fares in half.

I’ll leave you with this…anything over four hours, pay for the upgrades. You might regret the money when you book but you’ll definitely regret the ten hours of misery you experience when you don’t. If that’s something you’re absolutely not able to do then definitely pay a visit to SeatGuru. It has great resources to determine the best seats on any flight and if you use it wisely you can fake your way into a business class experience while still in economy.

The Bottom Line – What You Need to Book Great Flights

A Step That Travels

Tag: Do

Survival Sans Bankrupty or… International Health Insurance

One Way Tickets & Flexible Flying