| - Informative Articles
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- Heading south
- Canadian snowbirds appear as ready as ever to migrate to the United States
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- “Well, I Didn’t Actually Read The Policy.”
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- Annual Trips Have Great Potential — But They Need Explaining
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- Early Birds Must Report Health Changes
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- Canadians Moving To U.S. Should First Establish Health Insurance
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- Symptoms Count When Defining Pre-existing Conditions
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- Short Term "Renewals" for Visitors Require Explanation
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- Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association Travel Advisory
| |  Annual Trips Have Great Potential — But They Need Explaining- By Milan Korcok, Health Issues Writer
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- With many senior snowbirds shortening and diversifying their winter vacations, and millions of baby boomers coming into the leisure travel market, annual, multi-trip health insurance can only become more popular.
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- Buying 30, 60 or 90 days of coverage, and using it any number of times throughout the year, for one annual fee and with no repeat paperwork, is an attractive alternative for the customer who wants flexibility and the convenience of being able to travel on the spur of the moment.
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- But as convenient and cost effective as the annual plan is, it also has some conditions that customers—particularly those in imperfect health-- need to be told about. The main one is that though the insurance contract is written for a full year, any sickness or accident that occurs during one trip segment, can become a pre-existing condition for the next. For example, if a customer dislocates a knee or passes a kidney stone during the first 60-day coverage period, knee problems or kidney stones would have to be underwritten in order to activate coverage for the next 60 days. The annual plan does require that no single trip exceeds the number of days purchased (unless a top-up is added) and the traveller must return home to Canada for at least one day before activating the next trip.
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- Another point to disclose clearly is that if travellers claim for out-of-country medical services, they may be required to prove that those services occurred during one of the covered travel periods, that is within 30 or 60 or 90 days of their last departure from home. For example, if they have a 60 day multi trip plan, they must be able to prove that the medical expenses for which they are claiming were generated within 60 days of their last leaving Canada, and not on the 61st.
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- There are plenty of ways to verify where an individual is at any given time. Signed credit card slips, bank or postal receipts, ATM slips, passport or customs stamps, all can be used to validate that a traveller really was in a certain location on any given day. It’s not difficult, so long as customers are warned that if they claim for medical services while under the annual, multi-trip plan, it will be their responsibility to prove the services occurred during their designated coverage period. It is not up to the insurer to prove it was outside of the limit, but up to the traveller to prove it was within. A word of warning on this point can avoid a lot of anxiety later.
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- Article provided compliments of Trent Health. Author Milan Korcok is a freelance medical writer specializing in travel health issues. May not be reproduced or transmitted without permission.
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