Why Canadians need Coverage for Trips at Home
By Stan Seggie, President & CEO, Travel Insurance Division, RBC Insurance

Travel insurance seems to be one of those things people buy when they go to Paris, Hong Kong or Rio. Most do not even consider getting additional coverage for a trip to Vancouver or Halifax-probably because they mistakenly believe that government health insurance plans (GHIP) cover everything when they travel in their own country.

But government health insurance plans only cover certain expenses involved with travel emergencies-which are mostly medical-and they don't cover everything, not by a long shot.

Why?

Obviously injury, sickness and accidents don't just happen overseas. There's also the fact that domestic airfares and land arrangements, should customers suddenly need to change their plans, are most often subject to cancellation penalties.

Most significantly, government health insurance plans usually exclude and limit the reimbursement of emergency medical expenses incurred while travelers are away from their home province or territory.

Consider a recent incident that involved RBC Insurance customers traveling with their 10-year-old son from Ontario to Alberta for five days. While on vacation, the son was hospitalized with appendicitis, which required a hospital stay of up two weeks.

RBC Insurance contributed to the cost of meals, accommodation, taxi fares and phone bills for the additional time the family needed to spend in Alberta, and also extended medical coverage for the mother, who stayed behind to care for her son. When the son developed an infection that required an additional hospital stay, the insurance company arranged to have an air ambulance transport the boy to a hospital in Ontario, close to their home.

The family paid $17 for travel insurance that covered all three of them. The total cost of their claim was $13,840, which was paid entirely by RBC Insurance. Their government health insurance plan didn't cover any of these costs, so without additional insurance coverage the family would have been responsible for paying this entire amount on their own.

Travellers glad they added coverage
Michael Kane

When a U.S. hospital stay can cost as much as $10,000 per day, getting sick south of the border can spell financial disaster for the underinsurance visitor, personal finance writer Michael Kane says.

Anglican minister Eric Lowe has always been happy to spend money on insurance and not get anything back. Now his out-of-province medical insurance has paid out to the tune of more than $150,000, and he's really glad he bought it.

Travel agent Mary Kay Polacco has encourage clients to buy travel medical insurance for years, but never expected to have to make a claim herself. That all changed when her husband Tom, was admitted to hospital with pneumonia during a holiday in California and their insurance company picked up all the bills.

British Columbians are becoming more aware of the need for travel medical insurance, but about one in four still cross the border with nothing more than their provincial coverage, which pays Canada's lowest out-of-country rate for hospital care at $75 a day.

That can be disastrous when the average cost for a hospital stay in the U.S. often exceeds $1,000 a day and can be as high as $10,000 a day or intensive care. If you don't have travel medical insurance, the difference has to come from your own pocket.

Irish-born Lowe says he was in the best of health when he left Canada last summer with his wife, Margy, for a three-week family reunion and touring holiday in Britain.

About halfway through the trip he was stricken by a mysterious stomach ailment that led to different forms of pneumonia, a collapsed lung, and kidney failure.