Family of woman flown home from Ireland with broken hip encourages travelers to think about insurance
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Getting stuck overseas without the medical care you need can be very traumatic, as one local family discovered.
As KDKA money editor Jon Delano reports, making certain you have the right insurance can really help.
First, the good news: Anne Silbaugh arrived home in Pittsburgh Sunday from Belfast, Northern Ireland, on U.S. Air Ambulance and was transferred to UPMC Mercy Hospital, where she is now undergoing hip replacement surgery.
The bad news: "We are putting up credit cards to cover the cost. It is a little bit over $78,000," says Silbaugh's daughter, Toni Draksler.
Draksler says their health insurance, like most in America, did not cover that flight, and they did not purchase travel insurance before their trip to Ireland.
"Air Ambulance is a jet service, international jets that are outfitted as flying intensive care units, and we can pick up a patient from anywhere in the world and bring them to anywhere else in the world safely," says Clif Carothers, founder and CEO of Air Ambulance.
Private flights with medical personnel on board are expensive, says Carothers.
"If you're going from Europe, it could be anywhere from $80,000 to over $100,000. Africa could be $130,000. Asia could be as much as $200,000," says Carothers.
That's where travel insurance can really help - first, to reimburse you if you have to cancel your trip before departing and, second, for medical emergencies.
"Whenever you leave the country, most domestic health insurance policies and Medicare will not pay for foreign health care, so you always want to have health insurance to pay for those medical bills and get you home if you need it," says Daniel Durazo, a spokesperson with Allianz Travel Insurance, a major travel insurance company.
Durazo hears the horror stories like the 13-year-old on a cruise ship stuck with family on a Caribbean island for an emergency appendectomy.
"The cruise ship left without them because they had to wait for her to heal. They were on the hook for the hospital bill, hotels, and then trying to get everyone home because they didn't purchase travel insurance," says Carothers.
"Absolutely recommend travel insurance no matter where you're going out of the country no matter the additional cost that it does create," says Draksler.
Travel insurance is not cheap. It can cost five to ten percent of your total trip expenses, depending on your age. Most will never need it, but when you do, you'll be happy to have it.