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Taking the Kids: Why families need travel insurance

By Eileen Ogintz, Tribune Content Agency on

It would have been a perfect vacation day, if not for the emergency room.

After a bad fall on a Colorado ski slope, the ski patrollers who brought me down the mountain thought I was seriously injured, thus the ambulance trip to the ER, the extra oxygen in high altitude and a CAT scan. Fortunately, I wasn't as badly injured as they thought, but we didn't find that out until several hours had passed and we'd racked up more than $1,000 in out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Luckily, I had travel insurance that picked up all those out-of-pocket expenses. I know most families don't think they need travel insurance, but it really can save the day -- and lots of money as costs can run into six figures when someone must be evacuated in a medical emergency. And, as travel insurers note, that is as likely to happen at a Mexican resort as on a cruise ship in some exotic locale.

"You can be in a taxi and get in an accident," notes Dr. William Brady, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Virginia Medical School, who also serves as the medical director for Allianz, one of the largest travel providers in the world. A baby's cold develops into a serious respiratory infection, for example, when you are vacationing on a small Caribbean island. Dr. Brady oversees the team deciding if someone with Allianz insurance needs to be medically evacuated and has handled cases where children have had to be evacuated for various ills because appropriate medical care wasn't available.

According to Dr. Brady, most Americans traveling overseas simply assume medical care will be comparable to what they are accustomed to in the United States, but that is not necessarily the case. Families also don't realize that many travel insurance policies (figure the cost at 5 percent to 10 percent the cost of your trip) cover kids under 17 free when traveling with an insured immediate family member, said Lynne Peters, product director at Insuremytrip.com. (Just make sure to read the fine print -- will the kids be covered if traveling with grandparents? Is it one child per one insured adult?)

Remember medical evacuation is just one way travel insurance comes into play. Consider that each year, Allianz receives 8,000 requests for help, but only 400 require medical evacuation for seriously injured or ill customers. Consider how much it could cost if:

 

-- Your child gets an ear infection and you must reschedule flights

-- Your father gets sick and you have to cancel the trip that you've already paid for

-- Weather causes airline delays that keep you from getting to your vacation destination for several days -- or leaves you stranded when you miss your connecting flight.

-- Your luggage gets lost -- and doesn't reappear before you board your cruise ship

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