A young relative is going to be traveling in northern Europe for a couple months, mostly Sweden and Norway in hostels and such. Is some type of travel health insurance recommended? What coverage amounts make sense?

Or is medical help there cheap and a credit card with a few thousand credit is fine?

I'm seeing plans from $2000 to $100,000 medical costs and evacuation plans mentioning $150,000 coverage. Given how high USA health costs run, it's hard to estimate for somewhere else.

Emergency Air Evac insurance. If a loved one requires hospitalization in the US and you need an air ambulance to get you back home (a jet), it can easily exceed $200,000. My wife had an 18 minute flight on a helicopter medevac about this time last year, the bill was $76,000. Air ambulance insurance is fairly cheap. You can get excellent coverage for a very reasonable sum.

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Emergency Air Evac insurance.

If you don’t live in a big city with several good hospitals this is good advice, even if you’re not traveling. A close friend had to be Life Flighted to a trauma center in Lubbock after being badly injured by a bull he was trying to load. The 200 mile flight cost him over $175k. He’s paying it off, little by little. I bought AirMed Care insurance because of his experience. I think it was around $300 for several (5?) years of coverage, and when my wife was diagnosed with a brain tumor and Life Flighted 175 miles to El Paso I was sure glad I had bought it.

Sorry for thread drift.

My company travel is covered by such insurance. This suggests that having it is appropriate, as being self-insured is so expensive.

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Originally posted by chuck416:
Emergency Air Evac insurance. If a loved one requires hospitalization in the US and you need an air ambulance to get you back home (a jet), it can easily exceed $200,000. My wife had an 18 minute flight on a helicopter medevac about this time last year, the bill was $76,000. Air ambulance insurance is fairly cheap. You can get excellent coverage for a very reasonable sum.

Medical evacuation and repatriation is the policy rider that gets you back into the country, to the hospital where your doctor is.

One of the major problems with general medical evacuation insurance is the devil is in the details: 1) Does this coverage include ambulance services and prescriptions in the foreign country AND back in the US? 2) Does it cover the necessary number of seats needed, should you be incapacitated AND in need of a nurse for the flight back home? 3) Does it cover the costs of a loved one accompanying the injured? 4) Does getting you back home clarify getting to your home airport or, only first available US airport? 5) Does this policy cover remains and the legal admin fees and such when bringing them back into the US?


For a young travelers going abroad, a basic travel policy that includes medical should suffice. Being in Europe, getting medical care for common issues like cold/flu, bad bumps or, breaks, or, a possible bad reaction is pretty straight forward; pay a nominal fee, provide whatever legal ID and documents. Big thing is like all insurance claims: save all receipts, record dates, times, locations and names. Most travel insurance claims I've run across is due to delayed/cancelled flights or trains, reimbursement of delayed/lost bags and their contents, reimbursement of destination tickets due to delays or, trip change.

This is a pretty good primer on if its needed or, not
Do I Need Travel Insurance?

Also a good resource and provides perspecitve
Medical Care in Europe

Mrs. Lee has to get travel insurance for her Schengen visa appointment. We're going to Germany and Switzerland in June. It's dirt cheap, something like $30 for the few weeks we'll be there. When I was an exchange student and had to go to the doctor in Germany, they didn't charge me. I had insurance, but they didn't even ask for it. But it was real minor.

We use Global Rescue for our remote trips. They are the best IMHO.

Never did this, but when I traveled it was in the 90s and I was in damn good shape.
Things are different now.