# Emergency Evacuation Insurance Only



## dstan (Nov 24, 2008)

I wondering if there are there any Canadian insurers that offer travel insurance for Emergency Evacuation back home ONLY? Has anyone purchased such a thing from any Canadian travel insurance plans?

I dont need the entire travel insurance because I am a Permanent Resident and have the Mexican health insurance. Would just like to get transportation back to Canada should I require....

Thanks


----------



## HolyMole (Jan 3, 2009)

dstan said:


> I wondering if there are there any Canadian insurers that offer travel insurance for Emergency Evacuation back home ONLY? Has anyone purchased such a thing from any Canadian travel insurance plans?
> 
> I dont need the entire travel insurance because I am a Permanent Resident and have the Mexican health insurance. Would just like to get transportation back to Canada should I require....
> 
> Thanks


No one has responded, and I've got nothing to do right now, so.....
You say emergency evacuation "back home", but note you are a permanent resident of Mexico. I'm guessing that a Canadian insurer might be reluctant to cover a permanent resident of another country, but what do I know? I'd think a quick perusal of the websites of any Canadian insurer would provide those answers.
My own thoughts on emergency evacuation policies are that they provide a false sense of security. The conditions under which insurers offering these policies will actually honour them appear to be so restrictive as to be a waste of money. First you have to provide medical evidence that your illness or injury is critical enough to warrant evacuation....and perhaps are also required to show that local available medical facilities are unable or unwilling to provide adequate medical services. I expect that for many policy holders, by the time these requirements are met and evacuation approved, the patient has either recovered to the point where evacuation is no longer necessary, or they have passed. I'm aware there are anecdotal reports praising these emergency evacuation policies. I've also read of less satisfactory experiences more in line with the above. Like any other insurance policy, I guess the devil is in the small print. But fighting over the small print is exactly what you don't want to be doing, should the situation arise.


----------



## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

When my husband needed an emergency surgery AXA offered to fly to to Mexico or Guadalajara from Chiapas.. we turned it down as he was in no state to travel, .. think about that before you pay for special insurrance. Then we found out that since we live in Chiapas as well as Jalisco they did not want to offer that insurrance because it was our choce to live in a place where there were no good hospitals...


----------



## Bobbyb (Mar 9, 2014)

You could get Sky med. However what will happen when you get to Canada? You are not covered by the Canadian plans. Some evac services will not take you until they call the hospital in Canada


----------



## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

I am French so flying back there would mean t is not en emergency and I am not covered there since I only paid in for a couple of years..So as far as I am concerned I stay in Mexico...My husband is from the US but we never considered gong back there either... once you get there where do you go when you do not know anyone?


----------



## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

Bobbyb said:


> You could get Sky med. However what will happen when you get to Canada? You are not covered by the Canadian plans. Some evac services will not take you until they call the hospital in Canada


Indeed, I can’t see the utility of an evac insurance for a Canadian who is a permanent resident in Mexico*. They wouldn’t have their provincial health insurance any more, and I wonder if they would even be eligible to have a private health insurance in Canada, not being a resident there.
– – – – – – –
*Unless they had unlimited funds to pay for it, and then why not use the money to buy the best care in Mexico?


----------



## RVGRINGO (May 16, 2007)

When you have 'medical evacuation insurance', it will not allow you to choose to be evacuated. It will require that you be stabilized first, and will probably not evacuate you if comparable care is available in your area; say, Guadalajara, where it is certainly available and often superior to your 'home hospital'.
I suggest that you create a personal medical savings account, and put in your monthly imagined premiums, allowing them to grow and meet your hospital needs at a later dayt....much later, I hope.


----------



## almot (Aug 25, 2012)

Being a Canadian, I've done some research.

"Skymed Takes You Home Xpat" allow you to specify destination hospital. Most other plans will take you to the closest adequate hospital. Also, most other plans require you to be minimum 100 miles away from your "home" - which for expat is a Mexican address, so you can't get sick in your home and ask evac to take you to Canada. It appears that with Skymed you can. Not a cheap plan. If anybody knows of cheaper plans similar to Skymed, please tell.

You must be "hospitalized" when requesting evac, could be a chair on the porch of a village doctor, but there must be a doctor confirming your serious condition. The destination hospital must have a bed for you, or evac won't take you there. It may take more than 12 hours from your first call to arrival of evac. Hiring any available charter or a car is often faster.

Canadian Medicare plan requires you to live in Canada at least 5 months in calendar year. One might have Mexican RP status but not really use it, living in Canada half the time. Mexican RP status on its own "might" affect Canadian plan because this is the evidence that a person is not really a permanent resident in Canada, but I'm not a lawyer and can't state this 100%. 

One is definitely eligible to buy private coverage in Canada when his Canadian plan lapsed, but this is expensive. After arriving to Canada, an expat should wait ~2.5 months before his provincial plan will start again, and he should better stay there for another 3 months after beginning the treatment, to satisfy the aforesaid 5-months rule.


----------



## lagoloo (Apr 12, 2011)

Several others have mentioned the glitches that make evacuation less than practical: the need to be stabilized, for one. For those who have been long gone from their former medical care in the U.S., another problem is who to contact and are they willing to accept a Medicare patient (assuming the person has continued to pay for Medicare Part B) and what support systems are there for post-hospital recovery?
Many parts of Mexico have medical facilities and physician care superior to what is available elsewhere, and when one needs care, the less trauma of being moved around, the better.
Personally, I stopped having Medicare deducted from my SS check and put the money in a "Medical Savings Account". In spite of needing some serious medical care over the years, I'm way ahead of the game financially and have had better care than I was used to back in the U.S.


----------



## almot (Aug 25, 2012)

Americans after 60 at least have government-funded hospital insurance Medicare Part A. Just go to US hospital that accepts Medicare (not all of them do). But this is for emergencies, in practice hardly possible from any location in Mexico.

It's much worse for Canadians where Medicare (yes, it's also called Medicare, check Canadian Medicare Act) - expires when you are absent more than 7 months in calendar year, and it takes ~2.5 months to start the plan again after arriving to Canada. You can't just go to emergency straight from the airport. 

Consequently, many evac plans don't work for Canadians because they either take you to the closest hospital (if it's a US hospital - bad idea, Canadian Medicare barely covers 15-20% there), or "home" to Canada where a snowbird would have a coverage but expat wouldn't. That's why Skymed looks promising - they take where you specify. Though I remember some fine print where it says that they may take you to the closest hospital if your specified hospital is too far (given your condition) or there are no beds. What bothers me the most is very long response time with air evac. You call early today and will get to the "destination hospital" some time tomorrow, provided "today" is a weekday daytime.


----------



## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

US Medicare Part A is activated on your 65th birthday not 60th. I kept Part B because why not even though I don't plan on returning but who really knows what might happen. If that $105.00 per month is in the trash then I made a mistake. I sometimes do make mistakes but don't usually over think things until they irritate me and this is worth money to me to stay calm.


----------



## lagoloo (Apr 12, 2011)

There is an inherent unfairness in the way the Part B situation is set up. Expats can't use it except in the U.S. and they are heavily penalized if they don't pay for something they can't use if they return and then want it. Besides, the U.S. saves whatever they would have had to pay for the medical care for the retirees. I could go on, but that should make the point. 

It doesn't sound like a very large amount being deducted, but if you do the math, the result of saving on two people's accounts over a number of years will be surprising.


----------



## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

lagoloo said:


> There is an inherent unfairness in the way the Part B situation is set up. Expats can't use it except in the U.S. and they are heavily penalized if they don't pay for something they can't use if they return and then want it. Besides, the U.S. saves whatever they would have had to pay for the medical care for the retirees. I could go on, but that should make the point.
> 
> It doesn't sound like a very large amount being deducted, but if you do the math, the result of saving on two people's accounts over a number of years will be surprising.


I completely agree with the comments in the first paragraph of your post, lagoloo. For me $105 a month is a lot of money, which is why I opted out of Part B when I turned 65.


----------



## RVGRINGO (May 16, 2007)

Part B can be worthwhile for an expat, as mine was. As a retired state employee, my pension's medical care required that Part B be maintained, and I did so from 202-1014, at a cost of about $15,000 for something that I could not use. But then, I did have to return to the USA in 2014, and now use it. Had I not kept it, I would have lost my medical plan, and would now have to pay about $231 per month for it, iinstead of $105. I will break even at age 91, I think! My wife, who was a year late, will pay $10 per month extra for the rest of her life, maybe 20 years, so about $2400 extra. Live long and prosper????


----------



## lagoloo (Apr 12, 2011)

It often seems that the longer you live, the less likely you are to prosper !

As I recall from your postings, you left Mexico in order to get medical care from the Veterans Administration. People who intend to remain in Mexico for life and aren't eligible for such programs have different factors to consider regarding keeping Part B or not.


----------



## RVGRINGO (May 16, 2007)

Yes, and that is why I mentioned my wife's situation, and having to pay the penalty for life. We never planned to leave Mexico, but our health issues dictated otherwise; especially the COPD requirement for lower elevation. Now, at almost sea level, I am enjoying breathing much better than at a mile high. Fortunately, we can now be in Mexico within an hour, and were just there for dental work, and will be again tomorrow, at 1/3 or less than the typical prices north of the border. We met folks who had made day-long drives and used motels to come down from even further north.


----------



## Ajijic Lady (Jan 19, 2009)

It's not fair for someone at age 65 to stop premiums and then return to the US at age 75 when in need of heart surgery, cancer surgery and chemo, etc. Those last years of life from appx. 75 to 90 are the most expensive medically for many. There needs to be a penalty for skipping years of premiums then coming back for expensive treatments and getting covered after re-signing with Medicare. The system teeters on insolvency as it is.


----------



## lagoloo (Apr 12, 2011)

Your argument relies on the notion that someone *woul*d return to the U.S.for expensive procedures, so it makes it okay to charge for years in which no care is received. Sorry, that doesn't make sense.

Personally, my experience with medical care in the U.S. was such that there is no way I would return in my later years to receive even worse care than I would receive in Mexico. I'll go on paying out of pocket rather than to subject myself to the kind of care offered seniors in the U.S.


----------



## almot (Aug 25, 2012)

Can we not discuss pros and cons of the US Medicare this time? 

At least, it is there for you if you want it.

The OP asked specifically about Evac to Canada. 

Though, with all the gaps in post #1 it's hard to suggest anything. Like, "I dont need the entire travel insurance because I am a Permanent Resident and have the Mexican health insurance. Would just like to get transportation back to Canada should I require". What Mex health insurance - Seguro Popluar or private plan? If this is SP, he'd better visit public hospital in his area, to get an idea what this thing is. And, Evac plans are not there to just provide "transportation", there are conditions attached, like others mentioned.


----------

