Experiencing Covid while traveling this winter, reminded me of the limitations of the health insurance that I purchase from the Health Marketplace. When I am home, I am quite happy with my plan. It has good in-network options, a low deductible and is affordable for me based on my current life circumstances. But I found that I couldn’t even get a Covid PCR test on the road that would be covered.
I know my health insurance would have to pay for emergency expenses but it seems to me that if something bad happened, I would want to get home and in-network ASAP. So I am considering an insurance program that had a booth at the RV show. It is called Air-Med Care.
First, it covers you in the event of a medical emergency where air transport is necessary. These seems especially helpful if you spend a lot of time in rural areas where the closest hospital may not be able to handle everything. Secondly, there is a rider available that also flies you back to a local hospital with no out-of-pocket expenses. I already buy a monthly accident policy that would also cover some basic expenses and this Air Evac solution seems like a reasonable addition.
I also always have Good Sam Travel Assist and that covers some of the additional expenses in case of an emergency, including the cost of getting your RV home. Air Med Network Good Sam Travel Assist
Medjet, PHI, Air Medical, Reach, Life Flight, and Emergency Assistance Plus are all considerations. Safety Wing is insurance for nomads.
None of these solutions are perfect. Once you are on Medicare, there are still options (if you avoid the Advantage Plans that are also exclusive to in-network). But until then, it is difficult to get good health coverage that is useful at home but also on the road.
If anyone out there has any experience or knowledge in this area, I would appreciate your input. I follow so many RV travel podcasters but none of them ever talk about health insurance and how they handle things. I know it can feel a bit personal but I think this must be a huge challenge for others as well. I wish we were moving to a system that was more consistent across the 50 states but I fear that things are only going to get worse as our country becomes more fragmented.
These international nomads do address the topic in their Substack which I really enjoy. Check them out.