Travel insurance in the US

[chemenger]

We are currently living in the US and planning some travel around while we're here. I'm wondering what travel insurance we need. Does our general health insurance cover medical emergencies away from home within the US? In which case we would just need to insure belongings and for cancellations etc. I appreciate it might depend on out exact health plan, but how does this usually work?

Yes, you standard health insurance will cover you for any medical emergencies (as long as you stay in your network like usual) Not sure what happens if you travel outside to Hawaii (I'm assuming its the same, as its state) or Puerto Rico

Worth covering for bags etc, but you can't get unlimited annual coverage like in the UK, and I've found it so bloody expensive! My sister just renewed a bells and whistles yearly plan in the UK that covered health / medical, and bags etc, think it was ~GBP30 for the year. Cover for a 2 week trip for us to the UK is around $200

I just enquired about annual travel insurance and got back a very puzzled "no such thing, couldn't possibly work" reply. We've had it for years in the UK. And still do because I stupidly didn't cancel it and it is invalid but not worth cancelling.

Check your home insurance, your belongings are probably covered under that. And if flights get cancelled, the airline will just put you on the next flight. And check your credit card, it probably offers some kind of insurance benefits, ours covers rental car insurance although we (sometimes) pay for the full CDW as an additional fee. But travel insurance as they use it in the UK, isn't really a thing.

You can buy annual travel policies but they're not such a big thing as in the UK as so many people already have insurance through their credit card.

We have a Chase Platinum card which we use to book all of our travel - that gives us the kind of cancellation and baggage loss insurance you'd get through a travel policy in the UK. My other Mastercard also offers car insurance if I use it to book a rental car abroad.

BTW health insurance usually covers accidents/emergencies outside of the US as out of network although it's worth calling to check. I have a supplementary travel health insurance policy on top of my usual health insurance, for international travel. It's with GeoBlue and I bought it to cover my out of network deductible, and also to cover repatriation etc costs.

Thanks for all the advice. If nothing else it prompts me to grill DH, who has been here longer than me and set everything up, about the state of our insurances. We do have some sort of travel linked credit card so maybe that has something. Just one of those subtle differences being abroad.

Interesting question. We live in the US at present and I've already put down substantial deposits on accommodation around Yellowstone. I've just organised a 3 week travel insurance for the period we are away - $185.

Check if your credit card includes cover - American Express tends to- our cousins missed their honeymoon due to weather and got paid out. When i lived and worked in US asked employer about travel insurance and got the same puzzled looks