For a year: US health insurance or travel insurance?

[percysnose]

Next year, dh's job takes him to the US, and we're all going with him. My kids are nearly 3 and nearly 1. His job does not offer any healthcare, and he's been told he has to get it. Getting it from an insurance company will cost at least $6000 for the family. I've looked at the sort of cover backpackers get from Direct Line, and that offers healthcare 'up to £5million' for just a few hundred pounds for all of us under the traveller banner. My mum says we're not 'travellers' and would not be covered properly by this, we'd be staying somewhere for (a month or two under) a year. But surely backpackers are riskier?

A US friend doesn't know, but says most healthcare insurance doesn't cover most stuff anyway, and that it would always be cheaper to fly home, emergency rooms have to treat emergencies, and with insurance you have to pay the $3000 (or whatever) co-pay or deductible anyway. She says just get good travel insurance. None of us has any health problems at this point, but I am pretty anxious. dc2 has to have 1 year jabs there, would that be possible on a pay-per-appointment basis? My US friend does not have children and doesn't know much! But that's more than I know!

The auto insurance you get (you are not allowed to drive without car insurance) should cover hosp costs related to a car accident. Have you looked into catastrophic care coverage that only covers emergencies/ hospitalisation? My family had this while my exDH was self-employed; twas the only insurance we could afford, but it gave a little peace of mind.

PS; if you're going to be living out in the sticks, you may well need a second car or face isolation in your apartment if your weather ever gets really cold.

It all sounds very difficult for you, and I really hope that you make it work somehow. I would just really worry that if the company are messing you around now, when you are in a position of relative security, then I would really worry that they will also mess you around once you are in the States and very dependent on them. We had a really quite hellish experience with dh's company (we moved over permanently, his new boss turned out to be both incompetent and a bully, and then they closed the branch of the office he'd moved to, so that we had to leave the company, and refused to pay us more than a couple of weeks wages) so I'm probably a bit oversensitive though.

Where are you going?

Dh has insurance through the VA so we don't have to pay for that but I pay about $300/month for me and the two dcs. We have a $1500 deductable but are generally healthy so it's not a huge problem. Vax are not covered. I do an alternative vax schedule anyway and file a philosophical exemption with the state every year as the boys are not on schedule with everyone else.

I would look at companies like American Medical Security, Mutual of Omaha, and Golden Rule. I have had policies with all of them and found the coverage to be good and the rates reasonable.

I think for the USA you can get international health insurance which covers you in the country of residence but often or will repatriate you to the UK for significant and non emergency healthcare. God forbid somehting serious should happen to you you would not want to be stuck in the US continuing to pay insurance to continue treatment if you are intending to return home after a year in anycase.

see here

www.aviva-ifs.com/personal_solutions/healthcare.htm

and here

www.privatehealth.co.uk/healthinsurance/expatriate-health-insurance/

this is probably your best bet but unfortunately due to the costs of US healthcare, premiums will be quite high whatever you do. nb i have nothing againsT the US healthcare system before anyone jumps on me!

The trouble with travel insurance or international insurance is finding a doctor who will accept it, especially if the billing office is not in the US. My sister found this out about her travel insurance when she suffered an extreme allergic reaction while visiting.

for the amount of time you'll be here, you won't NEED to get vac.s done - check with your gp, as often there's quite a broad time range when it's ok to do them, so you could get some before leaving, and postpone others til you get back to the UK. also, my neighbour (whose husbandis self employed) has cover only for things like emergencies & serious illnesses (like car accidents, cancer etc) which is quite cheap. if you're prepared to just put up with coughs/colds etc you would be ok with that sort of cover. also, yanks tend to get regular check up etc, which you wouldn't need, as you're here for less than a year (some ins insists on this, to make sure you keep healthy)

Sorry to crash your listing here but we moved to the USA for work and our company also did not provide health insurance. They did cover other costs such as flights, car, rental for rest two months etc etc - however we took the costly option by having proper health insurance NOT travel insurance via BUPA. They do ex-pat health insurance which was £5m each for any health problems. It's was well worth it as I had loads of problems come up whilst there which I had never envisaged would happen to me. I could not leave to come home for treatment as it was all on-going and that would mean leaving my job to do so.

Also I was not sick enough for travel insurance to repatriate me but I needed to see doctors every month and have on-going treatment for about six months. Travel insurance would not have covered this but my health insurance did with only my excess of £150 to pay only the once.

What I am saying is we all hope and pray nothing will ever happen but we cannot foresee into the future and so it's best to be covered for all eventualities.

Our son was diagnosed with cancer last year here in the UK and his treatment alone cost more than £3million (we considered having his treatment over in the USA hence I know the cost) - if this had happened over in the US, our health insurance would have been fine but he would also have been too sick to repatriate.

I am not trying to scare you but please,I urge you not to scrimp on health care insurance. It is not worth it. Plus I hope you'll never use it and so with hindsight it will be alot of money, but heaven forbid you do use it, it will be the best money ever spent.

I wish you and your family well and am sure you and you little ones will have a great time.

I lived abroad (far east, not US) for years and used Medibroker, which is one of the companies linked on the second website mentioned by Herhonesty above. The policy they offered was with a company called Interglobal, I think; it was much cheaper than Bupa etc but covered the same things.

We had it for several years, and they paid out for childbirth (up to a certain limit), some emergency hospital treatment I needed, and then when my husband died suddenly, they paid to repatriate his body. There was also an option to repatriate for medical care in the UK for serious illnesses.

It was much better for us than joining a local scheme, and I think in your circumstances it's definitely worth looking at expat insurance rather than local US.

I'm also pretty sure anything labelled travel insurance will only cover you for trips up to a few weeks long (multiple trips in a one-year period), not for a whole year's residence in one place, though it might be worth trying studenty type insurance brokers who cover the gap-year market.

Wheredidmyoldlifego: I'm so sorry to hear about your son. How unimaginably awful, I hope he's making/made a full recovery.

I do appreciate how much of a gamble not having health insurance would be. DH has had a word with them and they are apologetic about the health insurance situation but still not willing to offer it. I looked at Bupa but it's just not affordable, the money is literally not there. We obviously have a lot of talking to do, though.

Thanks to everyone who's contributed, it is really helpful to have an overview. I definitely do not mean to ignore the obvious consensus.

OP, check out this thread on this US relocation forum I like to lurk on read...

You wouldn't have to pay the whole whack up front -- you can pay month by month, same for car insurance.