Insurance for visiting parents

Looking for visitors insurance for my parents. Please share your experience on TATA AIG/ICICI Lombard etc. or any other insurance which worked for you especially if you had to make any claims.

I can send a compile.

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Didn’t make any claim, but heard a lot of good things about ICICI Lombard. My parents took it when they came here, so did my mother-in-law. Its less expensive if they are below 65

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Ask yourself a question, whether you want to get a cheap solution which buys some peace of mind, or you need a real medical insurance where there’ll be good coverage. If the former then just go ahead and get anything. A lot of folks will point towards ICICI and other Indian insurances. They simply do not work well. To get a real insurance that works you need to ensure the following

Copy pasting from an old email….

1.      Get an insurance from an US based company because in case of issues using your Microsoft ARAG legal help (or any other legal help including consumer courts) you can actually push back in case any claim is declined

2.      The too good to be true insurance aren’t that good. E.g. 100% coverage with fine print of a “allowable coverage” is pretty bad. This is what most insurance company will give you. I have a friend who took his dad to the ER and later the allowable charge for the $3000 bill turned out to be $400. He has to pay the rest. Imagine if that was a $100000 bill!!

3.      Get a comprehensive insurance and not a normal travel, medical insurance

4.      Get one with a fixed network (e.g. PPO) with guaranteed cashless transaction in US. Check their site to see what local hospitals are covered. The cashless part of many Indian insurance will simply be not honored here.

5.      Get one where it’s clearly written that the coverage is on actual amount billed in in-network hospital with clearly written down co-payment. Means if the in-network hospital charges $1000, insurance pays say 80% and you pay 20%. This on the surface will seem worse than others which say 100% coverage with a fine print of allowable charges. In that case they’d say of the $1000 only $100 is allowable.

99% you can get away with any insurance you take, but in case you fall in that remaining 1% all hell breaks loose. So your choice would be decided by your risk taking capability. Just ensure that you are aware of that risk and don’t have false understanding with a Rs.6000 premium Indian insurance. Play around with

http://www.insubuy.com/ . Based on feedback of people who have claimed before I went with Patriot America.

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I absolutely second what Abhinaba said. We had a personal experience of a close to $50K bill with parents visiting us, just earlier this year, and I can tell you, you definitely do NOT want to be paying out of your pocket for that.

Even though we bought an American insurance from insubuy, we still had to go through a fairly long process just convincing the hospital to accept travel insurance(despite them being an in-network hospital, at least, as advertised by the insurance company). They finally agreed to do so and clearly stated that, that was because our insurance provider had a US address and phone number they could call.

So yes, I would strongly recommend against buying Indian insurances, no matter how much cheaper they might be.

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Can’t agree with you more Abhinaba.

Most of the Indian Insurance companies, including ICICI, are just not recognized by medical institutions here.

So, almost forget about cashless, you might have to wait way too longer to claim the expenses which you pay out from your pocket.

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Old compiles below::

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I used http://nriol.net earlier for comparing and buying insurance (good comparison table that makes decision making easy).

They have a toll free number that you could call and discuss too if you have any questions. Luckily, I did not end up with any claims J

Few policy change requests were done well without any hassles. So, would highly recommend them.

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This site has some good info about visitor’s insurance.

http://insubuy.com/visitorinsurance.jsp

http://insubuy.com/guide/faq/pre-existing-conditions-visitor-medical-insurance.jsp

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Insurance:

www.sevencorners.com

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We bought Inbound USA policy for our parents.

– have you looked at http://www.inboundusa.com/inbound-usa-insurance.html (Plan J or K)?

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I got it recently from http://www.indnet.org/ for my parents.

Checkout www.visitorscoverage.com and you can find a good valuable source of information here.

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You will find compiles in Medical on \\vbaliga1\public\compiles.

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Check out http://www.immihelp.com , they typically have plenty of options.

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ICICI  provides health insurance for people who are visiting  USA for short term.

http://www.icicilombard.com/app/ilom-en/

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This company is US based and hence easier to file claims, if necessary. 

http://www.buyamericaninsurance.com/

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http://www.imglobal.com/

https://www.buyamericaninsurance.com/sevencorners/inboundusa/?affiliateid=inbound-usa

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For now, I am thinking of going with something from http://www.path2usa.com/insurance/usavisitorsinsurance.htm

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Check with Choice Insurance located in Kirkland, our broker. They helped a friend’s mother last year to get her health insurance during her stay for a month.

Phone: (425) 739-6565      

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I have used the ‘Patriot America’ insurance plan from http://www.imglobal.com/coverage/patriot/

Reasonably priced and seems to have PPO like benefits.

My parents are here for 6 months and after some analysis I took the insurance for TATA AIG (ICICI Lombard is also comparable). Their comprehensive plan is good (and not that expansive). Only drawback is that you have to pay upfront and they will refund. I heard that if you have bills and required receipts etc then refund is smooth.

You can get insurance here which pay upfront but please read the conditions carefully. Some plans only cover a limited amount for each type of problem (e.g. only $20 for a doctor visit, if you calculate all their conditions).

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http://www.g1g.com/affiliates/mla

For my parents I got liaison international insurance from this.

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I checked out \\vbaliga1\public\VisitingUSA for all the options, but did anyone use any of the services in the recent past?

I know there a many providers, but I’m trying to find the most reliable one.

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Try http://insurance.smashits.com/ - I used them when my in-laws were here but we never got a chance to visit a doctor. I went by reviews that said they have relatively few problems

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www.buyamericaninsurance.com

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Your options would depend on whether they have pre-existing conditions are not.  We used http://www.visitorscoverage.com/plans/pre-existing-conditions-visitor-insurance-plans.htm and bought coverage for my in-laws from Atlas America recently.

I purchased in USA last time around.

1) go to www.path2usa.com and they have good options available

2) KV Rao’s AIG insurance (Search for this in the net) is another one

PS – thankfully, I have never filed for reimbursement before, so don’t know if they will give back money in case of claim.

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I bought the following insurance for my parents/in-laws; it used to be 100% covered in network – it has changed to 80% for first 5K and 100% for the remaining. I had to use this for my MIL – I just had the pay the deductible – everything else was taken care. Overlake/Evergreen/Swedish are in their network – so they bill them directly + get provider discounts. I also got my prescription charges reimbursed.

I’m not sure about pre-existing condition etc. You may want to call the visitorscoverage OR the insurance company representative to get more details. You can find if any other insurance would cover 100% as well.

Atlas America  -- http://www.visitorscoverage.com/plans/more_features.php?pln_id=82

http://www.visitorscoverage.com/plans/

                by MultiNational Underwriters

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http://www.buyamericaninsurance.com/sevencorners/inboundusa/benefits.jsp

http://www.buyamericaninsurance.com/sevencorners/inboundusainsurance.jsp

http://www.buyamericaninsurance.com/sevencorners/inboundusa/visitorsinsurance.jsp

http://www.buyamericaninsurance.com/sevencorners/inboundusa/network.jsp

http://www.buyamericaninsurance.com/sevencorners/inboundusa/programsummary.pdf

http://www.buyamericaninsurance.com/sevencorners/inboundusa/application.pdf?affiliateid=6109

http://www.buyamericaninsurance.com/guide/paymentoptions.jsp?pid=2

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[5/20/2010]

http://www.kvrao.org/ has increased the pre-existing condition coverage limit to $50K per incidence. This looks very cool! Here is the compile of the experiences for KVRao insurance-

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Pre-existing condition is only for life threating emergency situations.

Their insurance was through AIG and you deal directly with the insurance company. My claims were initially rejected as pre existing ( I had the pre existing coverage) although the doctor said it is not but after couple of follow-ups they did pay the claims. There were other restrictions like $100 max for an office visit etc . You do end up with some out of pocket expense but overall it was not too bad. It was a small claim and so I do not know what will happen for a larger claim.

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We had good experience with them. Note that claim amount was small.

We had to go to emergency so they paid ER directly  (I provided a copy of the insurance card to ER team) and we had to pay $75 deductible plus $35 for something else. It was quite easy as I filled the form online but again this was for a relatively small amount so don’t know what happens when there is a bigger issue and person needs longer care. Good thing is that they paid without any hassles.

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Original Question : Could those of you with experience in filing claims (big /small, with or without preexisting conditions) on visitors' insurance please email me your experience with whichever provider you used?

Compile -

I had an ER visit during  my dad’s visit. I had atlas America plan. As far as preexisting condition is concerned no plan covers much.  Atlas America does not cover ER room charges ( most of the time ,Room charges are 95% of the total bill).  Atlas plan says its PP (which means health care provider directly charges to insurance company). In my case Overlake hospital charged insurance company and they did not hear back anything after 3 months, and they sent me a letter asking me to talk to insurance company.

Points:

·         No insurance cover (doesn’t matter how expensive you buy) is good for pre-existing condition.

·         These plans are good for general doctor visit (cold /flu etc).

·         It is always advisable  to visit Urgent Care (this is  covered by atlas America, check one more time) if you feel care required is not life threating.

Hope this helps.

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hi,
I took insurance from Bajaj Allaianz fo rmy parents when they visited last year.

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My mom had a small accident (fell on stairs and had a cast on leg)...but the insurance covered everything from ER to 2 days of hospital care and then follow ups for a month .. So it was a good experience

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Hi,

I had bought up insurance from seven corners when my parents had visited. This links provides useful info regarding pre-existing conditions.

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One of my friends wife’s father had a heart attack while in the US a couple of weeks back and insurance claims wasn’t an easy thing. What matters is having sufficient coverage. So I suggest that you have sufficient coverage preferably from a vendor in the US. I used seven corners (http://www.sevencorners.com/) when my parents visited me 2 years ago. They have pretty good options in terms of co-pay and co-insurance etc. The rates are slightly high, but it gives you coverage of up to $500,000. You may pay a higher premium (close to 2K for 2 parents for 6 months) and a slightly high deductible – but it will protect in case of a worst case scenario. The person was admitted for a week and the total expenses were in the order of $184K. such scenarios is when coverage is needed. Just my 2 cents

[End 3/17/2011]

[7/15/12011]

There seems to be much negative feedback on the SevenCorners.com.  Most of the negative feedback is on the interpretation of coverage.  It seems that it is not straightforward (probably with all insurance) to figure out what is covered. They do refund the money but it doesn’t seem to meet the expectation.  In addition there was also a lot of dissat on this site regarding seven corners.

I am going with Oriental Travel Insurance which I had taken before.

Details on feedback on this thread:

Seven corners J  Not too long ago I had to deal with them for over 6 mos….  There are some unique learning from that experience and how these insurance companies carefully design the plan so that they don’t have to pay much !

But relatively I would say they were ok if not better and agree with comments below for most basic visits.

In my case, for my mother had to do a urgent surgery. They ended up paying most but hospital charges. In a surgery cases hospital charges makes 70% of overall bill and the way they classify them as “Hospital visit” is little flaky. I don’t personally agree with that because how can you treat “surgery charge” which is alone in thousands of dollar equal to a “Hospital stay “  for which usually 1.5K is paid. In my case out of $10,500 hospital billed insurance paid only $2,600.

So yes Seven corners good for basic necessities but for anything surprise like I had to go through there is no good option . However recently (for a while now) ICICI partnered with United Health and in this case Providers ought to accept payment provided by United healthcare agreement which is usually less than full price they charge those not insured.

For ex. In seven corners, most of providers don’t have agreement with them so they bill them full price which is nearly 40% > they would bill insurances such as premera, blue cross, united health..

Seven corners just pays whatever billed as long as it covered in the plan.

I’ve purchased medical insurance from Seven Corners (through Insubuy.com) when my in-laws visited us last year from India.  I did a bit of research comparing the various providers, policies, benefits, cost etc. and they seemed to be the best at that time (things may have changed in a year).  Seemed like the most value for money – esp. compared to KV Rao, which had a lot of recommendations.

Claim experience: My father-in-law had to be taken to Redmond Urgent Care once and about 3 separate sessions with an ear specialist due to a severe ear infection, plus several medicines and painkillers from Fred Meyers pharmacy.  If I remember right, I paid upfront at most places and then claimed through the Insurance.  The claim process was pretty straight-forward, their customer service is good – both on phone (minimal wait time, knowledgeable agents on the phone) and email (quick email responses – within 24 hours most of the time).  They paid everything (as far as the policy covered) within a few weeks without any follow-up.   Just remember to call them up if you are taking your parents to a doctor and notify about the health issue *before* you get the treatment/medicines.  

My experience with Seven Corners is good. We did claim for my father-in-law’s heart surgery last year.

Let me know if you need any more information.

I have used sevencorners for someone over 80 and I know another friend took a policy on them for a 94 year old visitor. Most indian based insurance firms don’t provide comparable policies for senior people. However I don’t have any experience with how good they are with claims processing.

I have used it before and it is good.

I had seven corners; though I never dealt with claiming $$

Pretty reasonable rates

Sevencorners is the worst among all insurance companies. Most insurance companies don’t pay out anything at all even if it a non pre-existing case. They exactly cap their pay out to the sum total of premiums you have paid so that they don’t incur any loss. My dad fell down and injured his hand once and seven corners paid $270 (exactly the 3 month premium I had paid) when the bill was $3500. Just getting to talk to a person whom you can argue with takes several weeks.