Travel insurance

I'll be going home to the US for a couple months this summer while my husband is deployed overseas. I'm a little clueless about travel insurance, so which companies do you normally use? In the past I've never bothered with travel insurance since I'm young and healthy with no medical issues. However, when I was in the US over the holidays I had an unexpected illness come up which landed me in the ER... and with a huge bill. Not taking chances again after that!

ALWAYS get travel insurance.  It's so cheap.  Doesn't matter if you are young or old, things happen.   

I have travel insurance through my bank - but it only covers for a maximum of 30 days per trip.  I'd have a look at moneysupermarket.com and compare different policies.   

I'd also suggest you keep in mind any activities you might be planning during your visit and be sure that they are covered.  I'm thinking of things like skiing , rock climbing, horse riding, etc. 

If you use one of those price comparison sites , they make it pretty easy to compare what is covered and what is not.  It can be surprising to see that some policies don't cover anything, even things you wouldn't think of like boating.  Some of them even add on extra exclusions like "you aren't covered for any accident if you've had a drink, or if you are doing something illegal."  Often the most expensive ones are the worst. 

The travel insurance industry is completely dodgy, as proven a few years back when an Icelandic volcano stranded thousands of people all over Europe because planes couldn't fly through the ash.  Essentially, the insurance companies all got together and decided they weren't going to pay out and that was that. 

Thanks the advice. This was definitely a lesson learned. My husband has never bothered with insurance either on all his trips. The man has an immune system of steel and never gets sick. However, I'm going to try and convince him to get it on the next trip, especially after what happened to me!

Thanks the advice. This was definitely a lesson learned. My husband has never bothered with insurance either on all his trips. The man has an immune system of steel and never gets sick. However, I'm going to try and convince him to get it on the next trip, especially after what happened to me!

For other countries, it might not be as important as healthcare is cheaper, but for trips to the US, ALWAYS get travel insurance, preferably with £10 million of healthcare coverage.

It's not worth taking the chance of not being covered in the US - even if your husband hardly gets sick, what happens if he has an accident and ends up in hospital?

We had insurance from Lloyd's and ended up needing it! They were great, covered my son's entire ICU stay, and even ended up paying US money since there was a per diem for hospital stays.

Now we use Post Office, only because Lloyd's won't cover us anymore (not surprisingly). Luckily we haven't needed it!