TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Corona virus medical evac insurance coverage

So, it looks like I am finally booking air for our trip in June! And I am unclear about coverage for Corona virus, particularly medical evac. Looking at TTOL sponsor Insure My Trip info, here is a link with info regarding Corona virus coverage. Link

What concerns me is the following bolded part from that page

"For those purchasing travel insurance AFTER 1/21/2020 (exceptions may apply if traveling to a country with a Travel Health Notice issued by the CDC)
benefits included in comprehensive coverage may apply in the following unforeseen scenarios:

Emergency Medical Coverage: a sick traveler must see a doctor and/or go to the hospital during a trip.
Emergency Medical Evacuation Coverage: in rare cases, a sick traveler requires an emergency medical evacuation to the nearest appropriate hospital or back home for recuperation.
Trip Interruption: an extremely sick traveler cannot continue with a trip and must return home.
Cancel For Any Reason: Currently, if you are looking for trip cancellation coverage because you are concerned about the coronavirus, you will now need to purchase a plan that includes Cancel For Any Reason since the travel warnings are now foreseen. This benefit is time-sensitive and has other eligibility requirements, so not all travelers will qualify."

Now, we know that SXM is currently a country with a Travel Health Notice issued by the CDC. If that is still the case by the time that I travel, will they deny me medical evac coverage?

Has anyone here booked insurance which specifically covers Covid medical evac?

Carol ; it’s anyone’s guess what June will be with regard to Covid 19. We are scheduled to come to SXM in early November and so far our ✈️ has been canceled 2 times in past 3 days and we keep having to reschedule our Covid test as our dates keep changing as well as our permit for our pet and hopefully St Maarten will not make visitors buy additional insurance through what is proposed.
As I stated before we along with many other people have our own policies that cover us out of USA and medical Emergency evacuation insurance.
My feeling is the Island Economy will suffer far more than what it will gain if they force this policy on tourists. Many people spend many thousands of dollars when staying on Island And support the local economy greatly.

They could say nearest hospital could be the one in St Maarten.

benni--Similarly, I have NO idea what the Covid situation will be like, worldwide, by June, but want to cover my bases now, to the extent that I can. I agree that requiring Covid insurance is a very BAD idea for the SXM economy and frankly I have ZERO confidence in any insurance that is required by the SXM government anyway. However, I do want to purchase Covid insurance for medical evac, but NOT through the SXM government. I do not trust coverage through the government and if it is required, I wonder who might be getting their cut, as you say. I have to assume that yours is a yearly policy?

What airline has been cancelling your flights? I have heard about lots of cancellations of Delta, Jet Blue and United. I hope you are able to get it all worked out. I just couldn't see going through all that drama this year, for myself, personally.

Scubaman--That is not really a concern of mine, as that hospital could not be considered 'medically appropriate' if a person was ill enough that they required medical evac.

Carol, it is Jet Blue . They canceled our Tuesday Nov 3 non stop flight out of Boston and our Oct 31 non stop flight again. Very irritating as we need to make plans set by SXM government for arriving passengers.

OK, best wishes.

Hope you can get on the Nov 7 flight I'm on. It's looks to be pretty full. Good luck!

After you posted this, I decided to take a look for a possible upcoming trip in March. We used InsureMyTrip last Nov. I went in and did a couple of quotes, read through the 50 or so pages of the contract and found nothing that really answered what your concerns were. I then called InsureMyTrip and requested a call back. About 30 minutes later I received the return call.

Knowing InsureMyTrip is basically a broker/clearing house, I was not really expecting a clear or concrete answer. The person who called me was very cordial but either she did not understand what I was asking or I did make myself clear and her answer did not clear anything up. I was trying to clear up the medical evacuation with Covid involved and she kept referring to me having to get a policy with a "cancel for any reason" clause and then a separate "Covid medical coverage" policy. I tried rephrasing the question to no avail.

I then asked if she could quote one of the "Covid medical coverage" policies. After asking the normal questions, she said a company named Seven Corners offered this coverage and quoted a price of $72 for my dates. I found Seven Corners site and did a quote from there and could not come up with the exact same price but it did appear they offered some MEDICAL coverage for a Covid case but not the evacuation.

I am not sure if contacting InsureMyTrip would produce any different results or perhaps contact Seven Corners and see where it might go from there. Link to Seven Corners is below.

SEVEN CORNERS

Hey ruralcarrier, thanks for that research.

Huh. OK, all of that doesn't give me a warm fuzzy...

When I do a quote at Seven Corners I do get an option for “ Liaison® Travel Plus Medical with COVID-19 Coverage” which includes $500k of evac coverage.

OK, I need to look at that when I have more time..

It seemed to work pretty much like InsureMyTrip.

I contacted my company CHUBB and looked into the program we pay for. Passport360. Right now covid 19 is considered the same as any other sickness and treated the same. There isn’t even an update regarding it. They duh deep and if I get covid while away - anywhere I’m covered with Evaq to get me back.