TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Health insurance options for travel to island

What do most people do for health insurance when traveling to the island? When I was younger, I never really thought about it, or did anything. Now, I think it would be a wise option.

I know that if I do the airbnb route, they offer insurance, but I have not read up enough on it to know if it is a viable and good option, or if I should find a better option.
Just curious what all the world travelers use? Thanks.

Scotty--we always purchase travel insurance through Insure My Trip. We always buy a comprehensive plans, which includes medical insurance and medical evac, which are the two most important things to US, personally. You can decide what types of insurance are important to you, in what amounts, and what is not important to you. There is also trip cancellation and interruption insurance, etc, as part of the comprehensive plan. If you book Insure my Trip through the link here on TTOL, we get a small commission and your cost is the same.

I'll take a look into it. Thanks.

Is there a company that you use more often than another on this site? Sorry to ask so many questions. There are so many companies to choose from, I don't know if one is better than another or not. I just like to see what other people have used in the past.Thanks again.

As I read this thread I noticed the banner addfor SkyMed a sponsor at the top of the page.

Skymed is also a sponsor, but they ONLY handle medical evac insurance. The original poster was asking about health insurance.

Scotty--on the Insure My Trip website, we put in parameters, and it pulls up a list of companies, and then I eliminate them till I find the one I want. For example, different companies have what I consider to be unacceptably low limits for stuff like medical evac and medical coverage. And some are just too expensive. We often have frequent flyer airline tickets, so even if we had to cancel, we could cancel the tickets and get the miles back, so our trip cancellation cost for us is fairly low for SXM. When we went to South Africa, things were totally different, in terms of what our potential exposure was. It just depends on what is important to you.

We will be using FF miles also. It will be the expense of our room for 6 weeks. That will tally around $10K is what I'm thinking. I guess I should just look into buying a place when I'm there. It can't be that much more expensive then renting overall.
I do have med evac, but I don't know if what we have will work like our health insurance where it doesn't cover outside of the country. I'll have to check it out.
Thanks again.

OK best wishes.

Carol, will be using American FF miles. What’s the policy on canceling a trip….thanks…Dave

As of right now, you can cancel and get miles back into your account. Who knows if they might change the rules tomorrow. The last I knew, Delta did not allow you to cancel and get miles back.

From experience with AA you can cancel and miles go back into your account and fees refunded to your original method of payment.

AA still lets you. I just had to do that a couple months ago.

I am probably over-insured. I have an annual policy with SkyMed and I also have an annual travel policy with Allianz, which includes med evac.

Same here

We buy an annual policy with GeoBlue. Around $400 total for two of us. Includes health and evac. Does not include trip insurance but we travel on JB miles and we don’t pay for our room or car until we get there so not much exposure for us. Both hospitals on the island are in the GeoBlue network as are many doctors.

Where do you stay that you don't have to pay until you get to SXM?

We get our insurance from Trawick and have used them for many trips $229 for our two week visit and decent coverage

Tried to attach a PDF of the policy info but the attach manager would not let me....no trip insurance but great medical ($1 million evac coverage per person)

Two years ago, I had the "opportunity" to use the SXM health center. I was having chest pain which went through to my back. I thought I was having a heart attack. I went to the hospital and received blood tests , nitro sprays and an EKG. All for about $1000. Our medical insurance paid us when we got home.
As it turned out, this was likely the beginning of cholecystitis (gall bladder) which I wound up having removed in the US 4 months later.
The bottom line is that our health insurance did re-imburse us

Same here when I went to emergency and spent the night in the Dutch hospital after an ampulance ride. At admittance we had to present my CC which they put 2,000 florens on as a guarentee. After my stay and a follow up with a specialist and MRI total cost was between 700-800 US. Presented it to my insurance company and got totally reinbursed.

Both of you sound like you lucked out on that. I believe that Medicare has ZERO coverage outside the US and our Medicare Supplement (which overall is EXCELLENT coverage) only pays 80%..

Basic health care on the island is adequate and fairly reasonable, so I just get medical evacuation insurance. But I want to be evacuated back to my doctors in Boston - not sent to where the insurance company decides is appropriate for me, so read any documentation on evacuation insurance carefully. I think Skymed is the only one offering insurance that gets you home to your doctors. Would love to know if anyone else does t hat 'cause Skymed ain't cheap.

Our suppliment coverage pays 100% out of country. My wife found that out before we changed over.

Just so people know about needing medical care while on island and not so much on medical insurance although I will claim it when I get home. The day after we got here my one eye got sore and was red and thought that maybe I had pink eye (and I am far from being a medical person). So after 6 days at Flamingo we were moving on to BSV and I was renewing my vows in a couple of days and I had been using Visine Pink Eye and it wasn't improving. So before moving over to BSV I went to the Simpson Bay Medical Clinic Saturday morning with no appointment. I was told it would cost $70 and saw the doctor within 1 hour. The doctor told me it was a sty and prescribed some eye drops and it cleared it up after a few days. I didn't know what to expect trying to see a doctor in a foreign country but everything went better than expected and the doctor only charged me $50 because it didn't take her very long to diagnose.

Tim--Yes, as far as I know, Skymed is the only one that guarantees that you will be returned "home". For us, Florida is 'home', so anywhere in Florida isn't a really big deal.

At this point I'm on BC. I don't have Medicare so all of that is out of the discussion. My BC has told me that nothing out of the country would be covered. I'm sure there are coverages that allow for international travel, but not mine. I couldn't imagine the cost if I had and added international cost to it.
When I'm ready for Medicare, I'll look into international coverage like yours scubaman.

When my issue happened I wasn't on Medicare yet but my basic insurance covered everything.

For our upcoming trip to St. Martin, I purchased travel insurance through Allianz. The policy provides medical coverage up to $50,000 and emergency transportation up to $75,000. I’m starting to wonder if I should purchase increased limits.

Both of those numbers seem a bit low to me, especially the medical evac. When we book through Insure my Trip, I always look for a minimum of at least 100K for each. On our upcoming trip, I think the policy I actually purchased was either 500K or $1M for medical evac. For the medical, I think it was like 200K. As I said before, our supplement pays 80% outside the country. For medical expenses, also look to see whether the coverage is PRIMARY or not. If it is secondary, you may need to pay up front for expenses and wait to be reimbursed from the insurance company. To get primary medical payments, often the policy is a lot more expensive and the cost may be prohibitive.

As stated before, Sky Med is ONLY medical evac, but I believe it is primary coverage, so you just call them and they take care of everything. And Sky Med is one of the few that takes you to wherever your home is. Most medical evac policies take you to the closest medically acceptable hospital. In most cases from SXM, that's probably going to be somewhere in Florida. Now, somewhere in Florida is perfectly fine for me, but for someone who lives on the West Coast, or Michigan, it might not be so great.

And one more thing--the better policies also have a kind of concierge service, for want of a better word. You call them up and say "I have a dental emergency" or "my rental car has been stolen", or "I lost my passport", whatever, and they step you through what you are supposed to do.

Thanks, Carol. I’m going to contact Allianz, and maybe Sky Med too, to get better coverage.

Okay, this is an old thread I started over a year ago, but I have a question. We never did make it to SXM in 23 or 24. My wife decided she wasn't going to retire at that time, but now she has.
My question is about the insurance, but it is more like a comp type of insurance I guess. Medical, plus car rental etc. Does anyone here get an insurance that also pays the insurance on the car rental or what do you do for that as we will be renting a car for the time we are there.
Thanks.

We generally just get car insurance through the rental company. But there are some comprehensive insurance plans that do cover car insurance. Just compare the policies through a place like Insure My Trip, which will tell you whether it is included or not.

It's possible that your umbrella liability policy (if you have one) covers foreign country rental car liability. Check your policy.

And if you rent a car from Hertz, they include liability at no additional cost.

Not only does Hertz include the liability insurance, if you elect to use them, but be sure and check with your issuing Credit card company to make sure they'll cover the collision as most cards have stopped that.

Standard procedure every year before we go to check with credit card for above reasons and foreign purchase fees, as well as any fees for additional drivers.

Same here and also to alert them that I'll be using cards in a foreign country and to approve the charges to avoid any embarrassing situations.

My cards don't cover foreign anymore. I have a Bonvoy American Express, AA Barclays Mastercard, AA CitiBank Mastercard. None of those cover foreign anymore is what I'm told. In fact my Barclays doesn't even cover domestic rental is what I was told when I talked to them.

So, if I rent from Hertz liability is included? I'd still have to figure out collision though. I'll do some homework for the next couple of weeks I guess.

Who do you like to rent your cars through?

My AA Barclays Mastercard still covered my Collision insurance while in SXM this last May/June but not the Citi Bank card. I call every year to verify that. Barclays also along with my AA Citi Bank card have no foreign transaction fees. Might want to look into that your cards do too.

Scotty==we have rented through a bunch of different people over the years. Lately we have been doing AAA, as it is very convenient to Beachside Villas.

What Scubaman said. Every year I look up the online provisions of the card I want to use. Pretty sure AA Barclays Mastercard still covers collision. And yes, Hertz includes liability in their quote; it is not an add-on. However, I got a quote from Leisure this year that was over $300 less than Hertz even after adding in liability.

My United Explorer MC still covers collision and includeds rentals outside the USA

Lots of people use the CitiBank card associated with Costco. My last check with them confirmed that all coverage is still solid. Also, the rewards program applies to purchases.

I contacted them earlier and they said they didn't. I will check again and see if that is the case. I hope so. That would be great.

Did you ask about collision coverage? As that is what they'll cover and not he liability.

I talked to AAdvantage Aviator Red Mastercard and I was told they do cover collision. I must have talked to someone on their first day the last time I called in. Well, that is good to know. My other card though, the AA Citibank Platinum does not. They used to, but no longer offer that service. I'll now start checking on my car rental to see what I can come up with.

Scubaman, nothing I have covers car rental liability outside the US that I know of. I will either have to get that through the car rental or buy some comprehensive type of insurance. Also, if you don't mind me asking, what supplemental medigap insurance do you have? I'm checking now to see what kind of coverage mine gives me outside of the US.

I don't have anything but Medicare and my supplemental plan B and C insurance. If I have an out of country or network claim I just submit it and it's reimbursed.

Scuba--Medicare has ZERO coverage outside the US. Are you saying you submitted a claim for outside the US and Medicare paid it?

I think Scubaman is mistaken. He must be talking about his supplemental coverage. Plan A, B do not cover any foreign health issues. Plan B is not a supplemental, it is the standard Medicare. My supplemental Plan G will cover up to 80%, but standard Medicare will not. Do a Google search on it. Contact your company that helped set up Medicare for you and they will tell you standard Medicare does not cover outside of the US.
But if he has Plan C, that is an advantage plan. I don't know much about the advantage plan, which after reading a little, it may cover some costs of things outside of the US, but only covers up to 80% of things.

My plan C through United Healthcare covers out of network providers.

Yes, that is a supplemental. That is the Advantage plan, and not standard Medicare. I'm glad it works for you. I'm trying to check with my supplemental Plan G and see what it covers. I'm pretty sure it covers the same, which is 80%.

OK, I thought you were saying that Medicare paid out of the country.

We have a supplemental plan through UHC and it pays 80% outside the country. I still always get a comprehensive policy, which covers medical and evac.

So, Carol, you are pretty much an experienced traveler, you say you buy a comp. policy. What exactly does your comp. policy cover. This is going to be my first time buy one. I don't want to buy too much, and I definitely don't want to buy too little.

We now always get a medical coverage policy from Travelex (through Squaremouth). It covers medical expences and transport back to the USA if needed. Different policies for different needs but it's a small price to pay (around $140 for two people) for decent coverage

We have used Allianz and have been pleased. Naturally, you will need to customize your plan to your needs.

Scotty, please research the laws regarding liability insurance in SXM. The rental agency is required by law to have liability coverage, and that covers their clients. If you purchase the liability coverage from the rental agency, you are simply reimbursing them, or perhaps even overpaying them, for the coverage they already have. You are not getting any additional protection. It's your choice if you choose to "purchase liability insurance"; but you should know that you really aren't purchasing anything. I know many will argue with me about this, but I have verified it with a very trusted source.

Also, the Citibank AAdvantage Executive World Elite MasterCard covers collision and theft of a rental car in a foreign country.

Scotty--a comprehensive policy covers a lot of different things, stuff like trip interruption and trip cancellation (with a lot of exclusions), plus medical insurance, medical evac, etc. As I said, you can look at Insure my Trip, and compare policies and coverages, side by side.

You are spot on but some rental companies won't admit it and charge extra anyways.

I have not been to SXM for 8 years so I didn't know if this was something that had become mandatory. I have never purchased liability insurance ever, but hear people talking about it. So, what you are saying is that I don't need to spend extra for it. If you don't think it is necessary, I'll follow your lead. They can't make me purchase it???
As for the Citibank AAdvantage Executive World Elite MasterCard, you are right, that is what it shows, but I don't have that one. I have the Platinum which no longer gives that coverage.

The law is not new, but the practice of the agents strong-arming you into purchasing it is. I suppose they could refuse to rent to you if you don't buy it.

Who do you normally rent a car from?

Well, after talking with my medicare rep today I found out that Scubaman is correct. Medicare will cover me in any emergency up to 80% and my supplemental will cover the other 20%. She said it would not cover something that is prearranged. Example: You go to SXM for some treatment that is not offered in the US, or anything planned ahead of time, no coverage. It will cover any emergency with a 250 deductible first. I gave her some examples. I have a heart attack, I will be covered. It doesn't cover transportation back home or anything like that. I break a leg, get cut and need stitches etc. All covered. I'm learning something new everyday.

Unless things have changed, your rep is in error. Medicare doesn't cover international, but some of the Medigap plans do--they cover up to 80% after deductible with a $50k lifetime cap. Has coverage really changed??

Correct...Medicare does not cover care outside the USA...Madicare Fact Sheet

Fact Sheet link

Perhaps some of the Meicare Advantage programs do cover out of country travel? They seem to promise lot more coverage than traditional Medicare - though I have been advised by knowledgeable people to avoid them.

Wow, now I have to call them back again and see what the heck is going on with this info she gave me today. Crazy.

I talked to my medicare agent again, and I think they just don't really understand the whole picture. The link she sent me shows something totally different. She just doesn't quite get it I guess. She seems to read into it that there is a coverage, but from what I read, there would have to be certain circumstances for you to get any help. No real coverage with medicare from what I can see. I just started on medicare, so there is a lot to learn I guess.
Thanks for setting me straight on this. I guess I'll have to decide what I need to do. I don't take any meds, and haven't even had a cold since 2017. Hmm. Vacations are supposed to be fun, and so should planning them, but I'm struggling right now. LOL.

Sadly, a lot of agents give out bad information when it comes to car rental coverage and other insurance. I have found it best to communicate directly with the issuing company/carrier and maybe even make two contacts to make sure you get accurate information. It is always best to do some research yourself also.

Having been on Medicare myself for a few years now (but I do still carry regular health insurance as my wife is still working and it beats a lot of the other options), I have done a lot of learning and research and also ran into a lot of misinformation. We are going through some major changes with "open season" on my regular insurance and it has been a fiasco trying to navigate it. An in-person health fair was basically useless and even trying to call an assistance number has been a joke.

Good luck.

I am now looking for a comprehensive policy. Really, I'm not so worried about trip cancellation or trip interruption I guess because if something medically happens, I don't think I'm going to be worried about my trip. I'm more worried about my medical I guess. So, as this will be my first time ever buying this stuff, I'll keep looking and hopefully make up my mind.

Scotty--agreed, I don't worry about trip cancellation or interruption either, but it's always part of a comprehensive policy. Medical stuff is what I worry about most.

As I said at one point, check out TTOL sponsor Insure My Trip. You can compare various policies side and side and determine which one is the best one for you. If you click on the link here, TTOL gets a small commission and the price to you is the same.