AIG and MSIG Travel Medical Insurance

[Y Chang]

I am looking for travel medical insurance for a 2 to 3 months trip in the U.S.  My insurance brokers recommended AIG Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited and MSIG Insurance (Thailand) Public Company Limited.  Has anyone purchased one of these insurance and made claims?  Was the claim process straight forward or complicated?  Please share your experience.  Thanks!

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

I have purchased AIG's Travel Guard product a number of times for trips to the US. The only time I had a claim was when our flight segment from Hong Kong to Los Angeles was delayed due to the airline rescheduling in order to avoid curfews caused by the civil unrest there in August of 2019.  AIG paid our claim for trip delay and incidental expenses without any issues. I simply had to submit a copy of the ticket, boarding passes, meal receipts and fill out a claim form. The airline paid for the hotel. I have not had medical or other claims under a Travel Guard policy.

 

One thing to be aware of is the limit for medical expenses. I think AIG's highest limit offered is 5 million baht. This would be blown through in a very short time in the US if anything serious happened. You'd probably have to look into offshore travel insurers to get substantially higher limits.

 

I think also the coverage for your personal effects is limited to the time that they are in the custody of a common carrier and not in your hotel room or elsewhere while you're out an about. You might want to ask your broker about this.

[Sheryl]

I can't give any personal experience with either  - prior to becoming eligible for US Medicare I always used IMG and never claimed on it, either.

 

But I do recall from when I had to get policies, that only a few will cover you for travel to the US if you are a US citizen (even though you live abroad). That was how I came to select IMG.

 

A non-issue if you are not American but an important consideration if you are.

[Don Chance]

Funny i was searching for AIG thread and here it is.

 

I have a AIG Travel Guard Canada policy with Emirates flight ticket. Unfortunately i had a stomach infection in Nepal that also triggered an arthritis reaction (we think.)  So i went to the hospital in Bangkok.  First i called the hotline and went threw the details, i had a symptoms etc.  The operator said yes i would be cover and it was an emergency.  He said i could go to hospital and the policy would pay. But then when i got to the hospital they checked with AIG and they then said i they would not pay directly. So i called AIG and they said again they would cover it but i would have to pay first.

Now 2 month later, i have not received any money back. I spend 45 minutes on there 'emergency hot line' just to be disconnected.  I tried the next day for 30 minutes and gave up. They do not answer emails either.

 

So i did some research on google and look at all the bad reviews!

It seems they do not pay out claims very often.

I am thinking my options now are:

1) Contact paypal and dispute the flight payment with Emirates because they are the ones claiming to provid travel insurance.

2) BBB dispute

3) Ombudsman in Canada.

 

At this point i don't think i would ever purchase any travel insurance  again. I did some research on other companies such TUGO and it seem to be a common problem of getting claim reimbursed.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Don Chance

[Y Chang]

Thank you all for sharing your experiences as well as your advises.  The coverage limit as well as being an US expat traveling back to the US are certainly points of consideration.  Each time I research on insurance, I always learn something new.

 

 

For information purpose, my broker confirmed that both Travel Guard from AIG Thailand and Travel Easy from MSIG Thailand cover US expat taking trips back to the US.  

 

I have also looked up reviews on Travel Guard and Travel Easy.  Reviews on Travel Guard are mixed.  Recent comments from consumeraffairs.com were mostly regarding claims on cancelled trips that were rejected and naturally were negative; whereas comments from Travelguard.com were positive but they were mostly related to the online purchasing experience.  As for Travel Easy, I was only able to find reviews from Singapore.  Most people were happy with their non-medical claims process.

 

Given the information I have, I think the best choice will be IMG (and Sheryl, thank you for the recommendation!  :)  Not only does it provide options of higher medical coverage, if I use its provider network IMG will pay directly.  That will really give me peace of mind!