Question for US citizens about Short Term Health Insurance when visiting USA

[DrDave]

I was happy to see this thread, as a few days ago I started researching travel medical insurance for an upcoming 30-day trip to the US.

 

I currently have BUPA platinum coverage for hospitalization in Thailand. When I enrolled, I saw some language in the plan documents that indicated that coverage is generally available worldwide, except in the US. It seemed that coverage would, however, be available in the US in the event of an accident. In the "Guide to Your Health Insurance Benefits" booklet, the following appears as the first item in the list of General Exclusions (things not covered):

Any medical expenses occur in the United States, which resulting from sickness (sic).

 

But then, reading through the "Guide to Emergency Medical Assistance Cover" booklet that came with my renewal a couple of weeks ago, I now see the following disturbing phrase:

"International Assistance" refers to the provision of Services when the member is travelling outbound from Thailand except to home-country and not exceeding 90 consecutive days per trip.

 

So, now I'm a little confused. What exactly is a member's "home-country". The country of citizenship? The country of physical residence? The country of tax residence?  For me, being a US citizen and US resident for tax purposes, I'm assuming I'm ineligible for coverage. I'm not so sure about my wife, who has dual citizenship (Thai and US).

 

I visited a number of insurance company websites, where online quotes are readily available, finding a big disparity in the rates for a single 30-day trip - ranging from about 2,000 to 6,000 baht for what seemed to be similar coverage. Even though I entered a trip destination country (USA) to receive a quote, none of these sites mentioned ineligibility for US citizens visiting the US. I suspect that US citizens might find that their policy is useless after they purchase it and receive the summary plan description.

 

After seeing the recommendation above for WorldNomads, I checked their website. It appears that American expats living in Thailand are in fact eligible for coverage during trips to the US. It looks like the coverage is underwritten by BUPA (Denmark), and appears to be not the same as the travel medical insurance offered on BUPA's own website.