Health insurance are for weak and coward people! An exclamation rather exaggerated but somehow reflected my point of view during my trip through Europe. I was not worried about the slightest chance of getting a disease or having an accident, cause I considered that I could easily come back to Spain for treatment.
In fact, I don’t even asked for the free European health insurance card! What for? In a couple of days I could get to Spain hitchhiking from across Europe!
When I went to Morocco it was more of the same, for a couple of weeks that I thought we would be there nothing could happen. What would be the worst thing? A huge gastroenteritis? In that case I would just take the first thing they gave me at the pharmacy and fixed.
Of course, now that we’re going to Malaysia, and then to go somewhere around for a long time… the approach changes. Wherever we go we will find a completely different climate, a different and new bacteria diseases. Mosquitoes are not mosquitoes there, but sickly helicopters with loaded ammunition; and who knows which other insects we’ll find know, would bite us or we will eat grilled.
Don’t misunderstand me, despite all the shots we got, I don’t get stressed at all by the possible medical risks of the life that is expecting us there, but I believe that we must take some basic precautions this time.
In my case, after five years of independence, I turned to put myself as beneficiary of my father. As he works for the states I get free insurance this way, which provides retrospective payment of those medical emergencies that may arise. I would have to pay with credit card and expect they pay back as they say.
For Ilze I was reviewing Spanish, Latvian and global travel insurance. After a long review we chose to hire the Spanish one with ARAG through Ibercaja. It seems a joke but it was cheaper through the reseller than when we directly contacted the insurance company itself.
The insurance covers 18000 euros each time there is a health emergency, so if something happens several times will be that amount every time. It also covers baggage theft up to 1400€, including repatriation, and other typical coverage. We hired with them for six months and cost about 230€.
Depending where we go, we will decide whether it’s worth renewing it, if we hire with another company, or if we can save it.
Any cheaper travel insurance you could recommend us for the next time?
