International Travel Medical Insurance…for Kids?

It seems like kids are always getting sick.  You may drop off a rosy-cheeked vibrant youngster at daycare, but you inevitably pick up a snot-nosed and coughing carrier-monkey.  And any parent can tell you about the many nights of cleaning up vomit.  (Why can’t kids ever get nauseated during the daytime?)  Yet what about the more serious illnesses, the ones in which you rush your child to the doctor or even to the emergency room?  It happens to everyone, but it seems to target the young ones especially.

Enough of the bad news!  How about a little good news?  Fortunately for you, the one holding the wallet, medical insurance policies for children are fairly inexpensive (sometimes as low as one-fourth the price of an adult’s policy), if not free.  Yes, free.  Many insurance companies allow up to two children to be added to a policy when two parents or guardians purchase policies.  The age by which a company considers one a “child” may vary, with some specifying ten and under, while the majority of them say eighteen years old as a maximum.  And as for a minimum age (some really do have a minimum age limit!), this can vary between the point of birth and around fourteen days old (particularly if considering international travel).

Many policies will cover children up to the age of 22, as long as he or she is unmarried (scary thought), a full-time student at an accredited college or technical school and is dependent on you for support.  This goes without saying, but for children to be covered medically for travel, there usually must be accompanying, equally-covered guardian.  No playboy-style jaunts to the international hot spots for Baby.

There are some stipulations, in addition to age, where children are concerned.  First, are they children and/or dependents?  The child/ren should be related to you naturally, through marriage, or through adoption (according to many companies).

You get it, you get it: read the policy before selecting a company.  Not your first visit to this site, huh?  Okay, what you want to know is: how is a child’s policy different from an adult’s?  Of course that’s what you want to know.  One very important feature of every child’s policy (or, at least, it should be…if you don’t find mention of this, be sure to ask) is the transportation of unattended minors.  If you or another guardian is injured, hospitalized, or even killed while traveling—thereby leaving the child unattended—the company will cover the expenses to get your child back to the United States and in the care of a previously specified guardian.  The only criteria for this is that the caretaker must be unable to care for the child for at least 36 hours.

So what are you waiting for?  Get that child insured, then get them out to see the world!