2021/2022 Antarctica Travel Insurance

[Heartfelttraveler]

We live in the United States.

I need to purchase travel insurance for our upcoming trip to Antarctica in January 2022.

If you recently purchased insurance for your upcoming Antarctica trip - what company did you go with and why?

[scottjeanne]

We are booked with Silverseas for this spring.  We have their insurance because this cruise has been cancelled by the cruiselines 4 times and when they do that they refund the insurance also.

[Heartfelttraveler]

4 minutes ago, scottjeanne said:

We are booked with Silverseas for this spring.  We have their insurance because this cruise has been cancelled by the cruiselines 4 times and when they do that they refund the insurance also.

We are booked with Hurtigruten.  This is also our fourth try.  Hurtigruten does not offer insurance.

[Bongomeme]

Try world nomad. Very affordable, covers 100k medical including covid.

[Heartfelttraveler]

53 minutes ago, Bongomeme said:

Try world nomad. Very affordable, covers 100k medical including covid.

It said “Sorry you must be under 70 years of age.”

thanks for your reply anyway.

[PaulMCO]

First what kind of insurance??

Medical/Evac or Trip Cancellation/Med/Evac

 

If you are concerned only Medical and Evac.  Geo Blue is a good plan.

 

If you want a good all around plan -- Travelex and others are good .  However many of these require advance purchase with you trip to cover preexisting condition.  There is an insurance section in Cruise Critic.  There are a number of sites that offer multiple plans like tripinsurancestore.com and insuremytrip.com that you can check out.

[donaldsc]

I typed "Antarctica travel insurance for over 70s" into Google and got lots of hits and I actually priced out plans.  I entered Antarctica as my destination and an age of 80.  

 

DON

 

 

[donaldsc]

32 minutes ago, Heartfelttraveler said:

It said “Sorry you must be under 70 years of age.”

thanks for your reply anyway.

 

If you had continued on the site, you would have found that a Silver Nomad plan was available.  See my earlier post.

 

DON

[Heartfelttraveler]

52 minutes ago, donaldsc said:

I typed "Antarctica travel insurance for over 70s" into Google and got lots of hits and I actually priced out plans.  I entered Antarctica as my destination and an age of 80.  

 

DON

 

 

Ya, I did that too.  I just got burned by Insure My Trip IMD.  Had to cancel a October 9, trip to Tahiti on Windstar (ship leaving October 14).  I was diagnosed Guilliam-Barre Syndrome on August 10 and am still recovering.  Doctors said absolutely no to travel right now.  I canceled on October 3.  Buried in my mice type was that I was covered for October 1-31 and I canceled to late.  Therefore I asked for recommendations with personal experience.

[PaulMCO]

I would talk to Steve at the tripinsurancestore.  He can give you straight advice for your particular situation.  I have used his agency for 90% of my trips.

[skrink]

I’m booked on Atlas in January and after doing price and coverage comparisons, purchased insurance through the online agency that I booked with.  It had better coverage and a better price.  Not sure if they insure people over 70.

[PaulMCO]

On 10/9/2021 at 8:36 PM, Heartfelttraveler said:

We live in the United States.

I need to purchase travel insurance for our upcoming trip to Antarctica in January 2022.

If you recently purchased insurance for your upcoming Antarctica trip - what company did you go with and why?

Seems like my post disappeared so I will repeat it..

We have used multiple companies including Travellex, Travelguard, Nationwide, CSA, plus sometimes GeoBlue for just Med/Evac

 

Being over 70 the prices are $$$$.  They range from7 to 10% of your cruise price.

Travellex is good.  They were perfect when our COVID cancelled cruises occurred and moved the insurance to another trip at no charge twice.

Travel guard is OK to.  Disadvantage is that you must insure all of your travel costs to get their pre existing condition waiver

CSA is good because they will cover pre existing conditions as late as your final payment. 

 

GeoBlue is good for Med/Evac insurance as they are a Blue Cross provider and have a good network of doctors and hospitals.

[FLRI]

Trying to decide how much medical evac to get. They say it can cost “hundreds of thousands.” Has any cruiseline given guidelines on how much they suggest? I noticed most of the policies are $250k, $500k or $1million. 

 

Obviously Medjet is for inpatient hospital to hospital of your choice coverage so that is a supplemental insurance.

 

But how much to actually get you off Antartica???

[dreamercruise]

6 hours ago, FLRI said:

Trying to decide how much medical evac to get. They say it can cost “hundreds of thousands.” Has any cruiseline given guidelines on how much they suggest? I noticed most of the policies are $250k, $500k or $1million. 

 

Obviously Medjet is for inpatient hospital to hospital of your choice coverage so that is a supplemental insurance.

 

But how much to actually get you off Antartica???

Chile requires a minimum of $300,000. I would get $500,000, and the insurance must be primary.

[dreamercruise]

6 hours ago, FLRI said:

Trying to decide how much medical evac to get. They say it can cost “hundreds of thousands.” Has any cruiseline given guidelines on how much they suggest? I noticed most of the policies are $250k, $500k or $1million. 

 

Obviously Medjet is for inpatient hospital to hospital of your choice coverage so that is a supplemental insurance.

 

But how much to actually get you off Antartica???

Chile requires a minimum of $300,000. I would get $500,000, and the insurance must be primary.

My error.  Chile requires a minimum of $30,000.  I would make sure that the insurance is primary..

[FLRI]

Thank you. I think the minimum should be $200,000. I read it can take “upwards of $150,000” to evacuate from Antartica.  Can you clarify what you mean by “Primary”?

[scottjeanne]

Primary is the first insurance company responsible.  I have Blue Cross for my medical insurance and it covers foreign health care.  But in Maryland, your travel insurance is primary and Blue Cross would pick up only that which is not covered by the travel insurer.

[donaldsc]

On 10/29/2021 at 1:49 PM, FLRI said:

Trying to decide how much medical evac to get. They say it can cost “hundreds of thousands.” Has any cruiseline given guidelines on how much they suggest? I noticed most of the policies are $250k, $500k or $1million. 

 

Obviously Medjet is for inpatient hospital to hospital of your choice coverage so that is a supplemental insurance.

 

But how much to actually get you off Antartica???

 

The more interesting question and I do not know the answer to this one is not how much but how do you actually get off Antarctica.  Many of the places you will stop at just beaches w absolutely no facilities and also no facilities near by.  If you are close to a research station and if the research station will have you, they might arrange to leave you at the research station.  However, I doubt that most of the research stations are set up to handle tourist medical emergencies.  They might be able to arrange for an emergency evacuation but who knows.  You have to also realize that it is around 800 miles from whichever station you are dropped off at to the nearest hospital which is in Ushuaia.  That means a 1600 miles flight to get the plane to you and get you back.  That is definitely going to be a whole lot of money.

 

If you are going to do this trip and you are really worried about evacuation costs, you will need to do some internet research on available plans.  InsureMyTrip might be a good start .

 

DON

[Heartfelttraveler]

I finally booked through Squaremouth dot com.  Insurance company Tin Leg.

$500,000 emergency medical and $500,000 evacuation.  Primary insurance.

we are older so it was pricey.  We are used to that.

Also, it is “hospital of our choice.”  We would be evacuated by supply plane to Ushuaia or Punta Arenas.  Then to a larger SA city for stabilization.  Then to our home hospital.

If you do not have hospital of your choice it will be the closest hospital.

[FLRI]

Thanks for the info and responses to my post.

 

You might want to check this gov’t website out: https://www.argentina.gob.ar/noticias/reanudacion-de-la-actividad-de-cruceros

 

Basically, when translated, it says you need a PCR test 72 hours before BOARDING.

 

And you need to have “Covid-19 and death” insurance. I assume they mean medical  and repatriation?

 

[kaisatsu]

On 10/31/2021 at 12:11 AM, donaldsc said:

The more interesting question and I do not know the answer to this one is not how much but how do you actually get off Antarctica.

  

A lot of the time, they will turn the ship around and sail back to Ushuaia. Sailing flat out, they can make the trip back in just a few days, which is close to how long it would take to organize any kind of flight (assuming you're even in a clear window to fly, since it requires specific weather conditions). And a lot of accidents happen on the Drake Crossing itself. If something happens farther south and the weather conditions allow, there are also cases where a ship can take passengers to King George Island to arrange a charter flight back to the mainland. On the Ross Sea side, it's a bit different, since the sailing time is much longer. In those cases it would probably involve a flight out of McMurdo.
 

The peninsula is fairly remote, but my last expedition involved crossing the Amundsen Sea, traveling between New Zealand and Argentina. There's literally nothing down there, so you really just have to deal with it as best you can. Even with helicopters on board, there's nothing you can do when there's no place to fly tp. So when someone broke her arm in rough seas, she got a sling and some painkillers to make it through the week until we got into port!