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Good Neighbor Travel Insurance Blog

Buying Health Insurance is Like Buying a Car

April 2, 2010 By : Doug Gulleson

Buying a health insurance plan is just like buying a car. All cars have four tires and an engine, and all health insurance plans have deductibles and some have coinsurance. What you have to ask yourself is how big or small a deductible you want to purchase. The smaller the deductible the higher the premium. Another way to say that is that the higher the deductible, the lower the premium. People who want to lower their health insurance premiums should consider increasing their deductibles.

Every type of health insurance, actually every type of insurance, is for catastrophic situations–“so I don’t lose my home, car, and shirt (and for me, my scuba gear!)” With this understanding, you will be able to find the best insurance “vehicle” for you.

A great definition of insurance is “a system to protect persons, groups, or businesses against the risks of financial loss by transferring the risks to a large group who agrees to share the financial losses in exchange for premium payments.”

Plans without copays have a variety of names to represent the same kind of plans: “HSA plans,” “no copay plans,” “high deductible plans,” and “catastrophic plans.” If you want leather seats, built-in GPS, and an Ipod holder in your car, you will be paying a higher price for the car.  The same goes with adding more benefits to your health insurance plan. You may want to add copays that will pay for doctor visits, prescriptions, urgent-care visits, and maternity coverage. Please realize adding all these extra benefits will mean a higher premium. If you do add copays to your insurance plan, the deductible and coinsurance will still go toward surgeries and procedures done in a hospital.

Doug Gulleson loves to scuba dive overseas. He makes sure he always takes his credit card AND international travel insurance. Visit Good Neighbor Insurance for your next overseas trip and get a FREE quote.

Doug Gulleson

Search Results

No breathalyzer test could mean local medical insurance will not cover you

March 27, 2017

No breathalyzer test could mean your local medical insurance will not cover you. Yes, this is a sad and true story.  Read the fine print!  Yes, the big print giveth and the little print taketh away.  This is one of the reasons why it is important to have travel insurance and expat medical insurance based […]

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Emergency medical evacuation benefit for overseas travel

September 30, 2014

Emergency Medical Evacuation includes medical due to outbreaks, epidemics, threat of natural disaster, even political evacuation due to civil unrest (treated separately), and emergency medical evacuation to the nearest qualified medical facility that can handle the medical condition. It includes expenses for reasonable transportation (either public transport or private as reasonable based on the condition) […]

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Do you realize your health care plan may not cover you in Canada?

January 20, 2010

Is traveling to Canada from the U.S. for the Vancouver Winter Olympics considered an international trip? Yes. Your U.S. domestic health insurance plan – whether it is individual, group, Medicare or Medicaid – will not cover you in Vancouver for medical evacuation.  They may cover doctor and hospital visits, but they won’t cover you for medical […]

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Why do I need travel insurance while outside my home country?

July 17, 2013

“I never have a major medical concern when I travel overseas” is what I hear every-so-often from our guests at Good Neighbor Insurance.  And for sure that may be the case for most.  But what about those who do have medical conditions while they are traveling outside their home country? How will they pay for […]

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What is a Pre-Existing Condition and Will My Health Insurance Cover It?

September 23, 2009

Never lie on your health insurance application. You will be asked about your medical history because the insurance company is looking for pre-existing conditions. This short blog will tell you what a pre-existing condition is and how it will affect your ability to get affordable health insurance.

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Short-term travel insurance and trip cancellation insurance

October 19, 2011

Good Neighbor Insurance, Inc (www.gninsurance.com) has been involved in providing international health care cover to our clients since 1997.  Many of our clients ask us what is the major difference between short term travel insurance and trip cancellation insurance. Short-term travel insurance can be very similar to “Trip Insurance” or “Trip Cancellation Insurance.”  Here is […]

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