Emergency Medical Evacuation – An Important benefit in your Travel Insurance policy

According to Wikipedia, Medical evacuation, often shortened to medevac or medivac, is the timely and efficient movement and enroute care provided by medical personnel to wounded being evacuated from a battlefield, to injured patients being evacuated from the scene of an accident to receiving medical facilities, or to patients at a rural hospital requiring urgent care at a better-equipped facility using medically equipped air ambulances, especially helicopters.

In this particular case, there was a 67 year old cardiac patient who was evacuated from USA to Bangalore, India in two super-midsized private jets in as many legs, because her family felt the treatment in the USA was not sufficient enough for her immediate and complete recovery. The cost of the medical evacuation was around $133,000 (around ₹1.06 cr at an exchange rate of ₹80 per $1 USD). What is not clear in the article however is whether the patient had medical/travel insurance which would’ve covered the cost of medical evacuation upto the Accident & Sickness Sum insured or whether the family bore the cost of the evacuation from their pockets.

Let’s however look at the Travel insurance policies and the benefit of Medical Evacuation. Every single Travel Insurance policy offered by all travel insurance companies in the India market offer the benefit of Medical Evacuation under it’s list of coverages. This is a coverage which may not be claimed or utilised very often but is nevertheless a critical cover if the patient needs to be evacuated in a specific situation. Let’s look at the following aspects of this coverage:

Sum Insured for Medical Evacuation : Travel insurance policies in the India market offer the sum insured for medical evacuation in two ways:

• Sum Insured (SI) is equal to the Sum Insured for Emergency Accident & Sickness (A&S) expenses – if the SI for A&S is $100,000 under the plan opted for by the customer, then the coverage limit for Medical Evacuation is also $100,000, subject to the availability of the sum insured limit…For eg. If a customer was insured upto $1
• Sum Insured is a defined sub limit under the A&S coverage – some policies clearly define a limit of $10,000 or $15,000 for Medical Evacuation. This would mean that even if the A&S sum insured limit is $100,000, and if the SI is available after the hospitalisation expenses, if there is a need for Medical evacuation, then the maximum expense borne by the insurance provider will be $10,000 or $15,000 as the case may be.

In both these instances, the Sum Insured for the benefit of Medical Evacuation will be clearly mentioned on the Certificate of Insurance (policy copy). It is important for the insured to be aware of this limit.

Circumstances of Medical Evacuation : There are a couple of situations where the requirement of Medical Evacuation comes into play:

• Evacuation for better hospitalisation/treatment facilities – There are circumstances where the insured could be traveling to a particular destination and in the case of a medical emergency, requires a specific treatment, where the hospitals at this location are unable to provide. This will require the insured to be evacuated to the nearest city or country for receiving the treatment required. This happens in many tourist locations on islands or remote locations.
• Evacuation to Home Country for continuous medical treatment – In some situations, the insured post the initial hospitalisation/surgery etc could require continuous post-surgery care, or in the case of cancer, could require chemotherapy or radiation, or post a major accident, may need physiotherapy and other forms of medical rehabilitation. These could be required for long periods of time, maybe even upto a year, may or may not require hospitalisation. This can be extremely costly as well for both the insurance company or the insured themselves, if they have exhausted the medical expense Sum insured under their travel insurance policy. Hence based on recommendations of the treating medical physician, both the insured patient and doctor/hospital agree for evacuation back to the home country (India) for this continuous treatment. The insurance company continues to cover the cost of treatment in India till the SI is exhausted or the treatment duration is completed. This option is sometimes also requested for by the insured themselves to return back to their home country (India) for rest and recuperation amongst their immediate family and relatives, and this will be approved by the attending medical physician along with the insurance provider.

Methods and Costs of Medical Evacuation : Medical evacuation can be as simple as a ground ambulance ride or as complicated as an air ambulance moving an unconscious patient/insured from one country to another. Air ambulances are basically flying intensive care units with specially trained medical staff. If the patient is reasonably medically stable, and do not require ICU facilities, evacuations are also carried out in Commercial aircrafts along with other regular passengers back to their home country (India). The cost of Medical Evacuation can range from $3,000 in the case of a Business Class ticket in a Commercial Aircraft to $150,000 in the case of an Air Ambulance.

It is therefore very important for every insured traveller to be aware that their travel insurance policy also covers Medical Evacuation expenses. One should go through their policy terms and conditions and utilise this cover in the unfortunate situation of a medical emergency.