Speaking from experience: why you should always have travel insurance

When we plan for a trip we think of so many things: what kind of luggage is better (backpack or suitcase), which clothes to wear, plane tickets, hotel reservations, and so on. Depending on where we are going and how long we are planning on staying there, the list can be long. Nobody wants to forget important details. However, people have different conceptions of what is important.

For many travelers spending money on health insurance is a nuisance. Some hire the cheapest one just in case they break a leg on a hike, whereas others spend as much money as they can on the best company in the market to get full coverage. The thing is that, no matter how long your trip lasts, a few days or a whole year, you still need to be protected. As the saying goes: it is always better to be safe than sorry...Little did Iknow it would become my travel motto.

Going to New Zealand

In 2014 I decided to take a sabbatical year from university to travel to as many countries as I could with my (then) boyfriend. We applied for a Working Holiday visa to New Zealand and were some of the lucky ones who got one of those. Living in Argentina, plane tickets were very expensive for us, as the distances are so long. So we were a bit hesitant as to whether we should buy a health insurance package or not. Finally, we decided on the most well known (therefore, expensive) company in the market.

After 8 months of living, working and traveling around New Zealand, my partner and I got a job at a farm in a rural area nearby Hamilton city. Only a month after we moved there, my partner and I went home after a very busy day. In the middle of the night, I heard him crying in pain. I immediately called emergencies and an ambulance picked us up. In the one-hour drive to the hospital, the paramedics told us the ugly truth: he most likely had appendicitis and the whole treatment was going to be very expensive!

At the Hospital!

Even before they showed me the bills at the hospital, I was already shaking. We only had 3,000 New Zealand dollars in our shared bank account and the ambulance bill alone was twice that amount. They warned us when they admitted him: medical treatment was not going to be cheap. We didn’t know what to do as in Argentina we had our parents’ health insurance and, even if we didn't, hospitals are public for everyone. 

My partner waited for two days and a half before the doctors operated on him to remove his appendix. I spent that time talking to my health insurance on the phone. The whole thing was a bureaucratic nightmare! I was being chased by the hospital staff to sign all the papers and pay for the operation, while the people from my insurance told me to wait and not to sign a thing. Finally, I could get the insurance to pay and got my boyfriend back to our place. The nightmare was over!

Looking at the situation in hindsight, I realized we made the right call when we bought the insurance policy. If we hadn’t spent half our budget on it, we would have had to ask for a bank loan to pay for all the medical bills. The whole trip would have been ruined and we would have regretted we had ever left Argentina. I know not everyone gets appendicitis in the middle of nowhere when traveling to a foreign country, but it is better to be prepared. Anything can happen to you when you are out of your routine and hometown, from an allergy to a broken bone.  

Contact us at CW Abroad and we will help you prepare all the experience so you are always safe, even during emergencies!