What is Travel Insurance?

Life Insurance, Supplemental, Travel Medical

Put simply, travel insurance is an insurance plan that covers unexpected expenses that occur during travel. These can range from medical coverage to travel plans to lost luggage to emergency departures.

Injury and Illness

When you become injured or ill while traveling, you may be very frustrated to know that your American health plan probably won’t cover doctor visits in foreign countries. Travel medical expenses can get very high, depending on where you are in the world, and very often your United States medical coverage policy doesn’t apply—even with health coverage like Medicare or Medicaid. Travel insurance is a type of medical coverage that will pay for medical visits, hospital stays, medications, and more while you are abroad.

There are usually provisions in travel insurance you need to be aware of. Although all travel insurance plans are different and you will want to make sure of exactly what your plan covers, some travel medical insurance plans do not cover pre-existing conditions (which is generally defined by a certain period before you take your trip, often 120 days). You often have to be deemed medically fit to travel and have no presented symptoms at the time you leave.

The travel policies also have strict time limits which coincide with the time that you are gone, basically covering your travel assistance from the time your airplane takes off to when it lands.

Illnesses Often Not Covered by Travel Insurance

Generally speaking, travel insurance does not cover mental health conditions, including anything from Alzheimer’s to depression to psychosis. The insurance will usually have caveats about epidemics (with specific guidelines about COVID-19 and traveling to countries that are high-risk). They will also rarely cover injuries or illnesses caused by the use of alcohol or drugs during the trip. There will always be provisions about traveling while pregnant.

What Else Is Covered by Travel Insurance?

Most of the things covered by travel insurance aren’t actually medical-related. Lost luggage is a great example. If you travel halfway around the world on a three-week trip only to find that your luggage has gone missing, travel insurance can help to pay to replace it.

(The Department of Transportation requires airlines to pay for lost luggage, but very often the payout will only come after the bags are officially declared “lost” and not simply “delayed” and the payout can take up to 21 days.) Travel insurance can give you money immediately to purchase new clothes and necessities.

Flight cancellations can cause major nightmares if you don’t have travel insurance. If a connecting flight doesn’t get you to your cruise in time to board, the cruise line might only refund you 25 percent of your trip. Travel insurance can offset that loss.

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May 25, 2022

Will Travel Insurance Cover Covid-19 Cancellations?

Life Insurance, Supplemental, Travel Medical

The coronavirus has changed the face of travel insurance. Prior to 2020, almost all travel insurance did not cover epidemics or pandemics as part of their regular health care coverage.

With the caveat that all travel insurances are different and you must always read the fine print on any travel insurance plans before you sign, here are the general coverages that have come up with most travel insurance that covers COVID-19:

Travel insurance that covers COVID-19-related complications includes:

Emergency medical coverage
Emergency medical evacuation coverage
Trip interruption
Free cancellations

Examples of these coverages could include things like getting your trip expenses reimbursed in the event you contract COVID-19 before leaving, getting medical expenses paid for in a foreign country if you contract COVID-19 while abroad, and expenses paid to cover accommodations in a foreign country if you are not allowed to travel home. These are not covered in all travel insurance plans, but they are becoming more common.

Cancel for Any Reason (CFAR) Coverage

One thing to keep an eye out for is a clause that some of the better travel insurances have which is the CFAR clause, or “Cancel For Any Reason.” CFAR has a lot of restrictions applied to it, mostly related to timeframes and eligibility requirements, but if you have this coverage you could have as much as 50-75% of your trip reimbursed by your travel insurance.

What Happens If You Get Sick with COVID-19 While Traveling?

Travel medical insurance that covers COVID-19 will make it easier and cheaper to get medical care in a foreign country.

The first thing that you should do, before getting any travel medical insurance that covers COVID is to check with your current insurance carrier and see what benefits they offer for traveling abroad. Many of them will not offer any services out of the country, or perhaps will have certain countries where they do operate. You will often find your own private insurance company will have travel insurance plans that have special rates for members.

Comprehensive Travel Insurance Plans will offer you global benefits, no matter where you are. Keep in mind, however, that if you contract COVID in a country like Germany or Canada, it’s going to be significantly easier to make use of Comprehensive travel medical insurance coverage than if you get sick with COVID-19 in parts of Southeast Asia, Central America, South America, or Africa.

You will still receive the benefits of the travel insurance, but it may be harder (due to poor communication lines in certain regions of the world) to get immediate coverage to pay for things.

Emergency Medical Evacuation Coverage is designed to get you out of a foreign country if you are seriously ill or injured. These plans offer both ground transportation which will get you from wherever you are to the nearest medical facility, and, if need be, transportation to an airplane which will take you out of the country.

Because COVID-19 is so contagious, especially in the cabin of an airplane, the choice to fly you out of a region for evacuation is only done if the physicians don’t feel they can adequately treat you there.

Trip Interruption Coverage is in most travel insurance plans and provides reimbursement for pre-paid, non-refundable expenses if the travel needs to be cut short. This could include expenses like cruise ship tickets, railway tickets, and hotel accommodations.

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May 25, 2022

Just 30 Minutes Of Exercise A Week Could Help Increase Your Life Expectancy

Health Resources, Life Insurance

Doing 30 to 60 minutes of one exercise weekly could help you live longer, study says

You might have heard that strengthening exercises most benefit your muscular and skeletal health, but they could have two other big perks: helping you prevent disease and live longer.

Compared with people who didn’t do muscle-strengthening activities, those who did 30 to 60 minutes of resistance, strength or weight training weekly had a 10% to 20% lower risk of early death from all causes, and of getting heart disease, diabetes or cancer at all, the research authors found. These types of exercises are designed to improve muscular fitness by exercising muscles against external resistance, according to the American College of Sports Medicine.

Combining 30 to 60 minutes of strengthening exercises with any amount of aerobic activity enhanced the benefit, resulting in a 40% lower risk of premature death, a 46% lower incidence of heart disease and a 28% lower chance of dying from cancer. The research is also the first to examine long-term links between muscle-strengthening activities and diabetes risk, the authors said.

The new research is an analysis of 16 prior studies, which amounted to a pool of data from nearly 480,000 study participants. They were between 18 and 98 years old, and most were based in the United States. Participants either self-reported their engagement in muscle-strengthening activities or answered questions during interviews.

The new research didn’t explore why strength training is so effective in lowering risk of early death and certain diseases. But this type of exercise is important for reducing body fat and building lean muscle, which can help with balance, posture and regulating cholesterol levels, said Dr. Nieca Goldberg, the medical director of Atria New York City and clinical associate professor of medicine at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. Goldberg wasn’t involved in the study.

The stronger benefit from mixing aerobics with strengthening exercises could be because the two appear to work together and help each other move toward better outcomes. A balanced program of strength and aerobic activity is probably best and probably more closely mimics the activities of our ancestors, which helped determine our current gene sets.

Aerobic exercises include walking, dancing, running or jogging, cycling, and swimming, Goldberg said. Weight-training exercises you can do for 30 to 60 minutes include deadlifts, overhead dumbbell presses and dumbbell lateral raises, which involves using your back and shoulder muscles to lift light dumbbells so that your arms and body form a T shape.

Most participants didn’t benefit from doing the strengthening exercises for longer than one hour, but the research didn’t examine why that was the case.

However, results of previous studies have varied, Roberts said: Some have shown improved health at higher activity levels.

The finding concerning lower diabetes risk could be explained by muscle-strengthening activities increasing or preserving skeletal muscle mass, which has a major role in regulating blood sugar levels, the authors said.

Overall, the main takeaway is to get active and stay active with an exercise program you like and can stick with.

Rogers, Kristen. “Doing 30 to 60 Minutes of One Exercise Weekly Could Help You Live Longer, Study Says.” CNN, Cable News Network, 5 Mar. 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/05/health/muscle-strengthening-exercises-disease-death-risk-wellness/index.html.

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March 9, 2022

How Disruption In Sleep Is Linked To Alzheimer’s

Health Resources, Life Insurance

Alzheimer’s: Addressing sleep disturbance may alleviate symptoms

Older adult asleep in bed during the day

Dementia is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. The most common form, Alzheimer’s disease affects 1 in 9 people aged 65 and over in the United States and 1 in 14 in this age group in the United Kingdom.

A feature of AD is a disruption in circadian rhythms, the daily physical, mental, and behavioral changes that control our sleep and wakefulness. People can experience sleep disturbances, which are associated with more severe symptoms, years before receiving an AD diagnosis.

They carried out their research in a laboratory, using cells derived from mouse white blood cells. The researchers identified a molecular mechanism that may be responsible for the connection between AD and circadian rhythms.

Protein buildup

Alzheimer’s is a neuroinflammatory disease characterized by the buildup of beta-amyloid. The most damaging of these is beta-amyloid 42 (Aβ42). The proteins form plaques that collect between neurons and disrupt cell function.Scientists believe the growth of amyloid plaques is a crucial step in the development of AD.

Immune cells called microglia play a role in clearing amyloid plaques. This process, called phagocytosis, is essential for maintaining healthy neurons. Using mouse cells, the researchers found that phagocytosis changes throughout the day and night. When phagocytosis is interrupted, for example, by sleep disruption, Aβ42 builds up.

Symptoms

People with AD experience a range of symptoms, including memory loss, confusion, delusions, and impulsive behavior. There is a strong association between the buildup of plaques and the development of AD, but it is not yet clear whether the plaques cause the symptoms.

Scientists think that amyloid plaques accelerate the development of tau tangles, which further damage neurons. Many Alzheimer’s symptoms are due to neuronal damage.

Immune cells in the brain are known to clear amyloid, which is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s. The researchers found that the timing of expression of certain molecules on immune cells helps time the uptake and clearance of amyloid.

Decreased plaque clearance

The researchers found that molecules on the cell surface called heparan sulfate proteoglycans were key to the phagocytosis of Aβ42.

These heparan molecules respond to circadian rhythms, with the number of molecules fluctuating during the 24-hour cycle. The researchers found that when heparan levels were higher, phagocytosis of Aβ42 decreased.

Sleep disruption

Therefore, the sleep disruption that is common in AD may affect heparan levels. This, in turn, affects the accumulation of amyloid plaques. The researchers suggest that controlling circadian rhythms may help control inflammatory conditions such as AD.

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February 16, 2022

US Government Has Failed In Its Attempts To Limit Teen Tobacco Use

General Information, Life Insurance, News

US government fails when it comes to tobacco reduction, American Lung Association report says

The federal government gets mostly failing grades on its efforts to prevent and reduce tobacco. The 20th annual “State of Tobacco Control” report calls for an end to manufacturing flavored tobacco, saying flavored tobacco products and e-cigarettes jeopardize progress made by tobacco control policy.

More than 2 million high school and middle school students used e-cigarettes in 2021, and 85.8% of high school students and 79.2% of middle school students who used e-cigarettes used flavored products, according to the report.

The 2022 “State of Tobacco Control” gave the federal government the following grades:

D for regulating tobacco products
D for federal coverage of quit smoking treatments
F for level of federal tobacco taxes
A for mass media campaigns designed to prevent and reduce tobacco use
And an incomplete grade for raising the minimum age of sale for tobacco products to 21

Reports urges the FDA to regulate synthetic nicotine as a drug, warning that e-cigarette companies are exploiting synthetic nicotine as an attempt to evade the Tobacco Control Act.

Overall smoking among adults has declined, according to the report, but smoking remains high among Native America, Alaskan Natives, and lesbian, gay and bisexual adults.

The report also notes that cigarette sales increased during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, however it’s not clear whether that “signals higher adult smoking rates, or existing smokers smoking more cigarettes.”

This year, the Lung Association is calling on the US Food and Drug Administration to quickly finalize proposals introduced in April 2021 that would remove flavored cigars and menthol from the marketplace by April 2022.

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