By Adam Frinsco of The Advocates

Today’s Distillery hits home for me, so I wanted to share my research in case you or someone you know is in a similar situation.

We have an aunt in her early 60’s staying with us from another country. When all this COVID-19 stuff started to happen, she did not want to risk flying back to her country of residence to quarantine there. So, she is quarantining with us for the foreseeable future.

The thing is, it wasn’t until we started discussing travel and living arrangements that we realized her healthcare from her country of origin would not cover her here in the states. She is officially an uninsured tourist and we began to worry that if she did get sick, she/we would be facing a hefty medical bill upon her release from the hospital. With daily hospital rates as high as $20K and potential stays for COVID-19 patients reaching up to 20 days, we knew this was a risk we wanted to insure.

These days risk-management is finally becoming popular again, which is a double-edged sword. I know risk-management is a worthy cause and well worth the time, emotional output and money it takes to discuss and plan around potential outcomes, but I also don’t want to accept that one of these unfortunate potential outcomes can happen to me or someone I love.

Fortunately, I’m a financial planner so it was fairly easy to pick up the phone and dial one of our trusted healthcare insurance specialists for advice.

He asked all the right questions, walked me through the different options, then pointed me toward the Travel Medical Plan that he thought would best work for our aunt while she was here.

The cost was reasonable in my opinion (~ $115/mo for up to $100K over coverage or $175/mo. for up to $1MM of coverage), and the process was online and as easy as could be. But most importantly, we now have peace of mind.

If you or someone you know are unsure of their medical coverage, feel free to reach out to your respective advisor to discuss.