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Medical care is very expensive in USA and it is not possible to bare expenses by means of solely your bank account. That is the reason every one visiting USA should have visitor health insurance. USA Visitor Medical Insurance is a short-term medical insurance, which may cover a person from 0 days up to 3 years.

The USA visitor medical insurance plan covers you with in/ out patients, doctor’s visit payments, surgery, expenses occurred due to diagnostic tests, hospitalization, rehabilitation services and even purchase of prescription drugs after the date of applying for the insurance.

Please check the benefits before you purchase any plan. It is crucial to remember that these visitor insurance plans never cover the pre-existing conditions.

You may be in a fix while buying a visitors insurance plan for your parents or in-laws visiting USA for the first time. People also purchase insurance from India itself which is also low in cost. For example, United States insurance companies can recognize your native insurance policies only after certain norms have been fulfilled.

There are may insurance companies that provide visitor health insurance coverage in the USA. The main difference between Indian and USA visitors insurance policies is that the Indian insurance companies may ask you to pay from your pocket and then claim the money when you are back in India. The US insurance policies will ask you to pay a minimum amount (called the deductible or a co-payment) and they will pay the remaining amount.

Beware that some doctors may not accept Indian visitor insurance policy. You may not even able to visit them. This is why one prefers purchasing insurance policy from USA based companies so as to avoid the hassles of making all the claims after they return to their own country.

There are two types of plans in the USA visitors medical insurance plan namely, fixed and comprehensive coverage plans.

* Fixed coverage plan: These plans are more expensive than the comprehensive coverage plan. In these plans, you have to pay the deductible, then the insurance company pays a maximum amount for each procedure such as doctors office visit, hospitalization charges, surgery treatment and so on. The balance is expected to be paid by you.

Ensure that your expectations are met with as the prices are very attractive than the comprehensive plans before you purchase visitor health insurance plan. Be very careful while selecting the plans as they pay a fixed amount for each procedure.

There are two well-known providers for the fixed coverage plans namely IMG (plan name - visitors care) and SRI (plan name - INBOUND USA).

* Comprehensive Coverage plan: A visitor insurance plan is slightly more expensive as compared to fixed plan insurance,which is almost twice the premium, but provides much better coverage than fixed coverage plan.

Firstly, you have to pay the deductibles in these types of visitors insurance plans. Then the insurance company pays 80% for the first $5000 and you pay the remaining 20%. Your insurance company will pay you 100% for the eligible medical expenses.

In some plans, you pay the first 20% of the $5000 once in policy period and in some plans you will have to pay 20% of first $5000 for every incident.

Last 5 posts by C. Ray Sondeo

• When Visiting the USA How Do I Get Travel Health Insurance? - August 16th, 2008
• What Losses are Covered by Visitors Health Insurance - August 16th, 2008
• Canadian Visitors: Medical Insurance - August 15th, 2008
• Visitors insurance ins and outs - August 14th, 2008
• Sudden Illnesses And Visitors Insurance - August 12th, 2008

Tags: Travel