Health insurance for full time cruisers

[La Sirena]

My wife and I recently retired and started to cruise full time on a boat we bought in Virginia. Our cruising plans are East Coast and Caribbean for now, but will probably come through the Panama Canal to the West Coast in a year or two. We're renting our house in California, and will return there at some point a few years from now.

We have a dirt address (friend's house) in Florida, a mailing address in Florida, and we have Florida driver's licenses. We're in Florida more than any other state, but still maybe only 10% of a year's time. We're not eligible for medicare yet.

My question is what do full time cruisers do for health insurance? It looks like Blue Shield may be a good option because they have a PPO plan than works where ever Blue Shield has a location.

Interested to hear what other full time cruisers do for health insurance.

 

[Larry M]

How much time will you spend out side the US? We had international travel insurance for 8 plus years from IMG Medical Insurance. The premiums were very good as were the deductibles. The only caveat was you had to be outside the US for 6 months or more per year. At the time you could still seek treatment in the US. We tested them for a claim of over $50k and it was easier than our land based insurance company.

 

[Larry M]

Here’s a link for the company.

https://www.imglobal.com/internatio...By3ma08Ev-ZvORh7jb5lGVgH3_1q1sa8aApUpEALw_wcB

 

[La Sirena]

Thanks for the link. Possibly a good option. We will be outside US close to 50%, or maybe more in 2023.

 

[La Sirena]

I went to the website and checked out the premiums and deductibles. They are very good (low)! However, you must be out of the country to begin the insurance. I tried to put a date a few weeks out as an insurance start date, and leaving the U.S. in January, and they would not allow that. I need to depart the U.S. before the insurance start date.

 

[heysteve]

If you're in good health and if you don't mind hanging out in Central America until you're of Medicare age then consider dropping your US coverage and just paying cash locally. We're in Mexico now and you can see a US trained internal medicine doctor for a hour for $50 and he'll give you his mobile number in case you have any questions. It's not a perfect system, of course, but I only mention this to illustrate that the crazy prices in the US are not the norm elsewhere. $50k in a self-insurance fund would go a very long way down here.

 

[La Sirena]

I completely understand how for the price we pay for insurance premiums in the U.S. you can get a lot of medic-pal care in most other countries. My wife and I had ear infections in the Bahamas, and we were treated and given some additional antibiotics for our boat medicine cabinet for what the co-pay would be in the U.S.