FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Israeli credit card with real travel insurance?
Old Jan 14, 2018, 11:26 pm
  #7  
hnussbacher
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Israel
Programs: Elal Silver, AirCanada Aeroplan, AA AAdvantage, KLM Flying Blue, Continental OnePass, Delta Skymiles
Posts: 529
One needs to understand that every insurance company, no matter which you pick, will always attempt to fly you back to Israel. Business class. With an attending doctor and/or nurse. That is because once you land in Israel, the insurance company hands you off to your Kupat Cholim for continuation of your health care. Only in cases where you cannot be flown will the insurance company pay out. And they are not happy and will at the very first instance arrange to fly you home. It is in their financial interest to fly you even first class and spend $15K on the whole deal rather than rack up bills of $15K/day at some foreign hospital.
Your problem is that when you are hospitalized and cannot be moved, the insurance companies will tell you to lay out the money and they will pay you back based on receipts. Bills can go into the tens of thousands of dollars and not everyone can lay out that kind of money.
There is the insurance company Passportcard, which has become quite popular in Israel, which issues to you a debit card with no money in it. When you get injured, you call them from abroad and indicate the type of injury and the country you are in and they load the debit card with the appropriate amount of money which you can then use to pay, without having to lay out any money. If the card runs out of money, you call them and they load the card with more money.
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