aroundtheworld76

Any travel insurance policy with good medical evacuation coverage should cover it. When you look at your policy documents the benefit is listed in dollars or euros. As long as the evac was medically indicated, they should cover up to the insured amount, regardless of the type of aircraft used.

An aside.. as a former cruise ship nurse and current flight nurse: While helicopter evacs off of ship are not uncommon, they are not without risk and are used in only a small percentage of serious medical cases. The vast majority of serious cases are taken off via boat (Coast Guard, fire, pilot or similar small vessel) or simply via ambulance at the pier. When helicopters are used, they are typically from the Coast Guard of the nearest country, and as such either don't charge anything for the rescue (USCG), or charge a relatively small reimbursement fee. I've heard quotes of $10k-ish at the high end. Well within most insurance policies limits with plenty left over for repatriation via Air Ambulance if needed.

GeezerCouple

You might want to post this on the travel insurance section of CruiseCritic:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/foru...vel-insurance/

Please be sure to put in your title something about EU-based, or you'll get almost entirely USA-based responses.
And also try searching on that sub-forum, as there has been more interest there recently about non-USA-based coverage.

For medevac specific, you might want to look into MedJetAssist. I *think* they are in many countries.
Their coverage kicks in once you are an INpatient in a hospital (not ER, not Observation), and for USA-based polices, it must be more than 150 miles from home.
At that point, YOU get to decide if you want to be medevac'd out or not (assuming you are stable enough for a full air ambulance with medical team).
NO beancounters "help" make the decision, and no local medical staff end up in the possibly awkward position of being "unqualified to care for your situation", etc.
This helps if you don't agree that the "local care" is as good/specialized as you might get elsewhere.

As for the medevac off a ship, that is almost always performed by some governmental agency such as Coast Guards or Search & Rescue, etc., and they don't bill (or don't usually; I've never read a report where someone stated that they *were* billed for that part; it's getting "back home" that can cost a *lot*).

NOTE: There is one part of this process that is sort of left uncovered, but it's unlikely to occur with MedJetAssist from a ship (but possibly if there is an accident on shore). That is getting to a hospital in the first place, but that is more of a problem with serious expedition travel. (I've only seen this complaint once, and I also think the person and companions handled the situation remarkably poorly, but I wasn't "there", obviously.)

GC

serpens

I posted something in the Amex forum that is probably more relevant here than there (oops).

One of my questions in the other post pertained to MedJetAssist and ship travel, and it seems like GeezerCouple's note answers it. If one is on a ship, one is unlikely to be in a hospital, and therefore MedJetAssist is unlikely to apply, since it requires inpatient status. In other words, someone on a round-the-world cruise, such as aster, would do well to have some coverage to get from the ship to the hospital as well as coverage to get from the hospital to home. However, aroundtheworld76's comment makes it sound like such extractions from ship are usually by government entities at nominal or no cost.

What is the reasonable maximum distance from shore for an extraction? I imagine that there would be times on a round-the-world cruise when one would simply need to wait.

aroundtheworld76

It varies. Weather, availability of helicopter or marine assets, etc, but there are indeed times when there's a day or two until an injured or ill person can be disembarked. I never worked a RTW (usually Med, Mex, Caribbean) but looking at sample itineraries, the longest blocks of sea days are 5-ish days at a time. The most remote of those are likely the Pacific crossings each side of HNL.

ETA: specifically for MedJet Assist, they can be contacted by ships personnel or by family members, so that when the patient does reach the hospital, the process is already well underway.

davidnconte

following the thread

serpens

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GeezerCouple

About your specific question, which is important...

We have some direct experience with this, but not for a month:

I was hospitalized in Italy, when we were scheduled to spend only 2 nights at that hotel/city.
DH needed to stay a few days without me there, obviously, and then I was still unable to travel for a few more days once I left the hospital.
Travel Insured paid for all of the extra hotel nights, and food for DH, and a few bland items for me once I was back at hotel.
(We came VERY close to calling MedJetAssist, and we're glad we didn't, because we were able to recover the final week of the trip, although I didn't do much other than sit at a lovely resort overlooking Lake Como, where we had planned to spend that final week. But unfortunately, we missed everything we had planned for the middle week. MJA would have medevac'd us to our hospital of choice in the USA, if we had contacted them. Our regular coverage would probably only have picked up the tab where I was, or perhaps moved me to a "better" local hospital if necessary.)

But I wasn't well enough to take the planned transportation (train, to train, to transfer, to ferry, to transfer, etc.).
Travel Insured paid for a private car service. (Friends drove us one way.)
I suppose that was still *much* less expensive than reimbursing us for the non-refundable hotel on Lake Como, or maybe having me stay longer at the "post-hospital" hotel until our flights a week later? Or buy us last minute early one-way tickets home?
And they paid for a few other "extras" that were necessary due to medical situation.
That included two visits to the hotel by the hotel-recommended physician. ($$$$ - nice gig if one can get that type of referral! )

No complaints.
Actually, we weren't sure how it would be covered, or even IF it would be covered. So we emailed Steve (owner of TripInsuranceStore.com), to ask if it would be covered. He contacted the insurer for us, and then wrote back within approx a day which clause of the policy would cover it. And that's how it did work out.

GC