What if travel insurance could do more than just cover your medical bills? Imagine having the freedom to choose your hospital, unrestricted by geographical location. Join me on this enlightening episode as we host Bill Miller and Paul Goodall from MedJet, a company offering a high-touch service for travelers around the globe. Together, we unravel the many benefits of a MedJet membership, which includes the ability to transport members to their hospital of choice, regardless of their home city.
Ever wondered about the security measures in place for travelers? We delve into the Horizon Plan, a comprehensive coverage policy covering various aspects that typical insurance might miss, such as terrorism, kidnapping, wrongful detention, pandemics, and natural disasters. We’ll also share a compelling story about a couple in Paris during the Yellow Vests Uprising and how MedJet came to their aid in a time of need. The application process for individuals over 75 isn't as daunting as you might think. The application for that is just 12 health-based questions and an annual physician's statement. For those under age 75 there is a flat fee and no application requirements.
Best of all, we explore how MedJet gives power back to the member, allowing you to make decisions based on your needs rather than a physician's direction. Imagine needing surgery and being able to get from one hospital to another in less than 24 hours. That's the kind of service MedJet offers. And for the budget-conscious travelers, we’ll share how AARP members can take advantage of a special discount on their MedJet membership. So, buckle up and join us on this journey into the world of high-touch travel services with MedJet.
Thanks for joining us on today’s episode of The Intrepid Traveler podcast! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please rate and review our
show to help us reach even more aspiring travelers. Don’t forget to check out our website, visit us on Facebook, Instagram or follow
us on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date on our latest epic travel adventures!
Use the following links when planning your own travel!
TRAVEL INSURED INTERNATIONAL
MEDJET
VIRTUOSO
PROJECT EXPEDITION
What if travel insurance could do more than just cover your medical bills? Imagine having the freedom to choose your hospital, unrestricted by geographical location. Join me on this enlightening episode as we host Bill Miller and Paul Goodall from MedJet, a company offering a high-touch service for travelers around the globe. Together, we unravel the many benefits of a MedJet membership, which includes the ability to transport members to their hospital of choice, regardless of their home city.
Ever wondered about the security measures in place for travelers? We delve into the Horizon Plan, a comprehensive coverage policy covering various aspects that typical insurance might miss, such as terrorism, kidnapping, wrongful detention, pandemics, and natural disasters. We’ll also share a compelling story about a couple in Paris during the Yellow Vests Uprising and how MedJet came to their aid in a time of need. The application process for individuals over 75 isn't as daunting as you might think. The application for that is just 12 health-based questions and an annual physician's statement. For those under age 75 there is a flat fee and no application requirements.
Best of all, we explore how MedJet gives power back to the member, allowing you to make decisions based on your needs rather than a physician's direction. Imagine needing surgery and being able to get from one hospital to another in less than 24 hours. That's the kind of service MedJet offers. And for the budget-conscious travelers, we’ll share how AARP members can take advantage of a special discount on their MedJet membership. So, buckle up and join us on this journey into the world of high-touch travel services with MedJet.
Thanks for joining us on today’s episode of The Intrepid Traveler podcast! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please rate and review our
show to help us reach even more aspiring travelers. Don’t forget to check out our website, visit us on Facebook, Instagram or follow
us on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date on our latest epic travel adventures!
Use the following links when planning your own travel!
TRAVEL INSURED INTERNATIONAL
MEDJET
VIRTUOSO
PROJECT EXPEDITION
Have you ever wondered how the pros put together epic tailor-made travel adventures? Welcome to the Intrepid Traveler Podcast. I'm your host, robin Klein, and I'm going to explain to you just how that is done during my conversation with today's guest. When it comes to luxury adventure and expedition travel, the possibilities are endless. In each episode, you'll hear from an expert in his or her field about how these experiences, and more, are created. This episode of the Intrepid Traveler is brought to you by Klein Co Travel Consultinga luxury adventure and expedition travel planning company specializing in un-Googleable experiences. You can find us on the web at Kleinandcoattravelcom. On Instagram, at Klein Co Travel, we have a private Facebook group you are welcome to join. You can find us on LinkedIn or catch the video version on YouTube. With that said, let's welcome today's guest.
Speaker 1:Today, I am really excited to bring you a couple of guests from a company that I think you guys are going to find very interesting as listeners. We are going to talk today about MedJet and the differences in travel insurance and a MedJet membership, and why you might want a MedJet membership in addition to your travel insurance Actually, not might want. You do want why you do want one. So I'm really happy to have Bill Miller, who is the Chief Sales and Marketing Officer with MedJet, and Paul Goodall, who is the travel agency sales director, with us today. Welcome, gentlemen, thank you. Thank you, robin. Yeah, absolutely so, bill. You have actually been in the travel industry in a variety of roles, including the insurance part of this, for 36 years now, and in your current role for seven years with MedJet, correct?
Speaker 2:That's right. Yes, I've worked for some brands like American Airlines and CWT, and I've worked for a couple travel insurance companies Travel Guard running the retail sales group, and then Berkshire Halfway Travel Protection running the global sales group. I've been here at MedJet for seven years now.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're like the walking talking dictionary of travel insurance and added layers of protection. So we're going to we can't wait to dive in on this and so and Paul would probably be best described as like my guardian angel when it comes to these kind of things. So, travel advisors as travel advisors, we need some support at times with figuring these things out like we're going to talk about today, and, paul, you support people like me in helping with making sure that our clients get the right product for what they need and educating us about that and servicing those all of those things, correct or correct me.
Speaker 3:That's exactly right. I'm working on my 17th year here at MedJet and currently my role for the last five years has to be to do exactly what you said, which is to help travel advisors, just like you, get the right MedJet membership for their clients and, of course, help them understand and teach them the differences between us and travel insurance and kind of everything that brings value to what we have here at MedJet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great, Great. You know I was going to ask you about the history of the company first, but I think let's switch it up. Actually, first just go with the why is MedJet not insurance? But start with that.
Speaker 3:When I tell my travel advisors, when I'm working with them all the time, I probably promoted as much travel insurance as I have MedJet membership, because you really do need both.
Speaker 3:As a traveler, there's a lot of benefit to what travel insurance provides, even as it relates to medical evacuation, which is what we kind of play into on the back end once they become an impatient, if required, continued impatient care.
Speaker 3:So to draw the distinction between the two where travel insurance policy may get a person from their point of injury to a hospital for care, where that travel insurance company may pay or help pay for those medical bills within that facility, both of those, of course, are really valuable benefits that a traveler needs.
Speaker 3:What we do here is kind of a higher touch. So around here we say that travel insurance is the cake and MedJet is kind of the icing on the cake. So all of those things that come along with the travel insurance policy trip cancellation, medical bills, et cetera all great things. But once one is hospitalized and they need continued and patient care, it would be MedJet who would get your client or you back to your home country hospital of choice for continued care, and those things do not tend to be the case with the travel insurance policy, if there is a repatriation there, oftentimes would be conducted after that member has been, or that insured has been, discharged from the hospital. So the idea here for us is to go ahead and make that transfer while they're still an impatient and, of course, all the way back to their home country hospital of choice.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, and that is that that key words there. Hospital of choice Right, right, right, right, and I understand it A lot of times you will get taken to the nearest hospital which may not be the best hospital or the hospital you want, and then it's like good luck, you know you're on your own.
Speaker 1:We did our thing, and I do want to say that may have sounded a little flippant there, so I'm not ever going to say that regular travel insurance is not very important. I mean, I absolutely think you got to have it. I think that this is that extra layer that is that is really, really necessary.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, robin, a good example on the hospital choice could be somebody living in New York City and actually needing to be transported. They're overseas somewhere and they have a heart attack. They can. They can choose to be taken to the Cleveland Heart Clinic and that's where we would take them, even though that's not their home city.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's how, that's how deep the hospital of choice means to us. Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to just tell you guys real quickly about something that the people listening might be interested here. So my father had to have a pacemaker put in when he was in France and he did not have a med jet policy. This was before I knew about med jet, or you know. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but at any rate, I look back on all of that now and what we went through and the hoops we jumped through and everything else and his hospitalization there and everything, and I think his life could have been made a lot easier at that time had he had a med jet policy. So let's talk about a little bit of the history of the company then and, bill, this is probably your area. So who thought of okay, we need something more than travel insurance, and how did it come to be?
Speaker 2:This model of service really originated, my understanding, years ago in Europe. Med jet as a company is a 30 year old company and it's very probably held. Our current owners took control of the company in 1998. And at the time prior ownership owned aircraft. We quickly got out of owning the aircraft business because that's not good business, and we now work with what we call affiliates and it's a network of air ambulance companies throughout the world and our membership services, our members, with those affiliates. So, for instance, we might have somebody here in the US Nobody really realizes it, but almost half of our transporters are just here in the US. Yeah, most people buy it for the big international trip, right, and so we've got a good network here in the US. We can easily get to people. But we've got somebody in Europe, we've got somebody in South America, we got different places where we can more strategically and quickly and more efficiently get to a member should they need help. So that was a very smart move of ownership when they took it over in 1998. Along the way we got larger, you know, we took on some large distribution partners like AARP. We've got a lot of corporations now that that use our services. They buy it for their executives, or they make it a benefit for all their, all of their partners, or whatever it may be. And so we built up a nice large membership base. Ownership has pretty much given management us the ability to operate the way we want.
Speaker 2:We really have not deviated from the original charter, which is to provide hospital to hospital care and transport for our members anywhere in the world, right, and along the way we've had lots of companies come to us and say, hey, you've got a large membership base. You know, sell them bag tracking services or sell them travel insurance. Right, and we haven't done it Right. In 2015, we did add on a security risk product, so you can. That's called Medjet Horizon. Yeah, so Medjet Assist is the core hospital to hospital. Medjet Horizon adds on 10 security and risk components kidnapping, terrorism, wrongful detention, things like that.
Speaker 2:Pandemic pandemic came in quite handy, yeah, and so you can add that on for an additional fee to the base membership, and then you're covered for that as well. And and that's really a big driver of sales for us today, we continue to grow. The pandemic obviously hurt everybody in travel, hurt us to, sure, but we're very privately held, have incredibly solid balance sheet, no debt. We are backed by Lloyds of London, and so we go to the Lloyds of London market once a year. If there is, you know, a catastrophe with a private airplane and everybody survives, everybody needs to be transported. That's why we have that kind of coverage, right, we don't use it often. It's there when we need it.
Speaker 1:Well, and for the record, I have a Medjet Horizon membership for five, I think a five year policy or membership. I'm really glad I do not that, you know. Hopefully we'll never need it, but it really makes me feel better when I travel knowing that I do have it.
Speaker 3:So that's one of the best ways to use it, of course, is to never use it, because if you're using it, something terrible is half.
Speaker 1:Well, that's, that's exactly right. And you know, I have this conversation occasionally with with people and they'll say oh well, I'm always pot insurance and I've never used it, and I'm like, and there's no problem with that. These are going well. That's the ideal scenario. It's like car insurance or any other kind of insurance for your house that burns down or whatever. You don't want to. You don't want to have to use it.
Speaker 3:So that's that, of course, when they do need it, we certainly step up and get it done. And so for those who don't get to use it, good for them, those who need it, good, good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. And, robert Robin, what I tell people is is you know, look, you're taking two or three international trips, yet alone domestic trips. You're spending 30, 40, $50,000 a year on travel easily. Yeah, $315 a year for MedJet can save you. You know, a chunk of your network. Why not Right?
Speaker 3:Right. Another thing I mentioned, robin, is that a lot of people, as Bill mentioned, do purchase a MedJet membership for a large international trip, right. As he also noted, half of our transports do end up being domestic, so clients and members, of course, are covered as soon as long as they're 150 miles or more away from home. Right, that can even apply to a student who's away at school, and so it's not necessarily for those big trips only, though of course we understand that's why most people do purchase the membership, but in the end, in the end it does half of the time get used right here at home.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Exactly, and I've said that to people too, you know that are going on, you know skiing trips or hiking trips or rafting trips, or you know, you know it doesn't, you don't have to be, you know going paragliding in Paraguay or wherever you know to need this. There's a lot of things we do every day, just like you've, you know, just pointed out, so anyway, so okay, we've got. We've got that point driven home. I think that's good. What about the difference between? So you know, bill, you already clarified between what the horizon membership and the regular membership is. But then there is kind of a third option in terms of you can buy it just for one trip if you really want to. Right, correct.
Speaker 2:You can purchase by the trip. We sell eight day, 15 day, 21 day, 30 day and the eight day is $99.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's not like you have to have it for a year. I mean, I think there's more bang for your buck if you do it for a year or more, but there are those options. So that is definitely good to know. Who would you think who should have a membership? Oh wow.
Speaker 3:We noted a while back if I'm not mistaken, bill, we thought that our member base trended a little older, and I think there's some truth to that. But certainly over time, as folks start to do solo travel, single female travel, student travel, those demographics do appear to be getting a little younger. So of course, those folks who travel and are more established are going to be more likely to pick up something like MedJet, but we certainly see within our database that there's plenty of other folks in there as well who are traveling more and more over time. I think our younger folks right now are much more prone to these days to buy experiences instead of things, and so there's definitely value for not only your more established frequent travel but even your younger folks who are getting out and about more often these days, especially post pandemic, where everybody's trying to get going Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and Robin, here's another differentiator also between MedJet and travel insurance is this question you just asked and for anybody under 75, they can come and buy MedJet? There's no questions that we ask If you're going to buy travel insurance. A lot of times there's preexisting conditions that they have to maneuver around, right. And you know, if you buy travel insurance within 14 days of buying your trip, you can get that wave, but if not, then that comes into play, right. And so another differentiator anybody under 75 can buy MedJet membership and they're covered for anything, including, like adventure sports. You mentioned paragliding and paragliding. We got you covered. Most travel insurance does not. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I mean, and that's one of the more reasons I mean I have a propensity for liking to do some adventurous kind of things and I, you know, I just don't want to have to go down the list and be like, okay, well, if I get on my horse and I go ride here, am I covered or not, or whatever. You know that to have those things, certainly you know available. The other thing so you know, you mentioned the age of 75. What should somebody who is 75 or older do? How should they? I mean because they can still get covered, correct.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. Medjet memberships are available for people over 75. There's an application process. Yeah, and I think Paul can give you the details of that because he lives in that every day. I don't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. It's an application and it has 12 health-based questions, survey style. Anything that they answer yes to, they would give a brief description of that and then there's a very, very short physician statement that they would submit annually as well. That's reviewed on our end for admittance to the program. What I don't want to leave people to believe is that we will use that application, once taking our members' money, to find reasons to not transport in the future. What we will do is review that application and it would obviously either be approved, declined or approved with an exclusion. So if the applicant, for example, had a heart attack within the last year or so, there's a possibility it's not guaranteed, but there is a possibility that application would be accepted with that specific exclusion for cardiac events, but of course everything else would still be covered.
Speaker 3:That's something I do like to clean up because I know you know folks do like to liken us to insurance and we're not in the business of looking for reasons to not transport our members. So just because 1 is 75 now does not mean that we're going to use that application as a tool to decline transport once they're in it, right?
Speaker 1:No, that makes good sense. Well, you know, and we're talking a lot about transport, for obvious reasons, because that's the bulk of what you do, but going back to the horizon Would be the other layer. With that comes with horizon bill. Talk to me a little bit more about that, a value of that, and what kind of scenarios might happen where you might need some of those things.
Speaker 2:Sure, there's 10 specific things we cover terrorism, kidnapping, wrongful detention, pandemic, natural disaster, things like that. An example would be well, it's a real example. We actually have a couple that was in Paris a few years ago when they were having the yellow vest uprisings and they got caught up in that and they got nervous. They called and the service that we use to provide this for our members Happened to know the security manager, one of the hotels close by, called them, gave a description of a couple, told the couple to move, you know, trying to get to that hotel. They did. They pulled them inside the hotel and they sheltered in place, yeah, until it, until it passed right.
Speaker 2:So there's, there's no one concrete example we can point to and say here's what we'll do for you, like we can hospital, a hospital transport. Each situation is different, but it's a more scary world out there. People came back from the pandemic and said we're ready to travel, but it makes us nervous. Yeah, you know, because you know of everything they heard and saw. You know there's a feeling that it might be a little bit more violent out there. Yeah, and so it. You know it gives them some comfort that they had that back up to if they need it right right.
Speaker 1:Okay and yeah and that they're very good segue there. So I get that question a lot because I have a tendency to book travel that is made more on the adventurous side might be in destinations that most people, that a lot of people wouldn't always consider, and a question I will get a lot of times when I suggest one of these destinations, the first thing somebody says is is it safe? That's usually my, you know. My response is like well, it's probably a lot safer than you think. And but secondly, I mean let's just say somebody goes someplace in, there is a terrorist attack. So you mentioned terrorism. What In a terrorist Attack situation? How would, where does my jet come into play there?
Speaker 2:But that's one of the closest example I can draw is we actually had somebody that was down in Mexico on our teaching assignment, okay, and there was some Cartel activity that was getting closer and closer to the village where this person was okay and you know we would characterize that as terrorist activity.
Speaker 2:And so we contacted that person and moved, got them moved to the village a couple hundred kilometers away, just as it as a precaution. Everything was fine and so that was a pretty simple case. Cut and dried again. Every situation we can't say well sure. Terrorists.
Speaker 1:Here's exactly what happens right, well, yeah, if the terrorists gave us their playbook, yeah, then we could run a week, we could definitely come up with a plan, but we have experience with. That is what I'm saying and that's how we handle it right and in the same, if there's some sort of you know, natural disasters I guess does, does that come into play if you're in Hawaii and the volcano erupts and you, or is that just a travel insurance thing?
Speaker 2:and I'm sorry, I'm just sort of playing like I'm just here that I think people might be thinking about no natural disaster is listed as a Horizon coverage item. Okay, so if something were to happen, we would deal with that. Yeah, in some way.
Speaker 1:And did, do I remember correctly, on the horizon and you know I'm this is all a little bit for two, it's just right now because I'm definitely reminding myself about some of the things that I have access to. If you have some sort of trouble with, like I mean, I think it was you know theft or money or needed money in some way that it does that come into play in this or not? Am I confusing? It was something else.
Speaker 3:You might be thinking of the $60,000 of cash advance that's Associated with the Medjot Horizon upgrade. That's not on the crisis assistance side. It's a benefit that can be used if the member ends up in a facility which requires upfront cash payment, which does happen, I think, oftentimes in Mexico in some areas and some other areas around the world as well.
Speaker 3:So in the event that the facility were to be required an upfront cash payment, we could wire those funds over to the facility and and they would. The member would just agree to pay those back at a certain point After they return home right, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm sure that's what I was what I was thinking of. So, and then and then, the way that people Use if they're traveling is the 800 number.
Speaker 3:They simply call in and say help, and Right, right, we give out our local number as well, which can be used to call collect, if that's a, if that's the way the member would like to do it as well, and, and again, that is the most important thing to go with our telephone number. I get I get a lot of folks who are really worried that they've lost their member card and we're gonna verify their membership with a card and that would never happen. We've got other ways to pull folks up in our system. So definitely most important thing to go with once a member is our contact information, and once that that person ends up in hospital heading that way, let our transport team know and we'll get on the ball.
Speaker 1:Well, I know I feel a lot better having this and you know I definitely. My husband is a little little older than I. Am not that age. I always has something to do with it, but you know, it's just. It's good to know that we've got this extra layer of. Coverage, should we need it, because, like we said at the beginning, as valuable as inch and necessary as Travel insurance is you, there are certainly plenty of things that they will not and don't cover.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry to interject, Robin. There's definitely a learning curve, especially when it comes to drawing distinction between us and travel insurance. Certainly, once one has spent X amount of dollars on the trip, X amount of dollars on the travel insurance, and then we start talking about many folks are going to go wait a minute, why? So we understand that there's a learning curve there. That curve tends to straighten out a little bit once folks see why it's important.
Speaker 3:I can give an example of two different scenarios, one with and one without a membership. We have an example of a couple who traveled to Tahiti for their honeymoon and later on in the trip the husband dove into a body of water that was not deep enough and ended up in traction. If I'm not mistaken, they had no med jet to speak of and the travel insurance did what it could to get them to where they could get the care that he needed, but that's where he was to stay until he was discharged. Those folks ended up having to get a go fund me. I believe the maid of honor set up a go fund me to ultimately help that couple get home because they were both out of work. The wife was still down there. So there's a lot of things that needed to be mitigated through that circumstance.
Speaker 3:I can compare that to another example of actually a travel agency owner out of Chicago who was traveling in Malawi, Africa. I believe she broke her femur, if I'm not mistaken, and ultimately was transported back to Chicago by way of her med jet membership and that particular transport cost just under $200,000. I believe it was $199,000, $989,000. So there really is a benefit to it and certainly once folks kind of see the difference. Again, no disrespect to travel insurance, they do what they do and they do well. But if you're looking to get home once hospitalized, that's a med jet function.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean med jet isn't? I mean it's not a cancellation policy, it's not. You know, any of those things are not going to be covered, which is what you need, one of the biggest reasons that you need a regular travel insurance policy. I mean, most people don't understand that the bulk of the premium in a regular travel insurance policy is for cancellation.
Speaker 2:Right About 70% of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so these kind of things are. I mean, I'm not I don't want to say they're secondary, because they're very important still, but where we, I think, have a tendency to go to well, if I, you know, got sick or I was an accident or whatever, those are the things we tend to think about more instead of you know, the what if the trip got you know, canceled at the last minute.
Speaker 1:You know that kind of thing, because we have this attitude of, oh, I'm going, no matter what, and then oh, life, bill, tell me some things that stick out in your mind as far as some things that have happened over the year that, like you would use for examples If somebody said, eh, you know, I don't know, I don't know if I really need this or not, like what's some big things that have happened that you can think of, that that Benchett has covered.
Speaker 2:Well, here's one, and it's actually. It's actually a testimonial on our website, so you can go to our website and look at our testimonials and you can see it. The gentleman's name is Todd Jones, hi, and he's a former major league pitcher. He pitched for the Detroit Tigers for several years and he and his wife bought the MedJet membership for a trip down to for Safari to Africa that they were on to take.
Speaker 2:But they were down in Miami several months before that, just vacationing on a long weekend, and Todd slipped by the pool and he popped a quad in his leg. He tried to catch himself and he popped the other quad so he couldn't walk. I mean he's sitting on his butt by the pool and he can't move. And you know he's no, he's no stranger to injury. I mean you've got to cross sports, right, yeah? And so he.
Speaker 2:You know they got into the hospital there locally and they said you know we're going to have to perform surgery on both legs and you're not going to be walking for several weeks as you go through rehab. And he said you know time out, you know he lived. He actually lived not too far from Birmingham. He lived in a town called Pell City and he said well, I don't want to do my rehab in Miami, I want to do it back home, where family's around, and I'm close to home my wife's, you know, we'll be comfortable in our house. And so we transported them hospital to hospital and that's a perfect example of a domestic one and we made it happen literally within about 24 hours, as I recall it was pretty quick because we had some craft availability that we could take hold of. That's a real live example of how it benefits a member.
Speaker 1:Well, and on a trip like that, who? I mean very, very few people would have regular travel insurance right. You know, because you're domestic so you figure your medical is covered and all that. But then I mean, I know, even just getting like a ambulance to transport you from where I live in Lexington, from Louisville to Lexington, you know what that can cost. So yeah, you start talking about that in different cities.
Speaker 2:Well, we have another recent, a more recent transport story. Todd Jones is a couple of years old. There's a couple out of Idaho the last name is Kamo K K A M O they're a testimony on our site also and he's a professional motorcycle rider Okay, off, off-road. And so they bought a family membership because they travel all over the world, literally, and you know he's racing motorcycles.
Speaker 1:It's like no stranger to danger this guy, right.
Speaker 2:They have a young son who's I don't know, four or five, six years old and they were actually in California and he was racing and the son got like an infection in his eye and it got worse and worse. They took him to the hospital in Sacramento. The doctor's there, it's just a regular hospital. The doctor said oh, you know, we need to go in and perform surgery and do this and this. And the mother, the wife of the you know the member, you know as a family membership, she said I'm real uncomfortable with that diagnosis. I want to get home to our children's hospital and get a real children's doctor looking at it for a diagnosis. Yeah, so we transported him from Sacramento back to Idaho and the children's doctor there we diagnosed it and said wait a second, we can, we can cure this with antibiotics. And they did. A couple weeks later everything was fine, no surgery, and, you know, the young boy just went on with his life.
Speaker 3:Wow. That's a really great example because it shows how MedJet moves at the option of the member and not at the direction of a physician or by way of medical necessity. They chose to be moved and that's important. And that's the piece that a lot of folks who say well, I don't need anything or I'm just happy keeping my travel insurance, don't see that travel insurance is oftentimes, even if you see the word repatriation- built in is going to either be after discharge or at the direction of the physician, and if the physician doesn't say it's necessary to do so, there's a more than likely chance that it won't.
Speaker 3:So real important, a real important point regarding what Bill just spoke about it was at their option and that's important. I'm a dad. I want that option.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's, that's a. That's a very, very good point. And speaking of being a dad and I am, you know, I have my own, my own two sons who are adults now, 22 and 23. But you know, we bought, uh we had a policy that had them on it when they were, you know, part of the household when we went to Costa Rica one year. But I have the option now where I can buy them a MedJet membership.
Speaker 1:I can give it to, I can put that in their Christmas stocking or their birthday card, or just because, um, anytime, and so, for people that are listening, this is something I think makes a great gift like you got that person. You don't know what to buy for them and they travel 150 miles or more from home.
Speaker 2:Get a MedJet membership and we actually haven't talked a lot of dollars on this particular podcast. So Paul mentioned the $198,000 transport. Yeah, we, we bore the burden of that entire cost. So the member never got a copayment, never got a deductible right, never got any kind of papers from us saying you know, hey, you need to fill this out, we just paid it. Yeah, our basic membership for an individual is $315, for a family it's $425. It's very reasonably priced, you know, if you're somebody who's traveling all over the world and have that that kind of income and net worth, to travel a few hundred dollars a year, it's a I mean most people will spend way more than that on a breakfast dinner, nice hotel and to tag on to that, robin, to add the MedJet Horizon to a family membership is only an additional $189 for an entire year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the $159 for an individual membership if the additional that would be paid. So it's not. It's not a huge expense to even add that added protection that we were speaking about earlier, right?
Speaker 1:right now. Well, I, I think it's a, I think it's a no-brainer and your website is super, super easy to use. I can get people a link. I have a link and I keep it on my at the end of the it'll be at the show notes at the end of this podcast here so you know, people can get and can get this membership through the travel advisor, through the website. You just said there's an AARP discount. Is it a discount or is it just an affiliation that you have?
Speaker 2:with AARP members do get a little discount.
Speaker 1:Yes, so there's a lot of ways that you can go about getting one of these, and it is one of the least painful processes you could ever do on a website, you know, to get something of this kind of value, I think right and and and never forget to use your, your travel advisors like Robin, as a reference, because they tend to be really knowledgeable about it, and if they don't know, they'll ask me well, that's right, that's exactly right, and that's why we need people like you, because when we don't know what to say or how to phrase it, or how to explain why this is so valuable, that's that's when we come to you and need your help, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is there anything that you guys feel like we've missed, that we should cover, or you feel like we've got kind of touched on all the important points?
Speaker 3:I'd speak to just just kind of. So maybe we understand, or our listeners understand, kind of the structure maybe of just what's a family membership, because there's so much value there. It can actually include up to seven people, so you can include on family membership a primary member and a spouse or domestic partner, so they don't need to be married, they just need to share a residence. That's a family membership. Now, as a courtesy, we'll include up to five dependent children under the age of 19, or under the age of 23 if they're full-time students. So again to that, folks that have kids in school piece, even if your child is off at school. I live here in Birmingham, alabama. If my son were to be at school in Vanderbilton, nashville, which I believe is three and a half hours away, he'd be covered while he was up there. So if something were to happen we could get him back here to a hospital here in Birmingham, as opposed to me and my wife trying to scurry up there, leave life here and figure it all out on the other end.
Speaker 2:It's a great value that's a very good point yeah hey Robin, one other thing, and it's it's it's little talked about and, quite frankly, not used very often, but we do see it happen several times a year. Is we do transport mortal remains okay, and so if that word unfortunately happened, then we're gonna handle that and it's just a burden off of the members themselves to have to deal with. We would take care of all those coordinations.
Speaker 1:Yeah well that that is really good to know and unfortunately, I have friends that that happened to, yeah, and we're traveling without any kind of insurance. I mean, it was an ordeal there's a lot, especially if you're overseas.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of paperwork and a lot of you know, clearing of customs, and we handle all of that yeah, and if you guys handle that, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:That's just I mean, because everybody knows, when something like that happens, you're really in no mental capacity to be to be dealing with it anyway even if you knew where to start right right, exactly, even if you, even if it's what you did, you know, did every day.
Speaker 1:It's not something you either, you know, want to be doing or probably in a mental state to be doing. So, yeah and it's no. Those things are no fun to talk about, but and unfortunately we hear these stories all the day, all the time. And you know, I tell people, you know, when they want to refuse travel insurance and you know, in particular, they say something like oh, my medical insurance is fine, or whatever. I'm like as well. If you're going to be driving that road on the Amalfi coast in the rental car, just remember that car accidents do happen in Italy and Italy too, you know I mean it's it's not.
Speaker 1:You know you don't want to send people off on their vacation, afraid, but at the same time you know it's. It'd be lovely if everything was an always an Instagram moment, wouldn't it right, right, right, right. So, anyway, well, well, I think that is great. I think that is going to be really helpful for people. To anybody that's listening, we are here to help you. We want to make sure that that when you do travel or you know anywhere you know, not even out of the United States that you do so in a way that you have have what you need should the unforeseen come to be. So yeah, so well. Thank you both so much. I appreciate it. We'll get this out to to the public as fast as we can thank you so much for having us that wraps up today's episode of the intrepid traveler.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in and thank you to today's guests for joining me. I'll be back again in two weeks with another exciting episode featuring another guest with a story that is sure to pique your interest. Please subscribe to the intrepid traveler on your favorite listening channel and give us a review. Once again, today's episode has been brought to you by Clining Co Travel Consulting, a luxury adventure and expedition travel planning company specializing in ungoogleable experiences.