“Be Prepared” is the motto taught to Scouts, both boys and girls. For those of us living or planning a life on the open road in an RV, to explore and experience as much as possible, seems like a carefree idea. And it can be. As long as we are prepared for what can go wrong.
What are your plans in the event that you get injured or ill while traveling, severe enough to land you in a hospital or incapacitated enough to be unable to drive? Are you a solo traveler? Or does your travel companion feel comfortable to drive or tow your RV? Do you travel with pets? Children?
The time to consider this is BEFORE it happens. “It” could be as simple as stepping on uneven ground while hiking and breaking your ankle rendering you unable to drive. It probably is a good idea to make sure that if your traveling companions are old enough, they need to know how to operate your RV or Truck With Trailer just in case.
There are really cheap, Travel Assist plans available that will manage much of the transportation for you in the event of a medical emergency. They will do everything from getting the injured or ill individual to emergency medical treatment, transport your Recreation Vehicles to where you need the to be, to flying your whole family including pets (dogs and cats only) to your home base or even to where friends or family are available to help.
Let’s clarify that this is not Travel Insurance and it isn’t Roadside Assistance, you still need to have that, especially if your home has wheels. Transporting your vehicles following an illness or injury is part of what these plans offer. And they will help with transportation due to illness or injury while traveling out of the country, but not cover the cost of medical treatments.
We reviewed three plans. FMCAssist is including with membership to the Family Motor Coach Association and it is an actual insurance policy. Good Sam RV Club offers a medical emergency plan for a reasonable cost of $59 – $100 per year with their current Summer Sale. AAA offers a plan, Emergency Assistance Plus.
We think of FMCA, Family Motor Coach Association, as a club for the purpose of rallies and assistance for breakdowns, as well as lots of discounts and information. But included with membership is called FMCAssist. You are covered in the event of an illness or accident which leaves you or your companions unable to continue with travels. If needed, this includes the expense of transporting your RV to where it needs to go which could be just to the hospital, or as far as your home base. They will fly a friend or family member out to transport it for you. Or they will hire a professional driver and cover the cost of this. In that situation, your family and your pets can also be transported home or to an appropriate location as well, but can not ride with the hired driver of the RV due to liability reasons. To our thinking, being an FMCA member is just a no brainer. We get far more than we spend each year.
Good Sam is another club you may already belong to. While there is an additional cost for their Travel Assist plan, it is extremely inexpensive. One thing they offer, that FMCA doesn’t, is coordination of your medical information. They will act on your behalf to arrange for forwarding records to physicians or hospitals.
The offering from AAA, Automobile Club of America, is called Emergency Assistance Plus, EA+, and is the most expensive at $209 per year for a family, but still reasonable. EA+ covers most of the same costs of evacuation and RV transport, but there are many stipulations. Their plan is available on line and we recommend you take the time to read thru all of it and call them if you are unclear before purchasing this plan. Like, Good Sam’s Travel Assist, EA+ will assist on your behalf to relay necessary personal information to the medical providers as needed.
As a member of EA+, you can get travel and security assistance services. If there are any travel restrictions in the area you are planning to travel to, they can provide detailed intelligence regarding weather, health, political, or special events, etc. They will also arrange for transporting or boarding your pet, but you will incur the cost of this. After the 1st year of membership, many of their services are available to you while you are at home too.
Another important fact is that there are very specific things that are not covered. Such as injuries resulting from certain activities such as bungee jumping, hot air ballooning, skydiving, and spelunking. Be sure if you participate in any of these activities that may require you to sign a waiver, that you have other coverage in case of injury resulting from this.
One stipulation that all three of these plans have, is that all covered expenses must be arranged and provided by the plan’s company. They will not reimburse later, even for covered costs.
Regardless of whether you choose to have a plan like these, you still need to determine before an emergency what your wishes are. Decisions about relocation of your RV, your pets, your family should not wait until a medical emergency happens. You should create instructions about all of this and include info like phone numbers and policy numbers and email this to family or friends. Then you will want to store a copy in your cell phone as well as cloud storage that can be accessed from anywhere. And lastly, in a well marked folder in your RV. If something happened and you do not survive, you will need to include all arrangements you would want including where your remains are to be shipped to.
There is certainly a lot of value in having a travel assistance policy or contract. For those of us who travel frequently, and often in our RV, they offer peace of mind that can’t come from ignoring that this can happen. And in fact, the more time you spend on the road and RV Life, the higher the possibility that it will happen while traveling. Keep On Roaming!