Minnesota couple stranded in Costa Rica After ATV Accident

[DandyDon]

Adventure Travel without trip insurance seems to be a popular choice among many discussions here on SB, and judging from the news story - I guess this couple did not have DAN Dive Insurance either, altho they were scuba diving on the trip. When I leave the US, I like to have lots of back up...

DAN membership alone with TravelAssist provides some benefits this couple would dearly like to have I bet...

• Emergency Evacuation and Repatriation
  Covers up to a maximum of $100,000 per person (if a Family Membership) for an emergency evacuation, or medically necessary repatriation. (Has to be arranged thru them!)
• Medical Expense
  Advances up to $5,000 for hospital admittance or discharge deposits.
• Medical Monitoring
  Work with local medical providers and relay necessary information to the member and the member's family until the situation is resolved.
• 24-Hour Worldwide Medical Information and Assistance
  Provides 24-hour multilingual assistance and consultation along with non-diving related medical referrals to physicians, hospitals and specialists.

Instead, it seems that they're getting ripped off, hit for increasing amounts of money with little to show for it - and no way out.

DAN's top Preferred Dive insurance also provides $10,000 for non-diving accidents outside of the US and more. Most of the coverage does not apply to illness, but some does. See http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/insurance/compare.asp

I also always take trip insurance, mostly for the medical coverage, evacuation benefits, 24/7 collect call assistance and more. There are many good choices, but I use TravelSafe.com with $100,000 coverage and $1M evacuation arranged thru them, and more. DAN also offers trip insurance, but I don't care for theirs. I had some difficulties looking at their site for quotes, but when I can get it to work - they just do not offer as much for the money. Their medical coverage is limited to $25,000, luggage to $1,000, etc. and TravelSafe gives much more.

This couple went on a fun filled trip expecting nothing to go wrong I guess. It's funny that some think they need medical coverage at home, but not in another country...?

From MN couple stuck in Costa Rica | kare11.com

ANOKA, Minn. - An Anoka couple ran into trouble on vacation in Costa Rica after an all-terrain adventure landed one of them in the hospital.
"They're their pretty adventurous," said Sara Palmer. "They don't buy a lot of material things, but they do like to experience things."
But this latest experience for Elissa Merritt and her husband Ron may be more than what they bargained for.
Their family said the couple's vacation to Costa Rica filled with scuba diving and four-wheeling took a wrong turn.
Elissa told them a motorcyclist cut her off while she was on an ATV, she swerved, fell off a cliff and suffered a severe leg injury.
"They waited down there for two hours until the help came," described Palmer.
However, the arrival of help did not mean the end of the Merritt's saga. The family said the first hospital the couple were brought to was in a remote part of the country and had poor conditions. Elissa was moved to another hospital in San Jose, Costa Rica.
She needed surgery, which was expensive. The hospital demanded thousands of dollars, which the Merritt's paid with a credit card, but then they needed more money.
"It's like extortion down here basically," said Ron Merritt by phone on Tuesday. "They came in here and asked for $5,000, then the next day they asked for $10,000 and then yesterday they told us we had to give them $20,000 or we have to leave the hospital."
Typically, Americans are not insured internationally, but you can purchase travel medical insurance beforehand which, in the case of the Merritt's, would help now.
"A lot of the policies for travel medical insurance come with what is called emergency medical evacuation so what that will do is get you out of that country and get you back to your home country so that you can receive care that will be covered under your normal insurance policy," said AAA Travel's Matt Hehl.
Hehl said the cost depends on where you're going, your length of stay and your age, but roughly runs a couple hundred dollars.
Meanwhile, the family did figure out a way through friends and volunteers to fly Elissa and Ron Merritt back to the United States, ideally in time for a fundraiser this weekend to help cover the medical expenses.