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1. Other than renewal rule, no other difference currently. 2. That is correct. 3. State is asked primarily for Americans going abroad. In your case, the person is a tourist to USA. Therefore, Oregon or California does not matter. It will cover in both the places.

1. That's correct. 2. Patriot America has following coverages that Patriot GoTravel America lacks: Emergency medical evacuation Repatriation of Remains Return of Minor Children Dental (Acute pain or injury to teeth in an accident) Lost Baggage Rest is the same. Please feel free to contact us at any time if you have any other questions.

1. WorldMed is the only good product that provides $100,000 of comprehensive coverage for age 70+. 2. Underwriter handles only the claims. Therefore, you will receive their contact information in the form of insurance card after you buy the insurance for claims related queries, not coverage related queries. They will not talk to you until you have the policy number. Policy number is the first thing you are asked when calling. AIG is a large company and consists of several companies that do different businesses. Depending upon the kind of insurance an AIG agent sells, they may not know about other AIG companies. e.g., AIG American General is primarily for life insurance (we sell those products as well and we are appointed agent of AIG for that). However, that is regarded as a completely separate company from 'Insurance Company of State of Pennysylvania' and we would not know anything about it if we didn't sell products from both companies. However, it is a completely legitimate product from the completely legitimate company. You can check out A.M. Best web site (http://www.ambest.com) to find out their ratings. A.M. Best rates most of the insurance companies around the world. Please let me know what kind of questions would you like to ask to feel comfortable? 3. They have hired us and pay us money to handle day to day questions that they don't want to handle. (Kind of oursourcing in some sense). Therefore, you can talk to us and ask us any questions you have as we are the authorized representative. Thanks for your quick response. So if I understand correctly - for Worldmed the underwriter is "Insurance company of pennsylvania', the admin is TIS, and selling agent is Buyamerican. Am I right? Few of the policy questions are: 1. Is the $100k coverage cumulative i.e. total coverage for all injuries / illnesses during the coverage period is $100k? OR is it per injury / illness? 2. As in your website, the policy will pay 80% of the first $5000 annually for covered medical expense. What does 'annually' mean? I am looking for coverage for about 3 months. 3. Do I have to inform Buyamerican (or AIG or someone else) before going to hospital / doctor to be eligible for the complete coverage? Is there a pre-notification penalty? 4. Do I have to pre notify when going to ER? 5. Are all ER visits covered? I found a few insurances don't cover if the ER doesn't admit you as an inpatient after the visit. What is the policy for worldmed? 6. Coverage for chiropractor (when refered by PCP)? 7. Who will I file the claims with? Insurance company of PA or Buyamerican or....? 8. Does the benefit period of 26 weeks extend to even when my parents go back to the home country, when the injury / illness has happened during the coverage period? Sorry about more than a few questions! I will really appreciate your answers. Thanks Priya A. Your understanding is correct. 1. Cumulative for all injuries/accidents. 2. Annually means maximum up to 1 year. If you buy for 3 months would mean once in 3 months. However, if you were to buy for 2 years, it would get rest after 1 year. 3. No. No. 4. No. 5. There are no such penalties in WorldMed. As long as it is a covered expense, insurance company will pay for it. However, when it is not an emergency, please don't go to ER. You should take an appointment with a doctor, whenever possible. If your situation is urgent and can't wait for a doctor's appointment, consider going to Urgent Care. Such no penalty for ER will only be available as long as people don't abuse it and overuse it. Otherwise, such penalty may be introduced in future releases of the plan and everyone would suffer. (This advice may sound like 'keep earth green. recycle' type of advice. But please be considerate). 6. No 7. AIG 8. Yes. Thanks for the information. Few more questions please. 1. What will be the max. limit to the coverage per injury / illness? 2. You mentioned chiropractor is not covered. I would like to confirm if physiotherapy is covered? 3. In case of a fracture, I believe it qualifies for ER. Please confirm. Regards, Priya 1. $100,000 is overall policy maximum. Even if you need $100,000 for one injury or illness, you will get complete $100,000. 2. Yes, if referred by physician in writing. 3. Yes. Thanks for your prompt response to all my queries. I really appreciate it. Priya Could you please clarify on the pre-existing condition? My parents are on blood pressure medication. In case there is heart problem / attack, will that be covered? PPO network: when I go to any doctor in Worldmed PPO network, will the docs bill the insurance directly? AIG Worldwide health: They do not have any PPO network. Is that okay? Thanks Priya 1. I suggest you read /visitor-medical-insurance-pre-existing-conditions/ 2. Read /travel-and-student-insurance-ppo-network/ 3. There is no reason for you to buy AIG Worldwide Health, as it is simply a renamed version of and identical to MNU's Atlas America, the original product that we sell. And we offer Atlas America at /atlasamerica-insurance/ And Atlas America has provider directory at /travel-and-student-insurance-ppo-network/ AIG Worldwide Health is NOT underwritten by AIG. There has already been extensive discussion on this. Please feel free to contact us at any time if you have any further questions, or simply post them here.

National insurance is a 100% Indian company and owned by Government of India. Coris is a French company and they have an office in Florida, USA and acts mostly like a mail forwarding facility. You can only submit claims to them in USA for less than $500. Rest of the claims need to be sent to Paris, France. And they also in turn send them back to Heritage company in Mumbai, India. There is no way National/Coris works like any other American company. Don't get misled. In particular, read the article at /visitors-insurance-usa-india-comparison/ Ask those questions to them and decide accordingly. e.g., Is there any insurance card? Do they have any PPO network? Can they provide the list of doctors or hosptials which bill the insurance company directly and charge you network negotiated fee? If the person goes back early, will they refund money? If the person decides to stay longer, will you be able to renew the insurance? What kind of help they will provide in USA if needed? Call your local hospital and ask them whether they will accept National insurance from India (Or even Coris from Florida/Paris/France?) These are the questions that really matter. Moreover, read the experiences of hundreds of people who had to deal with Coris in past. They are given at https://www.immihelp.com/visitors-insurance-reviews/ Do you own research rather than blinding believing what they are saying. I would like narrate my own experience dealing with National Insurance from India. I had purchased National Insurance in late 1999 for my parents' first visit to USA in March 2000. Before issuing the policy, my parents had to go through health check ups by their doctor and everything came out to be normal. And the $500,000 policy indicated no exclusions. I was working as a Software Engineer in a Computer Company at that time and just like many casual customers, didn't know too many details. Couple of months after arrival in the US, my father started feeling sick. We contacted several doctors and none of them accepted the insurance when we showed them the policy. One of the doctors even gave an example: When you apply for a job, the employer looks at the final result of your college, that is your degree, and not at all the books you studied. Same way, he asked for the insurance card which we didn't have. Anyway, we paid out of our pocket hoping to file a claim later. I continuously called their Florida office of their collaboration and most of the times, there was no response. Nobody picked up the phone. When I was able to get hold of someone, I was told they are currently not paying any claims because they are not getting paid anything from the insurance company in India. My father's situation was getting worse. We went to finally an Indian doctor who was specialist. He diagnosed a serious health problem with my father which was life threatening. My trouble with insurance company was on and not getting any satisfactory response at all. First, hosptials and doctors in USA don't tell the actual cost of treatment until the bills come in our hand. Somehow, I was able to get some estimates: few tests would cost me around $8,000 and the treatment over $70,000. Again, after a lot of difficulties, I was able to get hold of their Florida office. As they are authorized only up to $500, they instructed me to pay those charges myself and submit the claims to their Europe office and in turn the company in India would determine whether they would pay or not. And she said that all that process would easily take 8 to 10 months of processing. I of course didn't have $8,000 for tests, leave alone $70,000 for treatment. I had another meeting with a specialist doctor who was originally from India. He advised me to send my father back to India. I came out with tears in eyes and booked the earliest flight for my parents to go back to India. So much for their first vacation in USA! After going back to India, my father got treated in Mumbai, India. And we are not from Mumbai. I remember the stress I had to go through for few months and can't imagine the pain and the hassles he had to go through in Mumbai, unbearable heat (because of his treatment and weather) and heavy rains during his treatment. After that I decided that there must be a better way to deal with visitors insurance for parents visiting United States. That is how I got into this business and the web site, the business and many of the current products that you see is the result of my constant work with several insurance companies in the US. Ever since the inception of this business, I have always kept in mind the customer's best interest first. I always keep in mind what I had to go through and don't want any one or any one's parents to go through the same. And that is exactly what each person in my company staff is required to follow.

We offer AIG TravelGuard products as well. However, we didn't put them on our web site because they are available only to US residents. Only AIG TravelGuard products that are available to non-US residents are their 'worldwide health' products. They are simply rebranded Atlas America/International (just a different name, absolutely no other difference). And we offer original products: Atlas America/International at /travel-and-student-insurance-plans/ Thanks for you reply. The rates and coverage apparently look the same. The only difference I noted between the two was that the underwriters and insurers were different - Atlas - underwriter - Multinational Underwriters insurer - Lloyd's of London AIG Worldwide - underwriter/insurer- Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania It appears that Lloyd's is a non-admitted or surplus line insurer while AIG is a US insurer. I am given to believe that a surplus line insurer can put more riders than a US insurer who has to function within US insurance laws. I'm just a layman seeking insurance for my parents so I would like to have your expert advice on the issue. It is a long story. I will describe what I can. Atlas America/International are administered by MultiNational Underwriters (MNU) and Underwritten by Lloyds of London, since 1998. TravelGuard was an administrator of various plans and Arch Insurance Company and AIG underwrote the policy. TravelGuard was owned by Noel Group. Noel Group acquired Multinational Underwriters several years back, as TravelGuard didn't have any products for non-US residents. They renamed Atlas America/International to Worldwide Health America/International and offered them to TravelGuard customers/agents. All this time, we have always been directly contracted with MNU and offering Atlas America/International. Therefore, there was no need to offer Worldwide Health America/International which are identical to Atlas America/International. Identical product, different name. Noel Group sold TravelGuard to AIG and therefore it became AIG TravelGuard. Worldwide Health America/International remained the same and now AIG TravelGuard simply became one big agent of MNU for selling Worldwide Health America/International. (Even though their internal arrangements could be little different because of the same owner in past for two companies, but from customer's point of view, that is what it is.) Subsequently, Noel Group sold MNU to HCC Life Insurance Company, a US insurer in Houston, TX. However, whether it is Atlas America/International or Worldwide Health America/International, they are still underwritten by Lloyds, just like it has been since day 1. Worldwide Health America/International are NOT underwritten by AIG. The statement you are making regarding domestic insurer vs. surplus lines insurer is generally true. However, it does not really apply in this case. If you were to compare Aetna/Blue Cross/Cigna etc with Lloyds, that would be true. Aetna/Blue Cross etc. are health insurance companies. However, that is not the case with AIG. AIG is primarily a property/casualty company and offers travel insurance on a surplus lines basis. Those products are not filed as health insurance products. Therefore, it is the same thing as other surplus lines companies. That is exactly why companies like Aetna, Blue Cross etc. don't give insurance to visitors. They are health insurance companies and are not allowed to sell health insurance with too many exclusions. And with less exclusions, they don't want to take the risk of insuring visitors. To prove my point, for a moment, lets ignore all the points I described above regarding companies and products changing hands. Go to /visitor-insurance/ We have several products underwritten by AIG (Insurance Company of State of Pennsylvania) and there is no confusion regarding who is who, what is what. e.g., Liaison Majestic, Visit USA-Healthcare, Worldmed, Diplomat America, Diplomat LongTerm. Still, all of them have pretty much the same restrictions and exclusions that Atlas America has. In short, all visitors insurance products pretty much work the same way as far as the insurance laws are concerned. For visitors to US, all the products are surplus lines products. Therefore, that should not be your concern at all. You should simply look at the features, benefits and prices and decide accordingly. Short version of the above explanation: Just like InsuBuy.com, TravelGuard AIG is acting as the agent of MNU and selling Atlas America/International which is underwritten by Lloyds. Only difference between them and us is that they have renamed them as Worldwide Health/International. The plan is still underwritten by Lloyds and administered by MNU. Your claims would still be handled by MNU. If you are still not clear, give me a phone call and I would be glad to help you further. Sometimes, talking over the phone is easier than long exchange of emails and discussion forum postings. Thanks for you detailed reply. It really broadened my perspective and answered a lot of questions. Given that all visitor products are surplus line there is a price difference between products which are kind of similar. As a case in point - if you compare Atlas America with Patriot America there appears to be around a $200 difference for a 3 month coverage (deductible $2500 insured for $500000) for 2 persons aged between 65-69. Given this price difference will there be substantial difference in quality of service. I would really appreciate an answer as this will help me move closer to a decision. At least in the case of visitors insurance, higher price does not necessarily mean better quality. To explain that further, let me explain further how this visitors insurance works: e.g., MNU approached Lloyds of London and got one master policy from them and they are enrolling people into that one master policy. They called that policy Atlas America and started marketing it. You can consider that master policy as a kind of group policy. And we (and all other agents/brokers) are helping them in those enrollments. Therefore, the price of the product depends upon the volume of business (not overall business of underwriter, but just this one master policy, or this group, that is the group of visitors), claims experience, broker commissions, operating expenses, company profits and so on. Generally, larger the volume of business, cheaper the policy is. That is exactly why even though several products underwritten by AIG that I mentioned above have drastically different prices, even though it is the same underwriter. Think of it as this way: e.g., Aetna gives group insurance to an employer that has 50 employees. Aetna gives group insurance to another employer that also has 50 employees. The price of insurance for these two employers could be different based on many different factors. In other words, there is really no practical difference in quality between Atlas America (MNU) and Patriot America (IMG).

Please look at https://www.insubuy.com Once you enter the criteria, you will see several products. Next to each comprehensive product, you will see the link 'Provider Directory'. That is PPO network search. You can search for the providers in your area in each of them. Network negotiated fees are applied only towards the covered expenses. If your claim is rejected due to pre-existing condition, it is between the provider and the patient and insurance company is out of picture at that point.