Insured by Tin Leg and Squaremouth

Nearly 20 years ago, I was on a tour in Uzbekistan when one of our group had to be evacuated to Helsinki, Finland, for surgery. Fortunately, she had evacuation insurance. Since that event, I have had emergency-medical-evacuation insurance, as my family and I travel to out-of-the-way places such as Mongolia, Tunisia, Nepal and North Korea.

In 2015, my wife and I were in Sarawak (Borneo), Malaysia, when we came down with serious respiratory problems. We had plans to continue to Myanmar for a 2-week, customized tour (for three people) but canceled them and headed back to San Francisco. 

Due to the substantial prepaid tour expenses for this trip, we had purchased comprehensive travel insurance. We did not purchase it through the tour operator; instead, through the travel insurance broker Squaremouth (St. Petersburg, FL; 800/240-0369, www.squaremouth.com), we purchased the insurance from Tin Leg (in the US, 844/927-9265, https://tinleg.com).

Notwithstanding the funny broker and insurance company names, I was very pleasantly surprised with the prompt payment (less than a month) from Tin Leg, and Squaremouth followed up to be sure that the insurance provider had paid according to policy terms.  

Tin Leg reimbursed us about $20,000, which covered what we expected: the cost of our canceled tour, fees for rebooking our flight from Singapore to San Francisco, and our medical expenses in Sarawak and Singapore.

In the fall of 2016, we’re traveling to Australia and New Zealand with only air tickets, so we didn’t purchase comprehensive travel insurance. My University of Oregon alumni medical-evacuation insurance should be adequate for that type of trip. However, a spring 2017 river cruise in Egypt will be covered by Tin Leg through Squaremouth.

DICK MORTEN

San Francisco, CA