January 14, 2008 - Author: Spice

Growing up Sean was on a soccer team that used to travel outside of Ireland. Most of the games they played were in Ireland but every once in a while they’d play over in England. Now doing this was a bit risky only because if he got hurt playing soccer outside of his country, their insurance would not cover it. Now this was a long time ago, but it’s the same today. Say, for some reason, Tristan’s team made the states and then the nationals and then for some reason had to go and play outside of the United States - he would not be covered by our insurance if he got hurt. There is a travel medical insurance you can get from MultiNational Underwriters that helps you out just for this type of thing. I was told by Tristan’s coach to Check it out for the team “just in case”. (And that’s a BIG ‘just in case’). I did find out that they offer a “Sports Rider” that you can add to your insurance. From what I found it it’s very affordable and covers the player if they get injured. Personally, I think this is an awesome idea. I don’t forsee us needing it in the near future, but as the kids grow older it’s nice to know it’s out there. Who knows, maybe one of our kids will want to study abroad over in their daddy’s homeland of Ireland and if they’re still into soccer then like they are now, this insurance could come in handy! I can see my little guy going to college in Galway and playing on their Rugby team. We’d definitely need it then!

January 03, 2007 - Author: Steve Mcelligott

While I was traveling during the Christmas break I was offered traveler’s insurance by my airline. I declined since I had insurance in Canada and the US (I’m lucky in that regard) but it made me think a little bit. Having traveled to China, Europe and other far off places, I know that the need for insurance is great, but how many people really pick up the option to get traveler’s insurance when they buy their tickets?

Click here for a FREE Quote

 and check how much it is for you, I’m sure it’s worth it to save yourself from the medical bills in the end.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007 by William Atkins

As an adult male in his mid-fifties I have traveled internationally since early childhood.  Beginning in the 1950’s I spent summers in French speaking Canada and I recall how exotic it was to hear people speaking in a language other than English. I am reminded of these first memories each spring when I open the very same summer cottage that I roamed as a child.  How precious those first experiences continued to be as a young father as I watched with wonder as my children learned French in school and were able to converse in the local language on their summer vacations.

In the language of healthcare our two countries could not be more different.  The U.S. and Canada took different forks in the road back then.  Healthcare became a government service in Canada and in the U.S. it became a right bestowed by your employer.  Now, because of escalating costs, U.S. healthcare has become unaffordable to many millions of people and employers are curtailing or limiting coverage for their employees.  For all of its short falls, the Canadian system works for the majority of Canadians.  The U.S. system is failing many more individuals then Canada.

Today it is more important to buy insurance if you are a Canadian coming to the U.S. or if you are a U.S. citizen traveling to Canada.  Whether you are an international student, traveling on business or just on vacation you need travel medical insurance; MultiNational Underwriters of Indianapolis, Indiana is a leader in the travel medical insurance industry.  Atlas Travel Medical Insurance has been the brand of choice since 1998. Go to www.mnui.com to learn more about the company and its products.

December 13th, 2007 - Author: S. Lenka

Fascination to study abroad among Indian students has always been there. Over the years the fascination has grow exponentially. Bringing home a foreign degree is a matter of pride and prestige and a job becomes guaranteed. The other advantage of a foreign degree is the ample number of jobs available in the marketplace for foreign return students.

Apart from guaranteed jobs, things one learns abroad are always filled with new experiences. The focus of foreign universities is very clear: they would emphasize more on practical training and less on class-room lectures.
The cost of study in foreign universities varies widely among institutions and the cost of living varies from place to place. Apart from published costs students must prepared to cover hidden costs – which include:

• Personal expenses
• Costs when residence halls are closed,
• Health insurance
• Change in the value of currency, etc.

The students in abroad are seeking medical care during their study. Sometimes the expenses are too high, that a student may not able to continue his/her study further. So, it is wise to make International students insurance policy. The policy helps to pay the medical bills and to take the help of expert doctors during the need. When you purchase health insurance, the premium (the money you pay) is used to pay the medical bills during any health care. Your coverage remains valid only as long as you continue to pay your premiums. Once you purchase insurance, the insurance company will give you an insurance identification card for you to use when you seek care from a hospital or doctor. The insurance company will also provide written instruction for reporting and documenting medical expenses (filing a claim). The insurance company will evaluate any claim you file and make the appropriate payment under you policy. In some cases the insurance company pays the hospital or doctors directly; in other the company will reimburse you after you have paid the bills.

Thursday, November 29, 2007 - Author: thebazar

We all love to travel and recently I even made a trip myself which I shall be covering at a later post. But what I had wanted to share with all of you out there, who think that they have all the medical coverage that they may need as they travel overseas, it is time to seriously think about how far that coverage will go?

Why do we need Insurance as we travel overseas? Well, for one the food is often the most common cause of most hospitalisations overseas, lets face it, we as westerners just cannot stomach even a bit of spicy food. The minute we take it into our mouths, our tummies start rebelling right away. If we are fortunate, this distress may last only for a day or two at the most and can be handled with the most common over the counter medicines. But more often than not, our bodies just cannot handle all that hot and spicy food and as a result we often get dehydrated and need to be hospitalised. And naturally our medical expenses will just shoot up through the ceiling, and we may think that our insurance will cover all that. But here is the catch, whenever it comes to insurance, there always is a catch and the bottom line is that most of the insurance companies will not cover your medical expenses that you may incur overseas and what is more, even the few that agree to do so, will only agree to cover half of our medical expenses.

How do I know this? Well, in my last trip to Egypt, I ended up being hospitalised with both a broken leg as well as acute dehydration. What I had stated above had all happened to me . And just when I thought that there seems to be no proper travel Insurance coverage that seems to exist, I came across this company that makes sure that you get all the right coverage as you travel overseas and the best part is that they can give you the coverage for as little as 1$. So just go to this site and Click here for a FREE Quote. Happy travelling!

November 29th, 2007 - Author: destination

Traveling does not mean to pack your bag & walk on to visit the destination. Firstly planning is more important to focus on that destination than secondly after planning the more important & careful point is that we should do travel medical insurance which help us in many ways while traveling to a great destination. The travel medical insurance facility can help you to get rid off the interrupted glitches & emergencies even if you lost your luggage, you slip or you need a medical treatment.

At that time the medical insurance will be helpful definitely to get free from the entire above given medical problem, which you face during the traveling time. Therefore many of the travelers are getting the free quote before they start their journey. For a FREE Quote click here & get the travel medical insurance advantages. Lets be happy during journey & have a nice time with our family & friends.

Wednesday, November 28,2007 - Author: zingaresca - The Expat Guide

If you are reading this site it is probably because you want to move overseas. Kudos to you for that! And I am right there with you! Now, before you make that move you will likely be traveling trying to figure out where you want to go and whatnot. If that is the case, do not let a medical disaster bankrupt you and sideline those dreams just because you were not carrying travel medical insurance.

If you have medical insurance through an employer or something then you may think that you are fine. Well, think again! A lot of travelers end up finding out the hard way that their medical insurance only provides coverage in their home country or only pays half of the costs. And considering the current exchange rate with the dollar being so low, that half could be a lot.

Why not just get a travel medical insurance policy? Did you know that you can get one for as little as $1 a day? MultiNational Underwriters offers these plans. Get a free quote and see for yourself!

January 18, 2008 - Author: R. Davis

Mount Kinabalu is not a technical climb, means that you don’t have to bring any special equipments or apparatus to help on your climbing. It’s a straight forward climbing, and some climbers considered it as a hiking activity.

There’s always risk on any climbing activities. As long as you are moving up or down (against or towards the gravity), you will definitely exposed to danger of falling, which may leads to injuries. Depending on your condition, falling down can be really trivial but sometimes can be dead serious.

I will write about fall at the end of this article, but let’s get through 8 most common injuries on climbers, in which I have divided it into 2 main groups:

1.  4 Injuries from the climbing activities itself,

2.  4 Injuries from the exposure of our body to the environment.

4 Injuries from the climbing activities

1. Foot
The most common minor injuries to your foot during the climb is blisters. It can be caused by unsuitable shoes, as wearing a pair of shoe that is not your size will increase friction of your feet with the padding of the shoes. This friction can leads to annoying blisters which could really spoil your trip.

Wearing unsuitable socks can also be one of the causes, as nylon & polyester material will not absorb your sweat properly and they usually are not thick enough to do it. Thick socks from wool material is the most suitable, as it could absorb sweat, isolate heat (which will help you warm your feet at the peak) and protect your feet from friction with the inside padding of the shoes (which could leads to blister formation). Cotton socks is unsuitable as you are at risk of hypothermia as it retains water.

2. Hands
Hand injuries usually happened at your second stage of your climb, where you use it almost all the time to hold the guide rope on the Summit Trail. As the trail is more than 13,000 feet above sea level, low temperature and strong wind will almost definitely make your hands cramp and numb, unless you use one, or even 2 pairs of gloves to protect it.

It depends on your preferences, some climbers like to wear water-proof gloves, but I opted with some normal cotton wool gloves that is usually use by local construction workers. And I wear 2 pair of those.

3. Upper body (trunk)
Most climbers will climb Mount Kinabalu with less than 10kg of backpack. Unless you need to spend more than 1 night, it is really not necessary for you to bring more loads, as excessive loads could injure your upper back muscle, especially if you don’t have enough training.

Shoulders, upper back and spine, and even your lower back muscle is the most affected, as moving your body uphill with the loads actually increases your potential energy, which means you need more energy to do the work. By this, it is more prone to get injury.

4. Legs and lower limbs
The body part that is primarily used for Mount Kinabalu climbing. Can easily get injured at almost every part - the bone, muscle, tendon and ligament - unless you have a good workout and training for this kind of activities.

Your muscle will be used to the limit when you climb uphill, but it is your joints that is working during your downhill climb. As climbing down releases potential energy, you joints works to absorb more shock with every footstep to stop motion instantaneously.

4 Injuries from the exposure of body to environment (or some medical professional describe it as illness).

1. Hypothermia
Hypothermia is a condition in which your body temperature drops below that required for normal metabolism and bodily functions. This condition could happen while you are on the bare rocks of Kinabalu, 13,500 feet above sea level. The temperature can drop to below 5 degree Celsius, and prolong exposure to this environment can leads to hypothermia.

Most climbers will wake up at 2am in the morning to start the second phase of the climb through the cold darkness. You will be exposed to cold temperature for about 4 hours - which can be really cold if it is raining and windy. Wearing thick clothes and maybe a simple raincoat will reduce the risk of hypothermia.

*Do you know that the cause of death of Ellie was hypothermia?

2. Dehydration
Dehydration is a condition in which our body contains an insufficient volume of water for normal functioning. During the first phase of the climb, your body is exposed to fluid loss from sweating. You may exposed to dehydration if you climb uphill without consuming adequate water, especially in a hot and/or humid environment of lower zone of Kinabalu.

That is why the authority have set up huts on the Summit Trail with untreated water tanks for you to refill your water bottle on your way up and down the mountain. Drink a lot of water on the way - better still put a sachet of oral rehydration salt into your water to replenish the electrolytes that you have loss from sweating. You can easily get fatigue if you are dehydrated.

3. Altitude sickness
Altitude sickness, also known as acute mountain sickness (AMS) or altitude illness is a pathological condition that is caused by acute exposure to low air pressure (usually outdoors at high altitudes).

It commonly occurs above 2,400 meters (approximately 8,000 feet). Bare in mind that Laban Rata is at about 11,000 feet above sea level. This condition is caused by reduced partial pressure of oxygen, while the percentage of oxygen in air remains essentially constant with altitude at 21 percent.
*I have explained about altitude sickness here.

4. Internal organ illness
Is what happened to your internal organ when exposed to all external hazard - the weather, the altitude, the heat, the food, the water, the environment… You name it… As the list go on, this is what you have to bear in mind.

You could experience just about any illness that is related to the hazard. You may have to prepare yourself with a good first aid kit to relieve the symptoms, hoping that it would not hinder yourself from conquering the highest peak of Borneo.

Fall
I could not categorize fall in either of the group above. While all the above known injuries could be prevented with a good preparation before and during the climb, falling is not. A lot of external factors that could leads to fall - as you are climbing against and towards gravity.

Wet boulders and rocks can be very slippery sometimes. Wrong judgment and misaligned foot while walking through slippery surfaces can leads to fall. It is not about the mountain all the time, but climbers can sometimes be careless and ignorant.

Emergency Medical Evacuation

What could happen if you get injured from a fall?
Porters of Kinabalu have a very systematic way of lifting injured climbers down the mountain. As what Leong have wrote on his Multiply page, the only way available (at this moment of time) is to strap the injured climbers on a stretcher and bring them down carefully.

There are some issues on air lifting injured climbers down from Mount Kinabalu by helicopter, and up until now, it has not been totally resolved.

However, we have good news for climbers who are concern about their safety. Insuring your trip to Mount Kinabalu may alleviate your anxiety if anything happen. Multinational Underwriters’s travel medical insurance policies have an optional “Sports Rider” that will cover you when you do hazardous sports. They could provide airlifting for any emergency medical evacuation, and could cost over $30,000 depending on the location and rescue. Check it out.