4My Emergency

Archive for December, 2011

When an unexpected death or medical emergency befalls a loved one far away, it is often very challenging to find and purchase an emergency airline ticket. It has always been the custom for airlines to charge the highest prices for tickets bought at the last minute, and even more if you don’t know exactly when you will be returning.

For many years the airlines have offered bereavement airfares, but unfortunately most airlines have eliminated or dramatically reduced their family medical emergency and bereavement airfares in the past year. The airlines claim that competition has affected the marketplace so much that they just can no longer afford to reduce ticket prices any further. Really? We all know that last minute tickets with a flexible return date can often cost $1,000 or more! Thankfully three major US airlines are still committed to assisting folks during family medical emergencies. They are American Airlines, Northwest Airlines, and United Airlines.

Here are the steps you need to take to secure a bereavement or family medical emergency reduced rate airline ticket:

1) You must phone the airline’s reservation department. Contact American Airlines at 800-433-7300, Northwest Airlines at 800-225-2525, or United at 800-241-6522. Information for this type of ticket does not exist online. Airlines don’t even admit they have such fares on their websites! Tell the reservation agent that you need a medical emergency or bereavement reduced rate airline ticket and what the circumstances are.

2) You must be an immediate family member – sister, brother, parent, child, grandchild etc. If you have extenuating circumstances, by all means explain them to the agent, they have been known to bend the rules from time to time.

3) The airline agent will verify the information you are telling them, so have the following information at hand for verification: Your relative’s full name, Name and phone number of the funeral home
or Name and phone number of the hospital or medical facility, Name and phone number of the attending physician.

Flights should be able to be booked in the course of one phone call, so be prepared with your desired dates and times of travel before placing the phone call. If the first agent you speak with does not seem able or willing to deal with your request, end the call and dial in again. Finally, you may want to check on Priceline.com, Kayak.com and with low cost carriers that serve your area to see what a standard ticket would cost. You may find that there is a less expensive option available online than with a reduced rate bereavement ticket.

Emergency/Crisis Management Planning needs vary with the industry, type of operations, and regulatory applicability; however, the following guidelines can be used for any situation:

WHAT ARE YOUR HAZARDS?

The first step is to Identify vulnerabilities and hazards associated with your operation. No one understands your operation better than you. Ensure that emergency, business continuity, and security issues are considered and use this analysis to prioritize your plan development efforts.

You should consider the following topics, at a minimum: What are your vulnerabilities to natural disasters? Depending on the geographic scope of your operation, you may be subject to hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes. floods, ice storms, or all of these. How would your company continue to operate in the midst of a pandemic situation? What are the hazards introduced by your operation, and who may be impacted from a fire, release of hazardous material, oil spill, or explosion? Consider various events involving similar types of operations involving other entities, not the fact that it may have never happened in yours. In the event that your primary or corporate office becomes uninhabitable due to a fire, flood, hurricane, earthquake, power failure or other event, could your company to operate? What are your security vulnerabilities?

WHAT TYPE OF PLANS SHOULD BE DEVELOPED AND AT WHAT LEVEL?

The next step is to use the results of the Hazard Analysis performed above, and determine what plan types should be developed, and which should be developed on a facility level or corporate/enterprise-wide level. For instance, site-specific fire pre-plans may be valuable for buildings and storage tanks that contain flammable contents; business continuity plans may be applicable at the corporate level.

Example programs may include the following:

FACILITY LEVEL PLANS

Emergency Response Plans (industrial operations), Emergency Operations Plans (hospitals, schools and universities), Emergency Action Plans (office building) describing site-specific initial response and activations procedures for potential hazards. Fire Pre-Plans for buildings and process equipment, if applicable. SPCC, OPA 90 Plans, RCRA Contingency Plans, SWPPP and other regulatory plans for facilities that store oil.

CORPORATE/ENTERPRISE-LEVEL PLANS

Crisis Management Plans describing corporate procedures for supporting operational emergencies, and for responding to corporate crises, including security, product liability, financial and other reputation issues. Business Continuity Plans for corporate and regional offices Pandemic Plans (often included as a subset of Business Continuity Plans)

HOW SHOULD THE PLANS BE ORGANIZATION AND WHAT IS THE APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF DETAIL?

Identify applicable regulatory requirements and ensure that your program addresses them, but remember that the primary purposes of the plans are to enable your company to respond effectively, and in the process, to ensure compliance. A common mistake is to organize plans specifically to meet the order of the regulations, when in fact, this may not result in the most logical or user-friendly format. Keep in mind that some regulations require a specific plan format or order of content, however, in many cases there is flexibility to organize the plan differently, as long as a regulatory cross-reference is provided and clearly identifies where each requirement is addressed.

Develop plans in a logical format that will be intuitive to responders who may not have had time to review them or training. A good test is to provide the plan to someone outside the organization and find out how long it takes for them to find key response information.

Ensure that plan content is comprehensive enough to provide tools needed for a response but is not so detailed that it reduces the effectiveness of the plan and results in more plan maintenance than necessary. Consider providing references and/or hyperlinks to detailed technical or regulatory information that may be needed but is too detailed to include in the plan.

Develop the content in a streamlined format with the goal of reducing the time required to read it. Bullet points and checklists are favorable to paragraphs of information.

When you’re planning the trip of a lifetime, the last thing you want to think about is getting injured or ill while on your trip. However, accidents and injuries happen, and you need emergency medical insurance to help you get the best care possible while far away from home.

But Won’t My Health Insurance Cover Me?

If you have health insurance, you should definitely check your policy to see what coverage is available when you’re away from your home country. You will likely find that your regular health insurance offers no coverage or only 50% coverage for medical expenses. It likely will also not cover you if you need to be evacuated back home.

What Does Emergency Medical Insurance Cover?

It covers travel-related medical emergencies, whether you are a student studying abroad for several months, a businessperson, or a vacationer traveling for just a few days. In fact, you can purchase insurance for the exact number of days you’ll be gone.

When you purchase your emergency insurance, be sure to check that the policy:

* Covers any preexisting conditions you have

* Includes an emergency assistance phone number you can call to help you find a doctor or hospital if necessary

* Includes emergency medical evacuation

You can also choose whether you want the policy to include additional coverages for baggage insurance, trip cancellation insurance, and trip interruption insurance.

Finding a Cheap Policy

Fortunately, emergency travel insurance doesn’t cost a lot, often just a dollar or two a day. To get a cheap rate, go to an insurance comparison website. You can enter your travel information and insurance needs and you will then receive quotes from multiple A-rated insurance companies.

On the best comparison websites you can even chat online with insurance professionals and get answers to all your questions (see link below).