
Do You Need Travel Medical Insurance? / Disaster Relief Scams
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Clark Howard
I'm so glad you're with us here on the Clark Howard Show. You know, our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. And you know, I love to travel. I take several trips a year outside the US really privileged, and I get a lot of questions about trip insurance. But there's something that almost nobody thinks about that's become so very important in terms of insurance for a trip. I'm going to talk about that in just a second. And later, who can't be touched in your heart about the terrible tragedy and loss of life in the Texas floods? Those floods so often happens in a disaster situation in the United States. You see the absolute best in people who do everything they can to step forward and make a difference. But you also get to see the worst in people. And because of those campers, those kids, the scamsters are worse than normal after a disaster. And they're trying to rip you off, pretending that you're donating, pulling at your heartstrings to help the people in the Texas flood zone. But I'm going to tell you what to look out for now and after any disaster so that your money that you work so hard for goes to what you actually intend it to. And that's coming up later. So let's talk about a different disaster. You're traveling on a trip outside the United States and you got hurt, badly injured, or you got really ill. Is that something people are thinking about as they're planning a trip? No way. You're not thinking about that. Friend of mine was telling me a story about a friend of hers who was in a poor country doing missionary work and she took a Bad fall, was severely injured and had to be airlifted out of the country and flown to a country with good medical care to provide care. She's okay now. But the bills were unbelievable, just unbelievable bills. Do you know that most of us are not covered by our health insurance or if you're on Medicare, you're usually not covered when you leave the United States to travel elsewhere. And people will buy ask me all these questions about trip cancellation policies, trip insurance and they're worried about their deposits. They paid the advance payments, the non refundable part of the trip, that kind of thing. But very rarely unless somebody has first person knowledge of, of somebody who ended up in a bad way overseas and it turned out oops, they had no insurance. This is something that almost nobody takes care of and we've written about that on clark.com for years. I want to bring a profile to it here because this is serious stuff. If you're not covered outside the United States unless you're just rolling in money, if you have to have a medevac out, you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. You could end up in a hospital with really expensive bills. And do you know in a lot of developing countries if you were in that hospital and it's time for you to be discharged, they will not let you leave. If you can't pay your bill, they keep you as a prisoner there until you come up with the money. This isn't a joke. I mean it's really what happens. So I know there's so much noise in life, so many things we have to take care of, so many details. If you're someone who's lucky enough to get to take a really great trip somewhere else in the world, please. When you're thinking about trip insurance for the tour or whatever want you to also see what coverage do you have with health insurance outside the U.S. what coverage do you have if you need a medevac and if you find out the answer is none and none then this is part of your decision making process on insurance.
Caller
Krista okay, we'll go to question Seth in Indiana says Clark. What is the point of using different travel websites owned by the same entity? It it looks like Booking and Expedia own a large majority of travel deal websites. Are they all just playing games with pricing options? If I go to trivago or hotels.com shouldn't I find the same pricing as using Expedia? Who owns those two? Also it seems a lot of people online recommend finding and booking travel directly through the airline hotel site. As it's often the same price or cheaper. Is this your experience or do you find better deals using these types of companies?
Clark Howard
Seth, thank you for asking this question. Booking Travel has gotten much more complicated than it used to be because of what you're talking about, the consolidation and owners. Now, ironically enough, Booking is the parent company of Priceline and they own some other brands as well, as you point out. Seth and I will look at the prices in a city on both, and they're never the same at the same hotel. I mean, it's crazy how the pricing stuff operates. Expedia has hotels.com and they will have a different price on a hotel than you see the same hotel on Expedia. I mean, come on, it is unusually complicated. What I do find, though, is that it's very rare that I find my best deal at a hotel's own website. That if I shop around a lot and if I do find the best deal on a hotel's website, I'm in. But most of the time I am finding better deals at alternate sites. Now, if you're a longtime listener or viewer, you know that I used to book roughly 90% round numbers of my hotel stays on Priceline. That's no longer true.
Caller
That was when you used to bid.
Clark Howard
Yeah, Priceline used to have a significant price advantage because of the opaqueness of it, meaning you don't know what hotel you're staying at. Although on Priceline, when they had the bids, there were ways that most people could figure it out if they were regular users, what hotel it would be. I stay away from Hotwire, which I think is also owned by Expedia. Maybe I stay away from Hotwire because I don't trust their star levels they list for hotels. So now I'm much more a free agent on hotel bookings. I'd say I'm down to using Priceline. Maybe half of the bookings I do a year, I book for myself and other family members at least 200 hotel nights a year. So it's funny. I have enough bookings that I have status on hotels.com I have third level genius, which I think is the highest level on booking. I'm the highest level on Priceline on these programs because I'm booking enough. And then that plays a role in me getting supposedly lower rates. But the hotel thing requires a lot of patience, a lot of shopping. And then I throw more disappointment in you by telling you you have to go reshop that hotel weeks before you go. And almost always I then rebook the hotel because it'll get cheaper. I never ever book a non refundable room in advance because almost always my plans will change. But more often what happens is hotel prices drop closer to travel.
Caller
This one's from Adam in Colorado. I was curious if you could make any recommendations on jobs or professions that still offer pensions. I'm aware that many teachers and healthcare professionals still have pensions, but without those skill sets, are there jobs that might also include one?
Clark Howard
The greatest category I know of are utilities, large utilities that generally the rates are set on a cost plus basis by government. For the utilities, they tend to have wonderful pension plans. They are like the last refuge for pension plans. There was a time that people thought that the airline industry would be the last refuge for pensions and now they're pretty much gone. In the airline industry they are a rare bird. I think it's 6% of non governmental employees in the country at this point have pensions. A lot of companies that have had pensions over the years have either cut back on the generosity of their pensions or or frozen them, meaning that future hires are not eligible. So it's very, very rare. But the big power companies are one of the best places that you will still find pensions out there that I know of. Somebody else may have a suggestion of another industry that I've forgotten to mention.
Caller
All right. Ann in Georgia says In December of 2024 Clark mentioned really liking the carry on suitcase he got at Sam's Club. I went looking for it at my Sam's Club but no luck. You please give me the name of the suitcase. My husband is in need of one and if it gets the Clark thumbs up then it is goodbye him.
Clark Howard
Okay, I'm looking right now. It is a member's mark suitcase that's only sold online.
Caller
Members mark is Sam's private label. Private label.
Clark Howard
So if you go there you'll find the members mark hard side carry on Spinner suitcase 69.98 and then they have a fancier version that's for road warriors that go on two or three night trips and don't want to carry a backpack as well. It has an outer compartment for your laptop. That one's $89. And then they sell a two piece set that is a big. How do you say that word? When they have a big check bag and the carry on in combination for 139. So Sam's club does not sell a lot of luggage in the store. It's not big with their customer base, but they tend to sell a lot of things online and with members mark that they don't sell in the store and that's why you did not see the luggage there. And you'll see it if you go to Sam's club.com you know, I I talked about at the top of this podcast and YouTube show how upsetting it is that there are people who are such sociopaths that they think nothing more than playing off a tragedy to rip people off. And I'm going to talk about how you protect yourself with your hard earned money straight ahead.
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Clark Howard
Ouch.
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Clark Howard
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Caller
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Clark Howard
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Clark Howard
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Clark Howard
See mintmobile.com it's hard to even talk about those images so many of us have seen online or somewhere else, of the sweet children who got swept away in those terrible floods in Texas. And so many people have come forward to help in any way they can. At the same Time I just get so angry, infuriated by the scamsters that roll in after every disaster, appeal to your heart, you're loving, you're caring, and rip you off. I was on a investment company website the other day and what made me think about wanting to talk about this is they had a special warning on the website warning people about scams involving relief for the Texas floods. I've never seen that before on a financial website after a natural disaster in the country. But it just brings up the point that comes up again and again and again and again and again. After every single disaster, the con artists, the crooks come out of the woodwork when people's houses have been damaged. What they call the travelers, the scammers come in that take advantage of people's desperation to want things back right now like they were before disaster hit, and con them out of money doing either shoddy work or no work at all and just vanish. And then the people with the supposed fake charities that solicit the con artists with the GoFundMe pages, how do you know? I mean, it's so hard when you see, oh, you, you can go this gofundme and give this money. How do you know it's really going to what it's supposed to? You got to be so careful with that. But with the charity thing, that's the easiest to protect your hard earned money from being scammed out of. Whenever you're solicited, you want information, real information at a roadside or with a text you're receiving or whatever. And if somebody's soliciting you for money following a tragedy, as much as it touches your heart, you don't then give right then. Unless you know the individual who's seeking this money, you know the organization they're from, you can so easily see if an organization's legit. But when somebody stops you in a shopping center parking lot, it says, help us now with Texas storm relief, flood relief, whatever. How you going to know it's real? You don't, you don't. If you want to do something, you be active and make sure you're giving to a legit organization. So easy this is with any charitable solicitation, but especially important after a major disaster. I mean, you've got the sites I talk about give.org and you got Charity Watch, Charity Navigator that check out charities, make sure they're legit, make sure they're the real deal, and then more important, that the money is spent wisely, efficiently, that the money you give is not going to fundraisers or staff salaries. It's going actually to the people you're trying to help. It takes just a couple of minutes to make sure that when your heart says give that you get it aligned where your head knows where your heart sending you is good.
Caller
Okay.
Clark Howard
I wish there was some kind of special prison we could send the people who do these cons following a tragedy.
Caller
It's terrible. All right. Megan in Wisconsin says our half finished basement flooded three months ago due to sump pump and battery backup failure.
Guild Advertiser
Oh.
Caller
We had a restoration company come out for the remediation and restoration. We ended up needing to get our carpet replaced and were quoted 5.99 a square foot from our insurance company. We later learned this price included installation.
Clark Howard
Wait, that's $54 a yard. Is that right? Is it times nine? That's a lot.
Caller
We picked out a carpet at $5.49 a square foot without installation with a local flooring company that the restoration company works with. The saleswoman stated probably five to ten times that we would get a discount off that price. On the final quote from the restoration company, it stated the cost was 549 a square foot for the carpet, let alone the cost of the install. We have to pay $1,200 out of pocket because with install we went over the insurance company's limit. We talked to the carpet saleswoman who said to talk to the restoration company that she can't send us pricing details but assured us we did get a discount. We spoke to the restoration company saying the carpet company stated we would get a discount on the carpet price. The project manager said that the pricing terms between the companies is confidential, but that we are getting a great deal with their bulk buying power.
Clark Howard
Oh yeah. Huh. Not exactly.
Caller
549 minus a discount does not equal 549. Is this legal? It feels like they're milking us and our insurance company for extra profit. What should we have done differently to avoid?
Clark Howard
Well, you're not done here. I want you to do a few things right here now, Megan. One, I want you to see if you can arrange a three way phone call with the restoration company and the carpet company. They're playing you right now and that's got to stop. Restoration company says oh yeah, they owe you a discount. The carpet company says yeah, we gave you a discount there. Somebody's lying. You need to put them both on the spot. They need to figure this out. You are not the one to be stuck with the short end of the stick here. The carpet company itself. Go to bbb.org file a complaint against them there. If they are just, they're just unethical people, that won't do you any good at all. But if they're worried about their reputation, the complaint with the BBB bbb.org may get you some results on this out of pocket. But I love first you getting the three way phone call with the restoration company and the carpet company. The very least the restoration company doesn't want to have a bad rep and they're getting a bad rep. Carpet people are getting a bad rep and you got to push both of them to do what's right by you. You know, after unexpected bad event like this. The idea of insurance is to make you whole. You're not whole at all here. And you also should tell the insurance company that the restoration company and the carpet company have left you short here. And they may have some levers they can push as well. But start with a three way phone call.
Caller
Jeff in Mississippi says ebay wants my Social Security number or a tax ID number so they don't have to take taxes out of everything. Anything I sell, I don't sell that much, just on occasion. Is this safe for me to do? They're bugging the mess out of me.
Clark Howard
Okay, Jeff, this is because of congressional statute. It was just revised. I talked about this the other day. And so the tax ID reporting is required of the sellers. This isn't them trying to get one over on you. It's what the law now requires. So the idea is that a lot of people sell on ebay and they're running a business, not just getting rid of something old at a loss they had. And so the feds want to make sure they get their tax dollars. So the trigger for when ebay would turn around and send you a 1099 and send it on to the IRS is when you have a certain number of transactions, which is, I remember right, 200 transactions a year or over $20,000 in sales in a year on ebay. Now if you're selling stuff that's personal, you're not making money on it. All you do is you report it and you back it out of your tax return, meaning that it will generate no tax in a situation where this is not a profit making business.
Caller
Dave in Florida says my car insurer recently added an included service called accident response. Should I be in a vehicle accident based on the impact it causes to my phone, I assume this is how it works. It will trigger a series of responses from my insurer. In the worst case scenario, in which I don't respond after impact, they will dispatch emergency help. This all sounds good. However, in order to activate the service, I need to download their app. No problem. And must have the privacy setting for location set to always on. Is this service worth having? My insurance company having the ability to track and collect my data, my every move? I would like your thoughts.
Clark Howard
Okay, so Dave, I'm already familiar with this because I've had another question about accident response. So what's going on here? If you read the terms and conditions of it, as I have done, they are able to use that information against you. Let's say you have an accident. They then are using all the data to say, well you were doing this or you were doing that or you were doing the other. And so for that reason this is the if then we're going to cancel you as an insured after this, we're going to do this, that or the other. To you. You are giving up a lot of privacy when you participate. Accident response I think is a brand name of one of the insurers, but they're not the only ones that are doing this thing with the terms of service, meaning that you open Pandora's box, eliminating any expectation of privacy with them as an auto insurer. So I would say it sounds great that they're going to be there for you when the chips could really be down. You're injured, you're by the side of the road, you're not conscious, whatever know that they say that. They don't also tell you they're doing a lot of invasion of privacy as part of it. So you make your own choice. I wouldn't want it. I want to thank you so much for joining us today. I hope that you have a wonderful rest of your day and we will be back at your service on Friday with Clark Stinks coming your way. And what a joy it is for me to share part of your day with with you on this YouTube show and podcast. Thank you. And know that everything we do@clark.com clarkdeals, our social media, our newsletters, TV and radio and markets where I'm seen and heard, everything is about your empowerment with knowledge so that you can save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off. I'll see you Friday.
The Clark Howard Podcast – Episode Released August 13, 2025 Episode Title: Do You Need Travel Medical Insurance? / Disaster Relief Scams
In this insightful episode of The Clark Howard Podcast, host Clark Howard delves into the critical topics of travel medical insurance and the pervasive issue of disaster relief scams. Through expert advice, real-life examples, and engaging listener questions, Clark equips listeners with the knowledge to make informed financial decisions and protect themselves from fraudulent schemes.
[00:53] Clark Howard
Clark begins by addressing a frequently overlooked aspect of travel planning: medical insurance coverage abroad. Highlighting personal experiences and listener inquiries, he emphasizes the potential financial and legal ramifications of traveling without adequate medical protection.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
"If you can't pay your bill, they keep you as a prisoner there until you come up with the money." – Clark Howard ([03:00])
Advice: Clark urges travelers to thoroughly assess their existing health insurance and consider comprehensive travel medical insurance to avoid unexpected financial burdens.
[11:30] Clark Howard
Transitioning to a more somber topic, Clark addresses the rise of scams following natural disasters, using the tragic Texas floods as a poignant example. He underscores the dual nature of human behavior in such times—heroic efforts juxtaposed with opportunistic fraud.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
"After every single disaster, the con artists, the crooks come out of the woodwork when people's houses have been damaged." – Clark Howard ([15:00])
Advice:
[05:40] Caller: Seth from Indiana
Seth inquires about the complexities of booking travel through various websites owned by the same parent companies, questioning the consistency of pricing across platforms like Booking.com, Expedia, and their subsidiaries.
Clark’s Response:
Notable Quote:
"It's unusually complicated. What I do find, though, is that it's very rare that I find my best deal at a hotel's own website." – Clark Howard ([07:00])
[09:35] Caller: Adam from Colorado
Adam seeks recommendations for professions outside of teaching and healthcare that still offer pension plans.
Clark’s Response:
Notable Quote:
"Large power companies are one of the best places that you will still find pensions out there that I know of." – Clark Howard ([09:55])
[11:03] Caller: Ann from Georgia
Ann requests the name of a carry-on suitcase that Clark previously recommended, which she couldn't locate in her local Sam’s Club.
Clark’s Response:
Notable Quote:
"If you go there you'll find the Members Mark hard side carry on Spinner suitcase for $69.98." – Clark Howard ([11:20])
[19:10] Caller: Megan from Wisconsin
Megan shares her frustration with inflated carpet replacement costs following a basement flood, questioning the legality and ethics of the restoration and insurance companies involved.
Clark’s Response:
Notable Quote:
"You need to put them both on the spot. They need to figure this out." – Clark Howard ([20:00])
[22:18] Caller: Jeff from Mississippi
Jeff expresses concern over eBay’s request for his Social Security Number or Tax ID, fearing potential privacy breaches.
Clark’s Response:
Notable Quote:
"This isn't them trying to get one over on you. It's what the law now requires." – Clark Howard ([22:31])
[23:48] Caller: Dave from Florida
Dave questions the privacy implications of his car insurer's new accident response service, which requires constant location tracking.
Clark’s Response:
Notable Quote:
"You are giving up a lot of privacy when you participate." – Clark Howard ([24:25])
In this episode, Clark Howard effectively underscores the importance of proactive financial planning, whether it's securing adequate travel insurance or safeguarding against post-disaster fraud. Through practical advice and thoughtful analysis, listeners are empowered to navigate complex financial landscapes with confidence and caution.
Resources Mentioned:
Stay Connected: For more tips and personalized advice, listeners are encouraged to visit Clark’s website or submit their questions directly at www.clark.com/askclark.
This summary is intended to provide a comprehensive overview of the discussed topics in the podcast episode and does not include advertisements, intros, outros, or non-content segments.