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You might be in deep love with your current medical insurance. But this will fall pretty short once you’re on an upcountry camping tour in your RV or trailer. And that’s where services like Good Sam Travel Assist pop up.
If you’ve heard of it before, you might have some basics on it. If not, it’s a healthcare and medical coverage service from Good Sam Travel Assist for registered RVers. It covers a handful of essentials and emergency that involves you(the RVer), your family, and your pet as well.
But that’s merely enough to express what this travel assistance service is all about. Therefore, we’ve crafted an entire Good Sam Travel Assist review to discuss the nitty-gritty of this service on your next RV trip.
Sounds interesting? Let’s jump in, shall we?
Good Sam Travel Assist: The Plans and Coverage
So, what is this travel assist service from Good Sam? Well, Good Sam Travel Assist is a subsidiary of Good Sam Enterprise LLC, known for a wide variety of travel and vehicle warranty programs across the USA. Before jumping into the details, you need to know what this service offers and how widespread the coverage of these services is. Hence, for understanding it better, we’re going to split the discussion into two sections-
- Good Sam Travel Assist Plans
- Good Sam Travel Assist Coverage
Good Sam Travel Assist Plans
Before going into the plans, let’s have a brief on the list of services included here-
- Emergency medical transport.
- Emergency medical monitoring.
- RV drive-back service.
- Pet care and return assistance.
- Transporting the user to home.
- Prescription and glasses replacement.
Now, there are four plans in which these services are split into. Not all of the plans contain all of these services, and the number of persons to cover is also variable. Here is a glimpse of all of these plans and the what’s what of them-
All of these plans can be automatically renewed just in case you’re happy with their service. In the case of auto-renewal, there will be a 10% discount to enjoy. Also, based on seasonality, they offer a certain percentage of discounts on each of the plans. It can be up to 50% based on when you’re enrolling in.
Good Sam Travel Assist Coverage
Now that you know about their diversity of plans, it’s time to dig deep into what actually they are covering in each of their services. To make things simpler, we’ve taken four of the core factors of Good Sam travel to assist service, and broken down the coverage in depth. Have a look-
Regular Medical Coverage
- Provides emergency pre-existing medical condition coverage.
- Emergency medical evacuation reimbursement cost limit is up to $50,000
Emergency Medical Coverage
- Includes hospitals, doctors, or other licensed medical care expertise.
- Emergency medical repatriation.
- Transporting the children to the home.
- Emergency prescription replacement.
- Emergency eyeglass replacement.
- Arrange payments for medical costs.
Trip Interruption or Cancellation Coverage
- Any kind of illness, injury, or death of the traveler.
- Any kind of illness, injury, or death of a family member of the family.
Baggage Coverage
- This covers any lost, damaged, or stolen baggage.
Other Travel Assistance Service Coverage
- Returning the travel arrangement.
- Cash is provided on an emergency basis.
- Translation service.
- Other roadside assistance.
An In-depth Insight of Each Service By Them
By now, you might have known that the Good Sam travel assist service covers not one but a number of services for RVers on the go. In this section, we’ll go through a brief description of each of these service coverages, and see what’s what.
Service 1 of 4: Medical Assistance Service
It’s quite a frequent incident that you get sick in the middle of your RV trip. As long as you’re under coverage by Good Sam travel assist service, these guys will reach out to you with medical support as soon as you make a call to their toll-free number.
What they cover under this part of their service are-
- Medical referrals.
- Transfer of medical insurances and past records.
- Translation service.
- Trip adjustment arrangement.
- Cash advances.
And this will continue until you get better, or they decide to take you to the nearest hospital for better treatment. Even if you’re alone on the trip, and suddenly feel the essence of one of your family members, they’ll manage to do that as well. All of these might come very handy in case you’re traveling in a tough season, or out of the country where you’re not used to the climate.
Service 2 of 4: Driving Back Service
This interesting part of their service takes care of your RV and its journey back to its garage. What we mean is, due to physical condition or so, you might be taken back to the hospital or home all of a sudden. And that’s where the question pops up about- who will take the RV back to home or garage(if it’s a rental).
About taking the RV back, Good Sam provides you with two fine options. First, you can have one of your family members drive it back, and the company will bear all the expenses. Even they’d give him/her $100/day compensation for the on-road expenses.
If you’re in doubt about the safety of the family member driving an RV back, here comes the next choice. On the second option, they’ll have their own driver to drive your RV back. All you need to do is agree with them.
Service 3 of 4: Family Care Service
If you’re traveling alone or traveling, keeping some of your family members back at home, you’d love to hear what this part of Good Sam’s Travel Assist service has to offer.
When you’re on the road visiting out of your state or even country, you might not always be in touch with your kitsch and kin back at home. To keep them free of any worries regarding this, Good Sam will update them on your behalf about your location, trip progress, and even other important news.
As we said before, the company can also arrange to bring one of your family members to you while you’re on the RV. And that’s also a part of Good Sam’s attempt to keep you and your family members close when you’re not.
Service 4 of 4: Pet Care Service
While doing and caring so much about you, your health, your family members, why leave the beloved pet behind? Good Sam had this thought crossed their mind, and that’s what made them bring up this pet care service.
So, what’s in it about caring for your pet while you’re on an RV trip?
Suppose you’re in a sudden medical condition that needs you to be hospitalized. What many other road care services would do is- they won’t reach you until you admit yourself into a hospital. In the meantime, your furred friend or the kitty can be left starving in the RV for days and even weeks.
With Good Sam, the scenario is the complete opposite. Once they get a red signal from you, they’ll get to where you are within the shortest span of time. And once they reach you, they will take proper care of you, but they won’t take an eye off your pet(s) as well.
Hence, both of you and your pet will be under proper surveillance to make sure that nothing bad happens to either of you.
Pros
- Coverage for a single person to the family (plus pets).
- Affordable pricing policy with frequent discounts.
- Good customer support on demand.
- The coverage contains a variety of emergency needs.
- A decade-long brand value that you can trust.
- Coverage across all of the USA.
- It also covers outside of USA borders just in case.
- Good communication connects you and your family.
- The care and coverage are independent of your health history.
- On-spot physician in case of accidents or sickness.
- They are friendly to your pet as well.
- Discount on yearly renewal of the service.
Cons
- The coverage will not be there in case you travel while you’re not prescribed to.
- Some of their medical coverage might be already covered by your health insurance. So, it will be a double cost on that side.
Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)
Q) Who needs a Good Sam TravelAssist?
Any camping and RV-enthusiasts who’d love to travel with safety for himself/herself and also concerned about the assurance of the family back at home- is a good potential user of Good Sam TravelAssist service.
Q) What makes Good Sam TravelAssist different from another medical assistance program?
Good Sam Travel Assist service offers quite a few advantages over typical medical or health insurance service or other roadside assistance providers. For example, it provides emergency medical transport, flights back home after an emergency, the return of deceased remains, coverage for extended family, and so on. This all makes this travel assist service unique from others.
Q) How do I use Good Sam TravelAssist once I’m enrolled?
Getting into the service beneficiary group is quite easy. After you enroll, there will be a welcome kit with official credentials from the Good Sam Travel Assist authority. There will be documents that help you understand the services better.
Once there is some emergency that is within the coverage of this service, you first call 911- the emergency number and then call the Good Sam Travel Assist toll-free number. They’ll be by you within the shortest timespan they can.
Q) Who decides if I should be transported?
When there will be a medical emergency that Good Sam Travel Assist is supposed to take care of, there will be an authorized physician on site. Upon his recommendation, it will be decided whether you’ll be transported or not.
Q) In the case of a travel emergency, how long does it take Good Sam TravelAssist to move me to another hospital?
The answer to the question depends on many, many factors. Based on where you are from the nearest Good Sam Travel Assist point, and what kind of emergency you are in, they will provide their effort to reach you as quickly as possible. Based on your condition, they’ll either shift you to the nearest hospital or transport you back to home in an economy class seat.
Q) If my whole family is caught in a travel emergency, are you able to provide evacuation service for all of us?
In case you want such kind of coverage for your whole family during a trip, you need to go for the family package that we’ve mentioned earlier. If so, they’d be able to provide emergency care for the whole family. Otherwise not.
Q) If I have a medical emergency and can’t drive, will my RV or other vehicle be stranded?
Under the Good Sam Travel Assist service, there are two kinds of options for such situations. Firstly, they will provide you with a driver on the spot who’d drive your RV back to home when you are not in a condition to do it by yourself. And secondly, you can ask them to bring one of your family members to drive the RV back to you. In the second case, they’ll provide that person with a daily allowance of $100.
Final Verdict
Well, that’s the end of today’s Good Sam Travel Assist review from an RVer’s point of view. Although there are a handful of services that are similar to this, we found the customers of this one pretty happy for the long term. Also, the Good Sam family has a lot more to offer you, just in case you are happy to deal with them.
So, in case you’ve not been with any of their services before, we’d say that the Good Sam Travel Assist would be a good one to start with. Happy camping!
