Good Sam TravelAssist Review

With travel assist services, you get to access services like return-home support, emergency travel support, medical emergency, and even medical evacuations. While these services are ideally meant to be a part of your medical cover, most insurance companies never pay for them as numerous restrictions are surrounding them.

A good example of a dedicated emergency evacuation program for travelers is the Good Sam TravelAssist one. We all know Good Sam for the good work they do in roadside assistance and it’s quite encouraging to see that they have diversified their services to cover this gray area as well.

Service Overview

The idea behind this coverage is that medical emergencies can occur at any place and at any time. However, the effects of such emergencies can be detrimental when you are miles away from home. And this is where the TravelAssist program comes in handy.

If you get unwell while traveling, you simply need to contact them through a toll-free number. They have a resident medical director who will work hand in hand with your treating physician to decide if you should be transported or not.

The good thing with this program is that it covers you whether within or outside the US. So, no matter where you go (and whether you’re in your RV or not), this service will be there for you. That sounds quite good for globetrotters!

But there are a few limits also. For instance, the company will not assist you if they learn that you traveled against your physician’s advice. Plus if you have enrolled for the Individual cover, only you will be evacuated – your spouse and kids are covered under different, more expensive packages.

So, it’s cheap for singles and more expensive for families. What perks do you get when you secure this cover?

Medical Assistance

In case you’re traveling and you get a medical emergency, the good guys from Goodsam will make arrangements to get you the care you need. What’s more? They’ll continually monitor your health condition and work with your medical practitioner to decide whether to take you to the nearest hospital or return you home.

And as if that’s not enough, if you’re traveling alone and feel that you need to have a family member by your side following the medical emergency, they’ll make that happen as well. This is a great addition especially for folks who like to travel alone.

On top of all that, you also get the following medical care services under the Travel Assist program.

• Translation services
• Medical referrals
• Transfer of medical records & insurance information
• Cash advances
• Arrangements for trip adjustments

We think that all these extra services are quite important during travel, especially outside the country. You can’t afford to gamble with your health especially when in a region that’s unknown to you.

RV Care & Driving Back

What happens to your RV once you’re evacuated to safety? Ordinarily, the RV would be left stranded until you send someone to pick it but with GoodSam you get two choices.

The first choice is to have a family member come over to take the RV home – at GoodSam’s expense. Yup, you read that right. Plus that family member will get a daily allowance of $100 to reimburse them for any incidental expenses.

If the option of sending a family member to drive the RV back home doesn’t sound good to you, the company will provide their very own insured and certified drivers to drive it for you. How cool is that?

Family Care

So, you’re traveling upcountry and the rest of your family barely have access to you how do you make sure they are aware of how you’re progressing? With the TravelAssist program, the close members of your family will receive updates about your status every so often.

And if you were traveling with your children, they won’t leave them stranded as well. They ensure that they’re driven home safely.

As we had already mentioned, the TravelAssist plan also makes arrangements to get a family member by your side in case you need that as well.

Should the unfortunate happen and you lose your loved one during the trip, this company will also have the remains returned safely.

Pet Care

If you read the fine print of some of the competing travel assistance services out there, you’re bound to realize that they come with quite some crazy terms. For instance, some of them don’t kick in until you’ve been inside a hospital for a week!

In other words, if you own a pet, they’ll be left stranded and starving for a week. Can your lovely pooch or kitten survive that long without food?

The key difference with the TravelAssist program is that it kicks in immediately. And that means they’ll care for your pet even if something happens to you.

This might not seem like a big deal until you have to spend several days in the hospital bed wondering what happened to your pet. We feel that just having this safety net is well worth it.

Pros

• Great customer support
• Wide variety of features provided
• Available in different tiers so you can choose one that’s best for you
• Provided by a reliable company that has been around for a few decades
• Awesome support for close family members
• They take good care of your pet if there’s no one else to take care of it
• The coverage extends to outside the US borders
• Your health history doesn’t matter

Cons

• They won’t step in if you travel against your doctor’s advice or travel advisory
• Some medical covers already have emergency evacuation services catered for already

Final Thoughts

The Good Sam Travel Assist package is good but not perfect. We’d look forward to them adding more concierge perks in the future to make the deal even sweeter. Otherwise, for now, this deal is just good enough to ensure that you have peace of mind even as you venture into territories you know little about.

The RV Nomad