Now that I’m 70 years old, I have the pleasure of being targeted with age discrimination by travel insurance companies.
Travel medical insurance is something I recommend to all travelers. Without it, you take risks venturing out into the world that could have serious ramifications for both your physical and economic health.
But many insurance companies charge more money for insurance to senior travelers, or or offer similarly priced policies that have less coverage.
After age 69, some companies won’t insure a senior traveler at any cost. Popular travel budget travel insurers Safety Wing and World Nomads are two examples.
Safety Wing even has a graduated monthly rate that increases every 10 years after age 39 from $42 to $144.76 for travelers 60 to 69 years old.
The rising cost of travel medical insurance for travelers the older they get is left largely unexplained.
Insurance companies will tell you it’s because older people cost more to insure. Yet they provide no data, studies or evidence to substantiate the claim. They make the assertion as a truism and rely on consumers simply to assume it’s so.
But in fact, the practice amounts to ageism, which the World Health Organization defines as “stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination against people on the basis of their age.” Just like “race”-ism or “sex”-ism, or other “isms” we try to erase in a civil society.
Why are senior citizens asked to pay more for travel insurance? Why aren’t their claims records, medical history, or overall physical health, taken into account as individuals before assigning a higher rate than a younger person pays?
Doesn’t your automobile insurance policy cost more if you’re making multiple claims for accidents, whatever your age? Don’t life insurance companies want to know if you smoke? And charge more if you do?
Since I last wrote about ageism in the travel insurance industry, I’ve found some information that begins to dismantle the raft of hollow assertions the industry likes to keep afloat about the higher costs of insurance for senior travelers.
If you think the insurance industry can justify its false claims about insuring senior travelers, read what happened to Australian traveler Bill Metcalf.
Metcalf, a healthy historian, research scientist and enthusiastic hiker, was curious about why his insurance doubled as soon as he turned 70. Metcalf then spent two years in a legal tangle with his insurer trying to find the answer.
No evidence has ever surfaced that justifies the assertion that older people cost more to insure than younger people. If it existed, you would think it in the insurers’ best interest to reveal it.
Metcalf first checked the law in Australia and found that insurers could, indeed, discriminate due of age, but only with sound statistical and actuarial data that justified the discrimination.
At first, Metcalf’s insurer ignored his requests for the data, but he persisted. Eventually he was given a document, but it made no sense.
Metcalf went for help to the Australian government ’s administrative agency for insurance and agency officials agreed. The data made no sense.
The insurer then offered Metcalf a free insurance policy if only he’d go away, but by then he was in it for the principle, not personal gain.
The insurer upped its offer to a lifetime of free insurance policies. Metcalf again said no deal.
The insurer’s team of attorneys began dragging the case along with a barrage of legal tactics. Metcalf used the delays to assemble his own experts and a pro bono legal team.
With both sides armed for full battle, the insurer finally caved. It knew there was no good reason for what it was doing except to increase its profit. It was gouging seniors because it could, and because no one had ever challenged the practice.
The insurer was forced to publicly admit that it had discriminated against Metcalf on the basis of age in charging double for the same policy once he turned 70. The company also agreed to review its policies and procedures, and to cover the costs of Metcalf’s two experts.
Unfortunately, this is the ruse that insurance companies have been getting away with for far too long and continue to get away with. No evidence has ever surfaced that justifies the assertion that older people cost more to insure than younger people. If it existed, you would think it in the insurers’ best interest to reveal it.
While the industry likes to lead the public into believing that the older you are, the bigger your health risk, at least one study by a reputable academic demonstrates that age does not cause disease, and that seniors who take care of their health can live long lives without debilitating illnesses that drive up insurance costs
The study’s author, Marion E T McMurdo, emeritus professor and head of Ageing and Health at the University of Dundee, Scotland, found it a “pervasive misconception” that all the ills of old age are the result of ‘just your age’.
McMurdo made these key points:
- Although older people have poorer health than younger people, aging does not cause disease
- Older people with better health habits live healthier for longer
- Regular physical activity in old age can “rejuvenate” physical capacity by 10-15 years
- Research is needed on incentives and opportunities for older people to adopt a healthy lifestyle
Yet all seniors are blanketed with higher rates for travel insurance because many of them don’t take care of their health as they age.
Meanwhile, health-minded seniors are paying for the unhealthy habits of others as studies like Professor McMurdo’s get buried and insurers bully their way through the lack of public information with their baseless claims.
“This is a bummer … because while you have control over lifestyle, habits, the ability to eat (well), exercise, meditate, destress, etc., you have no control of your birthdate. Is it a fair system? Absolutely not.
— Matt “Nomadic Matt” KEPNES
Even Matt Kepnes, author of the best-selling books “10 Years A Nomad,” and “How To Travel The World On Less Than $50 A Day,” candidly acknowledges that ageism exists in the insurance industry despite insurers’ affiliations with The Nomadic Network, Kepnes’ successful online travel site.
“The travel insurance industry is ageist just like the health insurance industry as a whole is ageist,” Kepnes said recently in a request to comment for this post.
“It’s not a secret that the biggest factor that influences your health insurance quote will be your age. Health insurance companies use this to judge your likelihood to need medical care and insurance payouts.
“This is a bummer,” Kepnes added, “because while you have control over lifestyle, habits, the ability to eat (well), exercise, meditate, destress, etc., you have no control of your birthdate. Is it a fair system? Absolutely not.
“Maybe it will change though,” Kepnes added, “and a company will see an untapped market and not just a risk pool.”
I’d welcome a response from any insurers who read this post. Most decline to discuss the topic, however. And the telephone reps try to laugh it off when I bring it up while discussing policies. I respond politely but firmly that it is not a laughing matter. It is serious, and it unfairly costs me money.
Next time you might ask your insurer: Why do they charge more the older you are? Or why do they cut travelers off from insurance completely at a certain age? Aren’t these examples of discrimination? Against seniors?
In another word, ageism?
This is an eye-opening post.
It’s time to cause trouble for the insurance companies…”good trouble”!
Perhaps insurance companies have “divested” themselves of the actuaries that for decades have crunched numbers on topics exactly like this one just as newspapers have “divested” themselves of copy editors, having the paginators do that job, composing rooms, things like that which make a better product but cut into profitability. And without actuaries providing actual data, use “truisms” to justify ageism — all increasing the bottom line for shareholders at the expense of policyholders. Well done, sir, and a happy New Year to you and safe travels, always!