By Everett Potter

When the term medical flight is mentioned, most people envision some unlucky climber being airlifted from Everest Base Camp. They don’t think of someone like my father-in-law, who contracted Legionnaire’s Disease in his late 70’s while traveling in Estonia a decade ago.

Yes, he did have travel insurance, but like most such policies, it provided for him to be transported to the nearest, best medical facility, which in his case was a gloomy Soviet-era hospital that lay about a mile from where had slipped into a coma. When his wife asked the insurance company to fly him home on a medical flight to Chicago, the company replied that such transportation wasn’t covered under their travel insurance policy. However, they could certainly arrange it, for the going rate of $70,000.

What my in-laws needed, but did not have, was an air medical transport and crisis response membership. A number of companies, such as Global Rescue and Ripcord offer these plans. But ever since my in-laws ill-fated episode in Estonia, I’ve had a membership with a company called Medjet … read more