Monthly Archives: December 2012

TRAVEL EMERGENCY INSURANCES

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TIPS ON BUYING TRAVEL INSURANCE

For travel medical emergency or any other travel insurance, my advice is, if you travel from the USA or Canada, try not to buy insurance in North America – be it via a travel agency or some local banks or insurance companies, or online.

My experience has taught me, to get far better deals buying the insurance either in Europe or wherever you travel to, in that country.

I buy everything on the Internet, be it air line tickets or hotels, resorts, travel packages or insurance for the trip.

Example: In 2010 I travelled to Germany and spent over 4 months there in Berlin.

I had taken out a medical insurance on a broker’s internet site. The insurance had their seat in Toronto, Canada. I had a claim, tried to call the insurance from Germany, on my cell phone, told them I need a claim number. They put me on hold at a cost of €20, while some old guy in the background walked away from his desk ?

In conclusion, I cancelled this insurance immediately requesting a refund on my credit card. Then also immediately one day after I bought a travel medical insurance in Germany (including every coverage possible) at a fraction of the cost that the one in Canada had cost me. The insurance in Canada eventually processed the refund, but not my lost telephone costs.

Cost comparison: Canada/USA = $2,000; Germany = €130 same length of trip.

Next example: Beginning of this year, I bought several package travels with a German agency (also online) including for each a good travel medical emergency insurance. Low cost again (for one month travel = €100).

You can trust these agencies there, they will deliver. And most importantly, they are reachable.

The reason for the high cost of insurances in North America most likely is the enormous cost for law suits and third party liability suits.

OBSESSION WITH GUNS

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AMERICA’S OBSESSION WITH GUNS

Guns can be addictive. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. There is always a human brain behind the ‘trigger finger’.

What do all these have in common ? Shootings and mass killings are not incidental or accidental, they most likely are deliberate. This is learned behavior.

Why do shooters single out children ? Because of easy access to schools, because the targets are not armed and more likely than not, the shooter can go down “in a blaze of glory” – a hero.

Look at what happened during WWII. I quote from international news media:

German cities wary of WWII bombers memorial

Published: 28 Jun 12 17:26 CET | Print version

Representatives of German cities destroyed in World War II bomb raids seemed circumspect on Thursday as Queen Elizabeth dedicated a memorial to the bomber pilots – with only an afterthought mention of the tens of thousands of civilian victims.

The above is a good example of why young people (mostly males) are entering a school with a high-powered rifle and shoot down children – mass shootings.

Have their (war veteran hero) fathers not told them how they can also be decorated by killing children ? And how they can be celebrated annually at their veterans and remembrance day parades for having killed hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians during WWII ?

And do not learn children from their parents ?

So, if the old man was a war hero, then in some screwed up fashion the son would not understand why he cannot do the same and emerge as a hero. 

In all of those cases of mass shootings at American schools where the killer has taken his own life after the shootings, it has become quite clear that the mass shooter was not mentally unstable, but rather cool headed only doing “his job” as he learned from the previous generations of war heroes. It is ingrained in the psyche, it is taught by the mass media and it is learned behavior.  Don’t look for the NRA or the Government for help, look at your own societal values.  [using Firefox v.19]