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Evacuation Insurance For China. Why This Cushy Boy Says Yes.

By Dan Harris and Steve Dickinson

At my old law firm, I was one of two lawyers who traveled constantly. Back then it was mostly to China, Russia, Korea, Turkey, and Vietnam, but sometimes even more exotic places like Papua New Guinea would come in. I later learned that at least one of our staff would refer to the two of us as "the cushy boys" because we had so many requirements on each trip, ranging from where we liked to be on the plane (always the aisle for me) to where we wanted to be in the hotel (not so high as to be unreachable in a fire and yet not so low as to be the first to be hit) to the airline (if it is not part of the Star Alliance, I ain't goin'). And so on and so on. So now that I have established my credentials as a travel wuss, let me just say that I feel somewhat vindicated with respect to another one of my peccadilloes by a New York Times article I read today on Haiti, entitled, "For Travelers in Danger, Someone to Swoop In." The article talks about those in Haiti who were able to secure an emergency evacuation because they had evacuation insurance. Many years ago, I was involved in a case where someone was badly injured in a very remote region of the Russian Far East (and when I am talking remote, I mean remote, even for the Russian Far East). This person was evacuated to a hospital in the US and the cost of that evacuation was (if I recall correctly) around $100,000. Since then I have bought evacuation insurance whenever I travel to any country/region with less than world-class health-care. Fortunately, I have never had to use it, but still..... Do you? What are your thoughts on this? Too cushy or just smart? And while on the subject, I ask each of you to consider donating something (anything!) to Haiti.

Full post as published by China Law Blog on January 19, 2010 (boomark / email).