The most common fears about global travel often stem from concerns about safety, health, and the unknown. Things like health and medical emergencies, the fear of getting sick or injured abroad and not having access to proper medical care, or concerns about health crises like pandemics or outbreaks in certain regions. in certain regions. In today's episode, we talked to Jacob Perkins from Global Rescue about how their membership can help you have that peace of mind while traveling both near and far.
I'm Scott. And I'm
Melissa. And we're the Sunshine
the Sunshine Travelers. Our passion is travel and sharing our experiences with those who enjoyed as much as we do, or those who want to learn more about travel, or even those who just want to live vicariously through our travel stories. No matter where you fall along that journey, get ready to hear about our first-hand experiences as we visit some of the most interesting and amazing places on Earth.
When we were in Puerto Rico recently, we met the team from Global Rescue, and the more that we learned about their membership, the more we were convinced that this solved a problem that we regularly hear from travelers. Many travelers, or ones that want to travel more, have a genuine fear of something happening during their travel and not being able to get the medical care or attention that they need and what it might cost.
Yeah, so Scott actually read a story about Dan Richards, who is the founder of Global Rescue. And he talked about years ago when he was in Scotland as a young man with friends, but on a tour and the weather, they were doing a hike and the weather changed very, very rapidly. And the tour guide didn't maybe take the proper precautions. And so in what I read, he said that it was scary trying to decide if they should shelter in place, should they try to get themselves out. And they did end up getting themselves out. But I think it made a lasting impression on him that even if you're not doing some extreme adventure, even if you're not doing some extreme adventure, even if you're on a tour, things can happen. So that just left an impression later on when he was able to start a company like Global Rescue and provide the services that they provide. Well, today we're going to talk to Jacob
we're going to talk to Jacob Perkins from Global Rescue. And let's hear from Jacob how the travel insurance you have been looking for isn't exactly travel insurance after all.
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brief introduction. People might be wondering, you know, so is this different from travel insurance? How does it work with your travel insurance? So I guess just walk us through what it is and what it's not and those kind of things.
that we get all the time. We see folks all the time coming to us thinking that we're travel insurance or they're looking for travel insurance. And the biggest difference between us and travel insurance is travel insurance is there to protect your wallet. If something were to happen on your trip, protect you in terms of trip cancellation, trip interruption, your more ancillary benefits like baggage delay, flight cancellation, stuff like that. But Global Rescue is there more for your body, your well-being. So if something were to happen while you're traveling, insurance isn't going to be there to get you to a hospital, cover all of those expenses, and make sure that whatever condition you have doesn't progress to get worse. That's where we step in. Our focus is on taking care of you, taking care of your well-being, whatever it may be, whether it's just an upset stomach or you fall down, you have a broken leg, we're there to step in for it. And then on top of that, we also give you just that medical advisory. So it's the peace of mind that even if you have something that's not an extreme emergency where you have to get airlifted to the hospital, you can give us a call. We can tell you where that local hospital might be just that you can transport yourself to or a local pharmacy, maybe stuff like that. So, Jacob, do you need to have travel insurance as well as Global Rescue or is
do you need to have travel insurance as well as Global Rescue or is it all in one? Good question. So Global Rescue
Rescue memberships, they won't cover those things that a normal travel insurance policy would. So the trip cancellation, trip interruption I mentioned. What I always tell folks is I recommend getting Global Rescue as well as travel insurance because we don't really overlap in any way with travel insurance. We pair very well with really all travel insurances. And because of that, what we actually did is we partnered with IMG to offer a travel insurance policy that can only be bought through Global Rescue. So they did a couple of things. They took out their activity restrictions. They added in $100,000 medical benefit. So essentially, if you buy that Global Rescue as well as an IMG travel insurance policy, we'll cover all those transports for you, the expenses during the transports, and they would step in and help out with the trip costs and stuff like that. So it definitely is important to still have travel insurance, but the global rescue is kind of that extra layer on top to take care of yourself and your body. Yeah, because you
don't really want to double pay for that, right? Where you, where you're paying for, you know, an insurance policy that has medical evacuation. But I did want to point out something that you guys do that's very different is that once you make that call and get the services, the evacuation, whatever it is you need from them, you're done. You're not filing claims and filling out paperwork. So I want you to talk a little bit about that because I think that's huge once you have something happen. Definitely.
Yeah. That's the biggest thing with us is we know when something happens, when you have an emergency happen, your focus shouldn't be on filing a claim, having to find the money to pay for these hospital bills in an international country or pay for those transports yourself. Instead, when something happens, you give us a call. We have our vendors vetted out worldwide. So we have hospitals, emergency resources ready worldwide. You give us a call, we'll figure out the best means of transportation, the best hospital to get you to. And we're just going to pay for that all up front. So rather than having to arrange for it, pay for it yourself, file a claim, then usually they come back to you asking for more information. And then you have to file another claim. And then who knows if you even ever see the return from that. Instead, with us, you just have to give us a call and we'll just handle everything on the front end.
That's awesome. Because as you pointed out, and I think that's a good point to clarify, you consider what you guys offer as a membership versus like an insurance policy or that kind of
as a membership versus like an insurance policy or that kind of thing. That's correct. Yeah. We view ourselves as a membership because memberships come with a benefit package that you get to use while you have that membership active. So that's why we're a membership rather than a travel insurance, which is more focused on the claims process and handling things on the back end of things.
So tell us, where is Global Rescue? Like, where is it good? Like, where would it be available? Or what, you know, are there places in the world that are excluded? You briefly touched on activity restrictions, you know, that kind of thing. So, you know, how, like, for example, if somebody wanted to go, you know, on a safari, or they wanted to go to Antarctica, or they wanted to go to like Helleskeen, or they just wanted to be out in the Caribbean on a beach, you know, or in Fiji or something like that. So what kind of places are covered? And then what is off limits?
Yeah, yeah, good question. So that's kind of where we set ourselves apart from a lot of the competition, a lot of other people that do this is we don't have that many restrictions in terms of activities, or destination. So as far as destinations go, the only restrictions that we have are those polar regions. So you can't go above the 80th parallel north, below the 60th parallel south, just because there aren't emergency resources there really yet. There are more trips going to those regions in the past few years, but we still don't offer services there just because we don't want to sell membership to a place that we don't have rescue in place and ready to go. With that being said, everywhere else in the world, we do have, for the most part, emergency services, with the exceptions being the places that you might assume that are a little bit more remote. There might be some security things going on in the area that make it a little bit more difficult. Also, with that being said, it's surprising to me. I see all the time that we, we do these rescues in places that I can't believe we found a helicopter. I can't believe that we were even able to get into. So what I always tell folks is before you're going on a trip, if you think it's to a place that might be a little bit more remote where, where you might not have services, reach out to us. You can give us a call. You can let us know, hey, I'm going to be going on this trip to Mozambique and I'm going to be very remote. Just want to make sure you have your services. Always helps us also. Then we can prepare. We can put a little note on your membership just to remind us that you're going to be in that area. There's a chance something might come up. God forbid it does. I would be
interested to hear, like, do you have some examples, maybe a couple in like different levels, something that, you know, where somebody used their global rescue membership in something that was just like more helpful that wasn't like, I don't know, life-threatening? And then maybe on the other extreme, something that was life-threatening. Any examples that you can share with us?
Yeah, definitely. So on the non-life-threatening, what we see a lot of time is people more asking about just travel management, the more logistical side of travel. So one thing that we saw somewhat recently was a lady, she was traveling to Paris and she actually had her passport stolen. So one of our ancillary benefits with your membership is passport assistance. So what we did with her is instead of her having to go through the whole passport renewal process that can take weeks or months and she's in a foreign country, instead she gave us a call. We got her in touch with the local embassy in Paris, and she had got an expedited passport. I believe it only took her a couple of days to get that passport back. So using those more ancillary benefits that come with the Global Rescue membership without having to worry about a full evac, it's always good to highlight that because it kind of showcases that those Global Rescue memberships, yes, they're necessary and very valuable to folks that are climbing Kilimanjaro and going on an African safari. But you also never know what might happen just when you're visiting a city or on a resort or something like that. And then in terms of more extreme evacs that we've done, one that we had pretty recently as well, I had a snowboarder who was in Austria. He fell down, he fractured just about everything in his face, and he had to actually have surgery on his jaw to get it reset. So that was an interesting one because we got him to a local hospital there in Austria, got him stabilized. He obviously wanted to have that surgery back home. So we flew him back to Boston to have that surgery, get him stabilized, get him that further medical attention. And then we've been in touch with him throughout recovery, just making sure that everything's good with the process. And that's
awesome. And then it's just, it's covered. Like there's nothing else for him to do as far as the transportation and all that.
Yep. Yeah. That's all he had to do was communicate with us what was going on with him. His current situation, his medical situation. We were communicating with the doctors there in Austria. And there's nothing out of his pocket. It's basically us just giving him the plane ticket, letting him know, this is the plane we're going to get you on. This is when you're going to get back to Boston. And then we'll get you in touch with some people to schedule out further
surgery. Awesome. So let's say, for example, I'm somewhere in Africa, I'm somewhere in Asia, and I don't know, I've got something going on with my stomach, not really sure what's going on. Don't think it's necessarily an emergency. How can Global Rescue, can I reach out and like, how can y'all step in in a situation like that?
Yeah. Yeah. So that's really what we do more than anything else. So we've done in our 20 years of operation here, we've had over 24,000 emergencies at this point. And of those 24,000, of course, most of them are us pulling in, bringing in a helicopter to get you off the mountain or saving you from some scuba diving accident. The majority of those are just medical advisory. It's somebody giving us a call saying, we're traveling internationally, we're eating food we're not familiar with. We aren't sleeping normal. Our stomach hurts. We're dehydrated, stuff like that. I tell folks that's the largest portion of our membership and always make sure to take advantage of especially it, because something like that, you never know what it could progress to. So we have folks all the time reach out to us. And at first, it seems like, yes, it's just a stomach bug, but then it progresses and they have food poisoning and they actually have to go to the hospital. So I always tell folks, no matter how minor the injury or illness may be, if you have that global rescue membership, give us a call. We'll start that operation at that point, just basically monitor your symptoms. If it might require you just getting some over-the-counter medication, we can help you out with stuff like that too. With travel
becoming more accessible, more affordable, people know a lot more about travel through just searching online and with social media. What kind of trends are you seeing? Are there other trends in the types of emergencies that you're seeing or the calls and stuff that you're getting just from maybe not as extreme?
Yeah. So we're seeing basically the same thing. So what we're seeing is the travel industry is booming, especially since COVID. It seemed like I think it was a portion of people that were locked up for a little bit longer than they wanted. And they had a lot of trips they were planning that they now are finally getting around to do. And then it's also the folks that are just adventurous in general are always traveling. Those folks seem to be doing even more adventurous travel. So we're seeing types of travel that are a little bit different, a little bit unique, which is always interesting, but also leads to a lot more emergency situations like that. So we've seen an uptick in evacuations and emergencies, but has also gone along with the same uptick in travel and just people getting out. So I don't think it's getting too much riskier. We're seeing a lot of, of course, in our industry and what we see, the majority of our operations do come from like the moto touring and the climbing industries just because they're a little bit higher risk. But really, in all forms of travel, we see people reaching out to us for something, even if it's the things like passport protection and the translation services and stuff like that, that you might not be hanging off the side of the mountain, but you still need to give us a call.
Okay. So let's go into that a little bit more because you mentioned about the lady in Paris, but then just anything else to do with passports and then translation services or just any of that, that is part of the membership. that is part of the membership. Yep.
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So that's part of the membership that is, I believe, underutilized just because it's not very well known. Everyone looks at our membership and they see the highlights of the EVACs and stuff like that. But the true value of the membership does come in all of those smaller travel management benefits that you get with it. So it's a medical advisory that you get where you can just give us a call, even if it's something minor. It's the passport services. If it's lost or stolen passport, give us a call. We can get that expedited for you. We can get it much faster than you ever would be able to get it just on your own. And then it's the other things on top of that, like translation services. If you're someplace that you don't speak the language, we have translation services in place so we can get on a phone call with them as well. And then the biggest thing, I think, of our benefits, and it comes on our mobile app. So once you have a membership with us, you have a login to our mobile app, is our destination reports. So we pull destination reports daily for every country globally. And that will be health risk ratings, security risk ratings, anything else that might be going on in the country, whether it's political, economic, stuff like that, that might affect your travels. So you can look into there, kind of prepare for your travel, find out whether there's a risk of health when you're eating certain types of food, stuff like that. Whether there's political unrest going on. Anything that might affect your trip in the negative. So you can prepare for it on the front end of things. Because that is really the core value of global rescue is preparing for travel and making sure that you're prepared before going out.
And with that, what advice would you give to travelers who want to be better prepared, you know, for either potential emergencies or travel disruptions alike?
Yeah. So besides obviously having a global rescue membership, I think that is the best way to prepare before traveling. There's the key to preparation is research, doing your due diligence beforehand, looking up the area, looking up what's going on in the area, just making sure you're as familiar as you can be. We're lucky in this day and age that we live in. We have so much technology right at our fingertips that you can practically visit a place before even going So you can there. practically visit a place before even going there. So you can get really familiar, know what's going on in the area around you just to avoid any of these incidences of happening. Who would you say Global Rescue is good for?
Who would you say Global Rescue is good for? I would
say Global Rescue is really good for anybody, whether it's a traveler, whether it's just an adventurer in general. So one thing that's unique about Global Rescue, we come in short term as well as annual packages. And in all of those packages, so you have $500,000 of evac and rescue benefits to get you to the hospital, cover those medical expenses during transport, get you back home. But then even if you're traveling near home, if you're within 150 miles of your home, you have $15,000 of medical evac benefits. So it gives you that peace of mind, even when you're at home, you know where the emergency services are. You don't need to have the finances in place for it. So myself, I don't do too much adventurous travel. I do like to hike a lot around home. I like to snowmobile around my home here. And I like knowing that I have that in my back pocket ready to use. So that's why I think it is valuable for really any form of person, but especially any form of traveler, whether it's a luxury traveler, whether it's an adventure traveler. It's just no matter where you're going, if you're not at your home, odds are you don't know what to do if something were to happen.
Yeah, and that's great. I'm glad that you pointed that out because, I mean, I think a lot of people think, OK, I'm going to take one trip or two trips a year. Is it really going to be worth this membership? or two trips a is it really going to be worth this membership? But the fact okay, year, that, but a lot of people probably will several times a year go at least that far, you know, and heaven forbid something happen, you do want to be, you know, back close to home or back close to a city that's, you know, close to you or something like that. So I'm glad that you pointed that out.
Absolutely. Yeah. That's one thing we see frequently with our name being Global Rescue. It's a misconception that we are just a global company. The domestic side of our travel, it can be just as dangerous to travel domestically as it is internationally. So it truly is a value no matter where you're going.
So I just want to ask like kind of more scenario based. So we are about to take a trip to Africa going on safari. And so let's say I make that call. And is it more likely that they would like send me to a local place? And like you said, they would have like the medicines and things like that. Or that if they didn't deem that I really needed that, like, and I didn't have the medicine that I needed, they would like bring that out to the camp where I was, for example. Or I mean, I know it's scenario based, but just maybe like talk through maybe those scenarios.
Yeah. Yeah. So it'd be very situational. What we determine first is when somebody gives us a call, if they need medical attention or not. If we deem it as something where if they don't see medical attention, the condition won't get better or it will get worse, that's when we say we have to evac and we have to get them to a hospital. If there's a situation where it doesn't seem like it's getting worse, but you just give us a call, you say, hey, this is my location. I'm in Africa. I have an upset stomach. We would give you some advice. We would look at the area. We would figure out what there might be for medications available to you in that local area. And then following up with that, what we would do is stay in touch with you. So we would set a cadence, whether it be in, and it depends on what your condition was, but whether it be in three hours, we give you another call, whether it be the following morning, we give you another call just to check in, just to monitor those symptoms, to see if they're progressing, if they're getting worse. And then at that point we would decide, okay, now they do have to get that medical attention or hopefully they're getting better at that point. And we can just continue to monitor until we close out the case.
Yeah, I think that's awesome. Just, you know, having that peace of mind that, like you said, security risk, you know, health stuff, whatever, you know, use the resources that are available, you know, on the app and that you guys provide.
Absolutely. Yep. If you have if you have that Global Rescue membership, do not hesitate to use it. If there's a chance that you might need it, give us a call. We're happy to help. If you could leave our listeners with one piece of advice about travel safety,
could leave our listeners with one piece of advice about travel safety, what would that be?
I've said it a handful of times here, but the biggest key, I think, to travel safety is preparation. You can just never over prepare for travel. Travel is really, it's one of the most enjoyable things that we can do, but it's also one of the riskiest things that we can do. So the more prepared you are, the safer you can make it, the more enjoyable you can make it. Because if something horrible happens on your trip, that can just absolutely ruin a vacation.
So it's just I guess the be prepared for the worst you know, like, saying, like, and, hope for the best and stuff like And I know that like some of your plans, that. one, because you do have different levels of right? So for example, plans, like, it costs a little bit more if you're doing some of those super adventurous, like the climbing in the high altitude and stuff like that, right? And then you have some plans that include more, like some of the first aid kits and stuff like that. And then you have some basic plans, right? So the best idea and is, we're going to provide the links in our show notes as well, but just in the go look, right, at the plans that you have available, what's covered in each one, how long that they're good for, because you also offer discounts, right? For people who know, okay, I'm going to be traveling a lot over the next five years. If I go ahead and put my Global Rescue membership in place for two years, three years, four years, five years, I can save a significant amount of money too. So that's another thing. So, and that's what's one thing that's really good about your website is just
my Global
like, you can look at all the different options and then and then I'm sure reach out right if you have questions reach out to somebody who could help answer some of those questions yeah yeah absolutely yeah we we have folks all the time I we know that we're a unique product we're not a
absolutely yeah we we have folks all the time I we know that we're a unique product we're not a traditional travel insurance we're not traditional membership products so we have folks reaching out to us all the time with all sorts of questions. There's no question that we haven't heard or haven't answered. So
Jacob, is there anything else that you can think of that we haven't covered or touched on that people might be curious about or that you want to share about Global Rescue?
Well, you were just mentioning our different plan types. So I can quickly just highlight those. So our normal global rescue membership, actually all of our global rescue memberships come with our full medical benefits. So it's that $500,000 field rescue evacuation. That's whether you're buying an annual short-term membership, whether it's a family or an individual. And then on top of that, we have more than just different levels of memberships. It's actually add-ons to it. So the first one being a security add-on gives you those same benefits. So the field rescue, evacuation, advisory, for those security-related reasons I've mentioned briefly. So political unrest, war breaks out, natural disaster, stuff like that. And we also have a high altitude add-on. So that's for those folks. If you're going above 15,000 feet, that's when you start to see altitude sickness start to set in. So we have a high altitude add-on to help out those folks as well to make sure that we can cover them.
Okay, that's good. Because that is, I mean, that can be a big part of traveling, even if you are not, you know, an adventure traveler. We had that when we were in Quito, you know, Ecuador before we went to the Galapagos. And sometimes, you know, you face that, that kind of thing. So that's great to know. Awesome. So we want to ask you the questions that ask all of our podcast guests. So we'll start with this first one. What is your favorite place in the world that you have ever visited? we'll start with this first
one. What is your favorite place in the world that you have ever visited? Probably the coolest place I've gone was France when I was in high school, but that was a school trip, so I'm not going to really count that. The next coolest place I've gone was out to Utah. I went out to Snowbird earlier this year, did a bunch of hiking, hit a few different peaks there, and it was just stunning everywhere you look. So that's a beautiful place in this
country. Yeah, Utah is amazing. And it's so cool because no matter what time of the year you hit it, it can be completely different. So that's awesome. What about the top places on your bucket list? On my bucket
list, I would say, and it probably isn't on most people's bucket list, but I'd like to get up into more Northern Canada, actually. I'd like to go up there, do some snowmobiling up there. And then I'd like to get back to Europe now that I'm not in high school, now that I'm an adult, I can do a little bit more with my travel. I'd like to go back to Europe, see just all of that again, because that's also just a beautiful area. You should go check out our podcast
go check out our podcast from this past week where we talk about some really good deals that are out there right now that you should jump on. Yeah, perfect. And then do you have any trips
trips planned? Where are you headed next? And then do you have any trips planned? Where are you headed next?
So I actually Yep. just booked a trip to Jamaica in So I'm looking March. forward to that. It's been about a two and a half year delayed honeymoon but we're finally actually scheduled it. trip,
So I'm very excited to go I've never there. been to a tropical so that'll island, be a completely different scenery for me. Well, awesome. congratulations. Well, And I hope that is an amazing trip. That is awesome.
Thank you. Yeah, Jacob, thanks for coming on today and talking to us about Global Rescue. And for all of our listeners, you can find out more about Global Rescue directly from our website on sunshinetravelers.com. Global Rescue directly from our website on sunshinetravelers.com.
And Melissa will also put links inside the show notes for Global Rescue.
Rescue. Yeah, we'll do a link on sunshinetravelers.com slash globalrescue and just have some information and then a link out from there to your site as well. I think this has probably been
probably been top of mind for us as we set off on our three-week adventure across Africa. You know, we've talked about everything from how to avoid traveler sickness to conversations with my aunts about being able to get medical care while we're out on the safari in a worst-case scenario because they had concerns about that.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's always a concern if you are somewhere remote. And it was very interesting to hear Jacob talk, though, that it's not just for when you're in a foreign country, too, that if you things can happen at home, when you're a little bit away from your house, you never know, like if you're hiking at home or, you know, you're going on some kind of adventure even close by is that you have this peace of mind.
Well, if you're an avid traveler, you might want to look at a full year membership. So if you're out traveling all the time and going to different places, then maybe you want to have that full year membership. But if you're just headed out on a cruise or, you know, going hiking in the mountains somewhere or traveling to Africa on a safari, it is possible to get a short-term membership that's like 7 to 14 days. And they're pretty affordable compared to the peace of mind that you'll get.
We've done an episode previously on travel disruptions, but those were mostly focused on what happens if you miss a flight or lose your luggage and things of that nature. So here's where you'll probably want to look at the travel perks on your credit card to ensure that you could get reimbursed for those expenses. Or if you have taken out travel insurance on a trip, what your travel insurance will pay for. But global rescue is the part that you want to have alongside this travel insurance that will step in when you have a medical emergency or in some cases a security emergency, like you talked about, losing your passport and what do I do and just not having the hassle of having to do that yourself. So it was interesting that that was one of his examples that he gave us is what their client was able to do in the case of losing her passport.
Yeah, they worked with them to find the local embassy where they could get that passport replaced and help them walk through the steps of getting that passport replaced rather than just saying, go find the local embassy. Yes, that's
true. And then, like you said, you know, like checking up to make sure, you know, that things are done and everything is good. So we have a great free resource on our website that's called the Ultimate Travel Preparation Checklist, and that includes a link to Global Rescue as well as necessary travel resources, discount codes, and a packing checklist. The key is to be prepared, and with Global Rescue, you can have that peace of mind. And so you can also go to sunshinetravelers.com slash globalrescue to learn more.
At the end of the day, this comes down to being prepared when you travel. Where are you traveling over the next year that you might want to consider a Global Rescue membership to give you that peace of mind? Please write to me at scott at sunshinetravelers.com and let me know. We are always inspired by your travel stories. We hope you enjoyed this episode and found some inspiration to help you with your travel journeys. If you could take a moment to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform, it would be greatly appreciated. Your five-star reviews help us get discovered by others and possibly featured on your favorite platform. Don't forget to follow or subscribe to our podcast to get notified of new episodes as they are released. You can also find us on Instagram and Facebook at Sunshine Travelers Podcast. Remember, that is Travelers with one L. Most importantly, please share it with your friends to help them catch the travel bug. You never know, they may become your greatest travel companion.
