Blues

Regardless, you did say, "I listed the number to call the business office," when you actually didn't. But you said, "As to not wanting to go look, we have been using the Escapees address for 15 YEARS! Never once, in those 15 yrs, have they not gone and looked for me. Sometimes I have called every other day until I knew something was in." Who were you talking to? Seems to me it would be someone in the mail office, but you're saying you have people in the business office go look for your mail?

At least it will be care outside the U.S., and therefore presumably a lot cheaper. And just a reminder--it's Medicare Supplement plans that cover emergency care in a foreign country if it's incurred in the first 60 days of a trip, and subject to a $50,000 lifetime limit. And they pay only 80% of expenses. Medicare itself will pay for emergency care in Canada, if you're "traveling through Canada without unreasonable delay by the most direct route between Alaska and another state when a medical emergency occurs." And if this happened, presumably the Supplement would pay your coinsurance portion, so you'd be covered for 100%. https://www.medicare.gov/Pubs/pdf/11037-Medicare-Coverage-Outside-United-States.pdf Do you remember who told you that? Have you looked at your policy? I looked at an an Obamacare Florida Blue policy (from 2021), and it provides coverage outside the U.S. through the Blue Cross Blue Shield Global Core program. In the policy language, I see no mention of a limit, or even language limiting it to emergencies. I have no experience with it, other than reading the policy and realizing Global Core existed, and then looking at the Global Core website. But if I had a non-Medicare BCBS health insurance policy and was looking into coverage while traveling in Canada, I'd sure investigate.

I think that for meaningful comparisons when pricing diesel, the station should have a dedicated truck island, or at least be somewhat easily accessible by a diesel motorhome with a toad. That 7-Eleven is the sort of place I might try if it was the middle of the night and I thought there wouldn't be anybody else there. This is what makes Gas Buddy challenging for diesel--you can't do a satellite view on their map, so you have to have another satellite map open to look at each station you're considering. People always say, "If the fuel tanker trucks can navigate it, why can't you?" They don't realize the fuel tankers don't have to navigate up next to a pump sticking 5 feet out of the ground, avoiding other pumps that are sticking five feet out of the ground. That's why I'm glad I don't have a big gas motorhome--I can't imagine being limited to "regular" gas pumps every time I need fuel.

For what it's worth, the questions about what constitutes a covered emergency exist for non-Medicare people who are traveling within the U.S. and have a health insurance plan that provides only emergency care when they're outside their insurance provider's network. And I've never found any guidance on the very questions you ask. But I just checked a non-Medicare Blue Cross policy, and for definitions of "emergency medical condition" and "emergency services," it punts to the definitions in Section 1867 of the Social Security Act, which deals with hospitals being required to treat emergency patients. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of insurance policies do the same thing. The definition of an emergency medical condition is about what you'd expect. The Social Security Act requires only that people with emergency medical conditions be stabilized, and the Blue Cross policy also talks in terms of stabilization in emergency situations. "Stabilized" is defined in the Social Security Act as: "no material deterioration of the condition is likely, within reasonable medical probability, to result from or occur during the transfer of the individual from a facility." "Transfer" is defined as "the movement (including the discharge) of an individual outside a hospital’s facilities at the direction of ... the hospital." But what does it actually mean? I assume being discharged from the hospital definitely means the "emergency" is over. But what if the patient needs more treatment but won't deteriorate during the time it takes for an ambulance to get him to another facility--is the emergency over once he's at that point? Is the emergency over if he's at that point and isn't actually transferred but instead stays in the same hospital where he got emergency treatment? I think/fear that all of these situations mean the emergency is over, which is bad news for the insured. But who knows. I assume the insurance companies decide this on a case-by-case basis and it's up to the insured to fight it if they don't like it. So I guess my answer to question "Has anyone read the fine print?" is "Yes, I have." And my answer to your question "Who has some answers?" is "Not me."

The only truly nationwide insurance in one of the "Big Three" fulltimer-friendly states. But the OP said they were going to get "good remote jobs," which presumably means jobs with benefits (including health insurance) and not blogging or being a social media influencer. That does make me wonder, however, about all the remote workers these days who are scattered hither and yon, and how their employer-supplied health insurance policies work for them.

I've had a low opinion of USAA Bank for a long time. At one point, they had a rule that if you wanted to cash out a CD when it came due, you couldn't do it online; you had to call them. You could move other money around online, but you couldn't close out a CD. Grrrrr. I asked why the difference, and was told it was for my protection. Uh, okay. I found it interesting that when I would call to close a CD, I was asked, "Why are you closing the CD?" My answer was always, "None of your business." So one time when I made the required call and they asked why I was closing my CD, I said because a nice Nigerian man had contacted me, asking for some money. The representative just said "Oh" or whatever and cashed out my CD for me, no questions asked. Thank you for making me jump through hoops for my protection, USAA. Then there's the time they allowed 65 Uber charges to my credit card, totalling over $2,000 over a couple of weeks, even though there had never previously been an Uber charge on that card. And when I challenged those charges, they deleted only a portion of them (which I figured out only after making a spreadsheet of all the charges and matching them to deletions) AND they assessed interest on the ones they didn't delete. In order to get all the Uber charges deleted, I had to sit on the phone with them and go over them according to my spreadsheet, one by one. I told them that every Uber charge was fraud, and there were no fraud charges other than Uber, thinking the fix would be obvious ("delete all charges from Uber and don't delete any others"), but nope. They didn't do it the first time, and they still couldn't do it--we had to address each one individually, following MY spreadsheet. But there was also a time when I made some money off of them. There was a transfer that was over the maximum amount allowed online, so I had to do it over the phone. The USAA person mischaracterized it as a cash advance on my credit card. Why would I pay for a cash advance when I have the money sitting there? Anyway, they eventually fixed it, but somehow the rebate on the amount they mistakenly put on the credit card stayed. Made me a hundred bucks.

Can you summarize the (presumably bad) experiences? Contaminated fuel? Rude employees? Dirty parking lots? Trouble with using fleet cards?

I noticed nobody has answered your question. Have you found an answer elsewhere? I'm curious about how this gets handled. The only thing I can think of is buying a policy in Texas for just the minimum required coverage--30/60/25. Assuming nobody has a lien on your vehicle, that's all you need if the vehicle won't be anywhere the insurance would actually apply. However, are you running afoul of any Mexican requirements to register the vehicle there, if it's never going to be in the U.S. again?

If so, not by much. Mr. Blues and I both have credit ratings over 800, which is more than high enough to get the best rates on car insurance and the like. I've never borrowed money in my life, and Mr. Blues has borrowed only for a mortgage back when he owned a house, but not since then. To the OP: You said you're still going to have jobs--presumably fulltime. Even if they're remote, they're still fulltime, so I'm not sure how being a fulltime RVer will affect your ability to recharge your batteries. You'll just be sitting some place different, and you'll have to be planning where you're going to sit next. You don't have to move into an RV to get rid of all your stuff, and if you want a simpler lifestyle, owning and living in an RV is not the best way to get it. If you want to travel and see the country, an RV is a good way to do that, but if you're still working for someone else, your opportunities to see and do things will obviously be constrained. My biggest suggestion would be to rely on about 1/10 of what you see in youtube videos advertising the lifestyle.

The styling probably appeals to some people (it does to me, but I wonder how long I would continue to like it), but from looking at the website, I think they're promoting a lifestyle, and at that price, an aspirational lifestyle. An exclusive aspirational lifestyle. And speaking of exclusive, it rankles that you can read all kinds of marketing hype all over the website, but if you want to download the brochure, you have to give them your email address and they'll email it to you. I think I'll opt out of that data sacrificing opportunity. I also looked around the Bowlus website, and it has even more content that is unavailable unless you give up data. Still, even the unwashed masses can delight in the description of their "Stunning Hotel-Style En Suite Bathroom" -- "Spacious with luxurious chrome and teak finishes with a shower that extends outdoors." Oh, and with a "Toilet with Hygienic Easy Emptying Cassette System." Just like at the Ritz Carlton.

What all did you try to get it to work? You didn't say what you asked KingDome in your email, but what did they reply? What happened when you tried connecting your DirecTV SD receiver?

Did you look at the individual elements of the premium to see which parts went up and by how much? That might help you figure out what's going on. I once had a huge increase in my premium and figured out it was almost all due to a doubling of the premium for my comprehensive, which meant they were most likely recovering big losses due to weather events in my garaged location (even though as a fulltimer I'm almost never in my garaged location). On yours, if you have collision coverage, look at how much that went up. If it was a lot, it could be simply due to the value of the truck, and you can easily compare Progressive's collision premium to the collision premium in quotes you get, to see if Progressive is out of line with the others. Too many companies just quote a total, but I insist on a breakdown so I can see what's going on under the hood of the quote, so to speak.

There's a Sam's Club in the far west suburbs of Chicago that has diesel. I was very surprised to find that its diesel is no cheaper than the places in the vicinity that have dedicated truck lanes, which obviously offer much easier access for a big RV than any Sam's Club. The gas at this station is well priced, but for some reason not the diesel.

But your wife's driver's license was also rejected when yours was. Was the agent making the same mistake when entering her information as when entering yours? If so, it seems to me there would have been a lot of prior rejections of people's driver's licenses if the agent has a habit of doing it wrong.

Maybe it depends on the year of the satellite dish. My manual doesn't have any instructions for changing from DirecTV to Dish, and says: "This system has been set up at the factory for DIRECTV Service. If Dish Network will be used, the system must be re-programmed. This must be done at a certified dealer using a Keypad Console." My manual doesn't say what model it is, but it does have a serial number on a sticker. But the equipment data sheet in the RV says it's a c9700.

I can offer a data point. We're still using the King Dome dish (under a bubble) that's been on our 2003 motorhome since new. We've always had DirecTV on it, and the owner's manual says it was set up at the factory for DirecTV but that it can be re-programmed to use Dish. And I remember other owners of this moho and King Dome dish did indeed have Dish. However, we're still using a standard definition receiver, and from previous dealings with DirecTV, I'd be surprised if they'd let you activate an old receiver like ours. But if you've got a standard definition DirecTV receiver in your 5th wheel, there's at least a chance it will work with the King Dome dish, since ours does. But now that I think about it, I don't know how you'd know if it had been reprogrammed for Dish. But if you've got the right components around, like a standard definition receiver on an active DirecTV account, you might be able to have a risk-free try at it. I do know that my elderly King Dome won't work with HD at all.

I'm not so sure. Answering questions with little statements that almost resemble koans isn't exactly furthering the discussion.

I'm trying to see it, but the only concrete thing you've said is that the collections the kids don't want will be valuable one day, and that's not at all certain. That's why I asked what the value of being patient is and the answer "you don't see it" isn't very illuminating.

That's just silly. It's demonstrably not worthless because it provides a discount on the nightly fee. Whether it's "worth it" to buy the card obviously depends on whether the discounts and other benefits will be more than the cost of the card, but that will depend on how often the card gets used, how much the nightly rates are, etc. It might be "worth it" for some people, and not "worth it" for others. I wonder who "eats" the amount of the discount--the franchisees or corporate? If it's the franchisee and I were a franchisee, I wouldn't encourage people to buy it, because that's money coming out of my pocket.

What's the value of patience in this situation? They have a thousand times more photos on their phone. Although personally, I like the scalloped edges and rick-rack design around black-and-white photos from the 1950s.

Sure I do. But what good does their value do until they're actually sold? It's not my impression that people give things like this with the expectation that the recipient will sell them when they need or want some money. Instead, it is hoped that the recipient will treasure the objects, in which case their value shouldn't matter at all, and the recipient is a bad/ungrateful person if he divests himself of them. All in all, I think kids (and a lot of adults) would prefer a gift card over collectibles they don't actually collect, and it's not because they're foolish.

What lies ahead? Keeping a collection of dolls or soldiers they don't like only because someone gave it to them? And then have someone deal with it when they die? [It might be becoming clear why downsizing to an RV wasn't particularly traumatic for me. 😀] Being able to turn my hearing aids off in noisy environments is one of the blessings of wearing hearing aids. Or, you could be like me and not like to cook meat; I do my meat eating in restaurants. But back like 30 years ago, my mother gave us grown kids food of the month subscriptions. I remember one year it was a bread and soup of the month, another year was a dessert of the month, and of course fruit of the month. It's expensive, of course, but that might actually be a good thing when fulfilling the obligation to give a gift. This was well before the internet, and now that I think about it, I wonder how in the world she found them. But I just went to the Harry & David website, because I remember that's who she used for the fruit of the month (I still have one of the boxes. They now have all kinds of monthly subscriptions, including one for English muffins. Their dessert one is making me really miss having one of those show up at my door every month. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work if the recipients are fulltimers. But if you're stationary, it's fun to have food show up semi-unexpectedly, and it's really not enough to conflict with one's regular dining. The soups were probably a quart, although the loaves of bread were pretty big. Desserts were like a big cheesecake, and the more the merrier on that, as far as I'm concerned. Fruit would be like 9 coddled-in-tissue-paper pears.

Foolish for not caring about a collection that was foisted on them, no matter how well intentioned? Do kids ever turn their nose up at a gift card from somewhere they like? Adults might, because it might not seem thoughtful enough, but I doubt kids care.

Yeah, I despise the thought that someone goes through that on my account. I always hated the panicked look on people in malls a few days before Christmas. Back in the day, I thought I might work the Christmas rush to earn a few bucks, but decided it would make me too sad seeing all these stressed people all the time. That's how I do it. And I give it to them then, and don't wait for a designated occasion. It's too bad we can't just stop the gift-giving industrial complex. The only people it really makes happy are kids; I can't count the number of adults who lament the obligations, on both sides. Why do we do this to ourselves? My mother finally handled it cleverly. She had five kids and really didn't want us to get her anything. But we still did it because you know, you're supposed to, and she finally said she wanted only these flat laser-cut Christmas tree ornaments that you see everywhere. They make cheap gold ones that can be engraved (I gave her one of a sled once, engraved "Rosebud"), and they're popular at souvenir shops, so they can have some meaning. The White House issues one every year. That way, the kids could fulfill their obligation to get her something AND the ornaments were out of sight for most of the year AND they took up almost no room in storage. I knew full well she didn't care one bit about these ornaments, and I always appreciated the ruse. I thought it was the height of thoughtfulness.

And I went to the Miller Hanover website and they don't even mention RVs, much less fulltimer coverage. Fulltimer insurance is a world unto itself, and best left to the people who are familiar with it. Fortunately, there are only a few, so it makes shopping easier.