International Travel Insurance - What You Need to Know

What are the different types of international travel insurance?

Travel insurance falls into two broad categories depending on your need.  The first is Trip Cancellation Insurance and that is what most people think of when making their travel plans.  In other words, this protection covers the cost of the trip itself.  It covers things like you having to cancel your trip, delaying it, or having your luggage lost or damaged. 

In some cases, you may have a credit card that offers similar trip insurance coverage as a card benefit.  However, if you rely solely on those it could leave you at risk because these benefits usually max out at $5,000 for trip cancellation.  Even on the better cards their real shortcoming is in their limited medical benefit.  Remember most domestic major medical coverage ends at the border and that applies even to people on Medicare.  People covered under Schengen laws are also not covered outside of their territories.  The other type of insurance is travel medical insurance.

What is travel medical insurance? 

Travel medical insurance is designed to protect you from medical costs you have while outside of your own country.  In fact, quite a few countries require you to have it to even get a visa.   Consequently, without this protection you could find yourself sick or injured in a foreign country with no one to help you. 

U.S. laws require healthcare providers treat you without regard to payment in situations where a person’s life is in danger.  However, this is not the case in many foreign countries.  You might even have to pay for critical lifesaving medical care on the spot.  Alternatively, you could owe tens of thousands of dollars to a hospital that won’t release you until they get paid or at least willing to accept a guarantee of payment from an international health insurance company.  Our carrier, IMG (International Medical Group) will do that whenever possible.  For those that are travelling to the U.S. click here.

How long are you going to be out of your home country? 

Your time abroad will determine what type of travel health insurance you will need.  For instance, if you are travelling internationally for just a short time, such as going on a vacation, or a business trip your best bet would be a short-term policy such one of our Patriot Plans.  These policies are issued almost immediately usually taking less than 3 minutes to complete the simple online application.   

Helpful hint #1;

For those of you who make several short trips each year, for only a little more money you can purchase a Multi-Trip policy that covers you each time you leave the country.

What is your destination country?

Are you travelling to the US or from?  This will determine which category of coverage you will need.  For instance, if you are a citizen of another country travelling to the US, you will need a US based policy (Patriot America).  On the other hand, if you are going to be outside of the US, you will need an international policy (Patriot).  These policies are open to most nationalities. 

Expats

For those who are going to be out of your home country for an extended period of time.  You will definitely need a long-term International Health Insurance policy.  These policies are taken out for a full year at a time and can be renewed each year.  Above all, you will not need to medically re-qualify each time. The Global Medical Insurance available through Global Trek Health allows you to choose from several plan options, customize your length and area of coverage and select from multiple deductibles and modes of payment.  With your medical history in mind, our programs provide different underwriting methods to extend medical coverage to you that might not available through other international health insurance carriers.

Helpful hint #2;

If you’re enrolling in our Global Medical insurance coverage which gives you the option of renewing (and paying) monthly or annually, you can save 2 months of premiums by choosing to pay annually.  If you need coverage for the entire year and you can afford the larger payment, it’s well worth it.