Should I Get Medical Travel Insurance?

If you travel a lot, for business or personal reasons, you should consider getting medical travel insurance. Medical travel insurance protects travelers in the event they fall seriously ill or suffer an injury when they are traveling domestically or abroad.

You can buy medical travel insurance for each trip you take or buy a multi-trip policy if you know you’ll be traveling on a regular basis or will be staying in a foreign country for a period of time. You can get an annual policy, too, that will cover you for a whole year. Most medical insurance policies have limitations regarding travel; many countries require payment in advance of treatment unless you can prove you have insurance to cover the costs. A medical travel insurance policy insures you will be treated. You may think your regular policy will cover you but many limit their coverage to certain countries.

There are two types of medical travel insurance. Travel medical is for a short term such as a vacation or business trip and you can be covered for a few days or up to a year. Major medical is meant for extended stays from six months to a year. Both types of policies cover your medical treatment, help you find physicians and medical facilities, and will even help you find a translator if you need one.

Medical travel insurance policies can also cover the expense of transportation from a remote location or to another facility to get the services of a specialist. It will cover emergency evacuation and even transport back to your own country if need be. That can be very costly and more than pays for the insurance. You can also include coverage that will transport your remains home if you die while traveling.

Some policies include a term life benefit and AD&D, or accidental death and dismemberment. The added cost of this is often negligible and well worth the cost.

You might think that such insurance is very costly but you’ll usually pay about 10% of the total cost of your trip. When you think about the expenses you might accumulate if you have a health problem it’s more than worth it.