International Travel Medical Insurance

Written By: Adriana Noton on February 11, 2010 No Comment

If you are planning your trip to Canada or any other overseas location, then you are probably more occupied with planning your activities and hotels than thinking about your travel insurance. Chances are that you will not need to have international travel medical insurance, but if something does go wrong the small investment in your health can save you a lot of problems.

So you know that you need to find some travel insurance, but choosing a policy can be confusing. There are different companies and options and they each have differing inclusions, exclusions, premiums and gap fees. Before selecting a policy, you should compare what each is offering and make an educated decision based upon your health needs and those of the other people that will be covered with the plan.

Work out roughly what level of coverage you require and from there choose a few different companies' products to compare. Look at what they cover and the amount that they will cover you for, check how long it takes them to make payment and what happens in the case of emergency. It is no good having the insurance if the company is slow to respond in times of emergency. Also compare the prices of the policy, but the cheapest is not always the best.

Basically there are four types of international travel medical insurance: short term or single trip coverage policies, long term or multiple stop trips of up to 12 months, expatriate covers people living overseas and foreign national covers people that are resident of the United States, but not citizens.

The complicated bit about choosing the right travel insurance for your Canadian vacation or other overseas journey is comparing what type of incidents are covered with the policy. There is a great degree of variability between what is covered with different policies as well as the amounts that you are covered for.

Some of the inclusions that are usually included with different policies are: emergency medical care, emergency dental care, medical evacuation (covers the cost of transporting you to the nearest hospital equipped to handle your medical emergency), trip cancellation or delay, lost or delayed baggage up to a set amount. It is worth weighing up the likelihood of different conditions and events and you may be able to make realistic cutbacks on inclusions to save some money.

There are a number of things that are normally excluded from travel insurance and you should be conscious of them before signing on with any policy. They generally are: pre-existing medical conditions, being pregnant, extreme sports such as diving and mountaineering or rock climbing, self caused harm, mental illnesses. With pre-existing conditions you may be still able to receive coverage with further medical back up or by paying a higher premium than those that do not have such a condition.

Before you take out your international travel medical insurance you should check all the details of the policy that you are considering. You do not want to be caught out and have your vacation ruined by unforeseen costs.

Dan Pucher Insurance is an independent Travel Health Insurance Broker offering personal and corporate solutions. When looking for Visitors to Canada Insurance and information on Canada Travel Insurance please give us a call.