When traveling abroad, get a policy from one of the best travel insurance companies. You can get a 5% discount on Heymondo, the only insurance that pays medical bills upfront for you, HERE!
Travel medical insurance is an ideal option if you want guaranteed medical coverage wherever you travel since medical insurance for travel provides you with a high amount of medical coverage for trips outside of your own country.
Keep in mind that travel health insurance is not the same as travel insurance. Travelers’ health insurance is intended for travelers who just want medical coverage while they travel and aren’t interested in coverage for travel-related situations, such as baggage loss and flight delays.
Medical Insurance for Travel – Price and How to Buy It
The main reason for buying travel medical insurance instead of travel insurance is because of how much money you save. However, we prefer not to take any risks when we travel, so we always travel with the best travel insurance.
Nevertheless, we decided to write this article because we know that many travelers feel that they cannot afford travel insurance. Medical travel insurance is the perfect option if you are on a budget since you will at least have good international medical coverage. With some plans, like the one provided by SafetyWing you pay less than $1.5 per day, so there is no reason for traveling without travel medical insurance.
Best health insurance for travel
This article will examine what travel health insurance is and how it differs from travel insurance, what travel medical insurance covers, and how much health insurance for travelers costs. It will also include a travelers’ medical insurance cost comparison chart, a list of the best types of travel health insurance, and tips on how to buy medical travel insurance.
To sum it up, these are the best medical insurance for travel:
- SafetyWing – the best overall travel medical insurance
- Trawick International – a cheap travel insurance medical-only
- World Trips – the best travel medical insurance for seniors and pre-existing conditions
- IMG – the cheapest medical-only travel insurance
- Allianz – a good medical insurance for international travel
What is travel health insurance?
You may be asking yourself, what exactly is travel health insurance? International travel health insurance covers medical expenses you incur while you are traveling outside of your country of residence. You will be covered in medical emergencies, if you experience sudden illness while traveling, if you get injured, etc.
Medical expenses covered by health insurance for international travel can include emergency medical fees, emergency dental expenses, accidental death and dismemberment, emergency medical evacuation, and repatriation. The best COVID-19 travel medical insurance will also include coverage for COVID-19 treatment and testing.
What is travel health insurance?
Having travel medical insurance is especially useful in countries that have very expensive healthcare if you don’t have insurance, such as the United States.
Remember that travel health insurance is not the same as travel insurance. Travel medical insurance is mainly just for medical-related costs, which are covered to a much higher limit than travel insurance. Some travel health insurance policies do cover some travel-related situations, such as trip cancellation or baggage loss, but many only include medical-related benefits.
Cost of travel medical insurance
You may be wondering, how much does international travel medical insurance cost? Factors, such as age, country of residence, state of residence (if you live in the US), and trip cost, can all affect the price of your health insurance for travel.
Probably the most important factors for the cost of your travel health insurance are the maximum coverage limit and deductible. The maximum coverage limit is the maximum dollar amount of coverage the insurance plan will give you. The deductible is the amount you have to pay before insurance starts to cover you. Some travel medical insurance plans allow you to select both amounts, while others have set maximum coverage limits and deductibles.
Cost of travel medical insurance
For plans that allow you to choose the amount for your maximum coverage limit, the higher the maximum coverage limit is, the more expensive the health insurance for travelers will be. With plans that allow you to choose your deductible amount, the lower your deductible, the more expensive your medical travel insurance will be.
Medical only travel insurance comparison
This medical-only travel insurance comparison will help you compare the prices of various travel medical insurance. To obtain the quotes, I used the example of a 30-year-old American who lives in Pennsylvania and is traveling to Mexico for two weeks, with a trip cost of $2,500.
Additionally, I chose a $0 deductible for all plans that offered deductible options (IMG, World Trips, and Trawick International). SafetyWing has a $250 deductible included as part of its plan. For the plans that allow you to choose the maximum coverage limit (IMG, World Trips, and Trawick International), I chose $250,000 (or, in the case of IMG, the closest option to $250,000).
Price | $20.02 | $23.30 | $27.30 | $19.95 | $45.00 |
COVID coverage | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Deductible | $250 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
Emergency Medical Expenses | $250,000 | $250,000 | $250,000 | $100,000 | $50,000 |
Medical Evacuation & Repatriation | $100,000 | $100,000 | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 | $250,000 |
Accidental Death & Dismemberment | $25,000 | $10,000 | $25,000 | $50,000 | $10,000 |
Trip Cancellation | X | $1,000 (States of MN, NH, and PA only) | X | X | X |
Baggage Loss | $3,000 ($500 per item) | $500 ($100 per item) | X | $500 ($50 per item) | $2,000 |
BEST TRAVEL MEDICAL INSURANCE |
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What is the best travel medical insurance?
Overall, the best travel medical insurance is SafetyWing, which offers a high amount of medical-related coverage with some travel-related coverage while still being affordable. They also have an excellent coverage-to-price ratio and automatic renewal.
Of course, the only way to know how to buy medical travel insurance is to get informed, so let’s get into travel health insurance companies and their plans.
1. SafetyWing, the best overall travel medical insurance
SafetyWing is the best travel medical insurance overall. Their Nomad Insurance plan offers a high amount of coverage for medical-related expenses, particularly for its price, and even includes some travel-related coverage. That’s why SafetyWing has the best coverage-to-price ratio of all the plans we’ve compared.
What’s even better about SafetyWing insurance is that if you choose the recurrent plan, after you pick a start date, your insurance will automatically renew every 28 days until you choose an end date, so you won’t have to worry about not having coverage or forgetting to renew.
Additionally, SafetyWing is unique in that you get coverage in your home country for 30 days (15 days if you live in the US) after you’ve been traveling abroad for 90 days. That means that you’ll have secondary or even primary medical coverage if you get sick or injured after traveling. This is one of the best long-term travel insurance.
With SafetyWing, no matter where you are, you won’t have to worry about medical coverage. The only downside it’s that it has a $250 deductible you can’t get rid of. If you don’t mind this, it’s the best only medical travel insurance.
2. Trawick International, a cheap travel insurance for medical only
If you want cheap medical-only travel insurance, Trawick International is an excellent option. Their Safe Travels Outbound Cost Saver and Safe Travels Outbound plans allow you to choose your maximum coverage limit and deductible, so you can easily adjust the price of the plan according to your wants and needs.
Trawick International’s travel health insurance plans mainly provide medical-related coverage. They do offer some basic travel-related coverage, such as baggage loss coverage or trip cancellation coverage (limited to residents of a few states).
Ultimately, Trawick International is the international medical travel insurance for you if you want a good amount of medical-related coverage and some basic travel-related coverage.
3. World Trips, the travel medical insurance for seniors and travelers with pre-existing conditions
World Trips offers one of the best travel health insurance plans for seniors and travel insurance for travelers with pre-existing conditions. For travelers under the age of 80, the Atlas International plan provides coverage up to the maximum coverage limit for pre-existing conditions. The plan also offers a high amount of coverage for accidental death and dismemberment and common carrier accidental death for travelers over the age of 65.
World Trips has two different travel medical insurance plans: Atlas International and Atlas International Premium. Both plans let travelers choose their maximum coverage limit and deductible. While both plans provide excellent medical-related expense coverage, they do not cover certain travel-related expenses, such as baggage loss, unlike SafetyWing.
Therefore, World Trips is a great choice as long as you don’t want or need travel-related coverage.
4. IMG, the cheapest medical-only travel insurance
Looking for the cheapest medical-only travel insurance? IMG is the travel medical insurance for you.
Their Patriot International and Patriot Platinum International plans both allow you to select your maximum coverage limit and deductible, adding flexibility to the travel health insurance purchasing process.
IMG’s plans offer a high amount of medical-related coverage, particularly for medical evacuation and accidental death and dismemberment, but their travel-related coverage, particularly for baggage loss, is not as comprehensive as SafetyWing’s.
Ultimately, IMG is the best option if you want cheap medical-only travel insurance and aren’t worried about all-inclusive travel-related coverage.
5. Allianz, a good medical insurance for international travel
Allianz is a solid choice for medical insurance for travel. Their OneTrip Emergency Medical plan offers good coverage for medical-related expenses and some limited coverage for travel-related expenses.
However, the OneTrip Emergency Medical plan has rather low coverage for its price, since it’s one of the most expensive plans and it still has much lower medical coverage than other travel health insurance, especially SafetyWing. It also doesn’t allow you to choose your maximum coverage limit or deductible, so there’s no price flexibility.
What does travel medical insurance cover?
As I mentioned before, medical-only travel insurance is completely different from travel insurance. Both types of insurance may overlap in certain coverage areas, such as medical coverage, but travel medical insurance mainly covers medical-related expenses, while travel insurance covers travel-related expenses and has a lower limit for medical-related expenses.
Below is a chart that compares travel medical insurance coverage to travel insurance coverage.
Travel Medical Insurance | Travel Insurance |
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|---|---|---|
Emergency Medical Expenses | ✔️ (higher coverage limit) | ✔️ (lower coverage limit) |
Evacuation & Repatriation | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Accidental Death & Dismemberment | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Trip Delay | Sometimes | ✔️ |
Trip Cancellation | Sometimes | ✔️ |
Trip Interruption | Sometimes | ✔️ |
Baggage Loss | Sometimes | ✔️ |
TRAVEL MEDICAL INSURANCE VS. TRAVEL INSURANCE |
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Is medical insurance for travel worth it?
If you’re not interested in getting travel insurance for your next trip, you should at least purchase travel health insurance. For one, health insurance for travel tends to be much cheaper than travel insurance.
More than that, however, having travel medical insurance ensures that you won’t have to pay for medical expenses out of your own pocket if you get injured or fall ill while you’re traveling.
With SafetyWing’s travel health insurance, if you’re traveling long-term you can opt-in for recurrent renewals, so you’ll get automatic renewals and coverage in your home country, plus excellent medical coverage for an affordable price.
If you have any more questions about travel health insurance, please leave a comment down below – I’d be happy to answer any questions!
