What is travel medical insurance?
Travel Medical Insurance covers emergency medical care expenses if you are suddenly and unexpectedly sick or if you have an accident while outside your home province. Your provincial health plan only covers a fraction of any health care expenses incurred outside of Canada and it limits coverage when you are travelling to another province. Should you get sick or injured during your trip, Travel Medical Insurance will cover all or most of your medical expenses up to a pre-determined limit. This coverage will protect you against the high cost of health care, and potentially save you from financial ruin should you unexpectedly need health care outside your home province.
How does Travel Medical Insurance work?
Here’s an example of how Travel Medical Insurance works:
During his annual winter vacation in Florida, Mark falls one day and severely injures his head. He has to be admitted to hospital for several days, examined by a specialist, and undergo a battery of tests including a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan.
Without Travel Medical Insurance, Mark would have to make arrangements with the Florida hospital to pay his bill for more than US$20,000. But because Mark purchased Travel Medical Insurance before he left Canada and his injury was a medical emergency covered under the policy, his insurance provider pays all of his hospitalization and treatment expenses directly to the U.S. hospital.
Travel Medical Insurance covers unexpected emergency health care costs when you are travelling – such as treatment by a physician, hospital stays, diagnostic tests and, in some cases, prescription drugs. It can also cover emergency medical evacuation. This type of policy usually has a limit on the total amount of benefit it will pay – typically several million dollars per person.
While there is no legal requirement to have Travel Medical Insurance when you take a trip outside your home province, you are taking a big risk if you travel without it. That’s because medical expenses, including medical evacuation, can be much higher in other countries than they are in Canada where you are likely covered by your provincial health care plan. For example, according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medical Services, fixing a broken leg can cost up to $7,500; the average cost of a three-day hospital stay is approximately $30,000; and comprehensive cancer care can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the United States – much, much higher than the amount your provincial health plan covers for medical expenses incurred outside Canada. In addition, the cost of emergency medical evacuation from a foreign country can be $25,000 or more. Most people would face financial ruin if required to pay medical bills of that magnitude.
The cost of Travel Medical Insurance will depend on a number of factors including your age, the length of your trip, and type of plan you decide to buy. For example, you can purchase a single-trip plan, which will cover you for one trip up to a maximum number of days (typically 212 days). Or you can purchase a multi-trip plan that will cover you for an unlimited number of trips per year as long as each trip is of a short duration (typically 15 or 30 days per trip). The cost of Travel Medical Insurance will also rise with your age, especially once you reach 65. And the longer your trip, the more your insurance will usually cost per day after the first 30 days.
Before purchasing Travel Medical Insurance, check to see what, if anything, may be covered by your credit card or company benefits plan. In some cases, they may provide you with coverage for a limited period of time — usually the first 30 days of a trip.
Yes, some credit cards provide Travel Medical Insurance as a benefit, but you need to verify what type of coverage is included, how much protection it provides, and what limitations exist.
For example, some credit cards provide Travel Medical Insurance for a covered emergency medical issue that occurs during the first 30 days of your trip. This benefit is usually available for multiple trips per year of 30 days or less, as long as you return home in between trips.
If you are planning to be away for more than 30 days, you should consider purchasing “top up” Travel Medical Insurance that will cover you after your 30-day period of coverage provided by your credit card expires.
It’s important to verify what the maximum limit is for the Travel Medical Insurance provided by your credit card so that you can recover most or all of the emergency medical costs that you might incur. In addition, should you need medical assistance while on a trip, most Travel Medical Insurance providers require that you call them in advance of seeking medical treatment.
Many credit cards also have age limits on their Travel Medical Insurance which can start at 65 or 70 years of age. And some credit cards do not provide any Travel Medical Insurance. So it pays to read your credit card insurance booklet and ask questions if you are unsure of your coverage and the conditions you need to meet. In order to be covered, you generally need proof of travel that will show when you left and plan to return home.
A number of banks and credit unions in Canada, including most CAFII member financial institutions, offer Travel Medical Insurance to their existing customers. Employees at CAFII member institutions are trained and knowledgeable about the products they sell, and they can be conveniently reached in branches or at call centres.
