Best Travel Health Insurance

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Ready for a getaway? Travel health insurance (also known as international health insurance or medical travel insurance) might be important when you take your next trip. Here’s what you need to know about this type of coverage: what it is, what it covers, how much it costs our favorite providers (with reviews!) and which types of travelers need it the most.

Quick Look: Best Travel Health Insurance:

• Best Overall for Travel Health Insurance: Allianz Global Assistance
• Best for Tech-Savvy Travelers: RoamRight
• Best for the Adventurer: World Nomads

Best Travel Health Insurance Providers

When the unexpected includes an accident or illness, travel health insurance comes to the rescue. These are some of our favorite providers for medical expenses coverage while traveling:

1. Allianz Global Assistance

Allianz Global Assistance insures around 40 million customers yearly. Allianz touts affordable plans, straightforward benefits and easy claims processing. More than 80% of user reviews on Trustpilot give Allianz a 5-star rating.

The OneTrip Emergency Medical plan from Allianz includes emergency medical, emergency medical transportation, travel accident coverage and 24-hour hotline assistance. Preexisting medical condition coverage is also available. Unlike typical travel health insurance, this plan also covers nonmedical expenses, too, like travel delays, missed connections and lost/stolen/damaged baggage.

Additional benefits include a concierge service that helps you with personalized destination information and secures restaurant reservations, event tickets and even tee times. 

2. Arch RoamRight

You’ll enjoy every aspect of your travels much more with a little peace of mind and financial protection. RoamRight offers many options for coverage so you can focus on what you’re doing rather than worry about the “what-ifs.” Additional benefits from RoamRight include AD&D, dental, emergency accident and sickness, emergency medical evacuation and repatriation of remains.

RoamRight can also help you locate doctors, hospitals or other medical care. Policy enrollment also includes full access to the RoamRight app that can help you with travel-related information, seek medical help and purchase medication.

3. World Nomads

World Nomads offers coverage for about 200 activities, including 40 extreme activities. You’ll find coverage beyond a standard illness or errant stumble. But even World Nomads has its limits. Policies cover adventurous, not risky, behavior. Coverage isn’t provided for things like if you’re under the influence of drugs or alcohol or if you get on a motorbike without a helmet or a license.

A conscientious adventurer can expect coverage for hospitalization, outpatient treatment for medical emergencies, prescribed medicines, X-rays and transport home (if medically necessary).

What is Travel Health Insurance?

Domestic health insurance covers things like wellness check-ups, vaccinations, illnesses and injuries while you’re in your home country. However, not all health insurance covers you when you leave the country. That’s why you need to scour the fine print on your health plan. You need travel medical insurance if you’re only covered for domestic insurance. That goes for Medicare, too. Medicare typically covers its enrollees only when they’re in the United States.

Travel health insurance (also known as travel medical insurance) is different than travel insurance. Travel insurance protects things like your financial investment in your travels, lost baggage and canceled flights. But travel insurance won’t help you with medical expenses while you’re abroad. International health insurance protects if you run into illness or injury when you travel outside of the U.S. 

Who Needs Travel Health Insurance? 

Anyone traveling abroad should consider travel health insurance. You never know when and where injuries or illnesses will pop up. When they do, you want the best health insurance possible. No matter where you go, travel medical insurance is a good idea. 

Average Cost of Travel Health Insurance

Typically, this type of coverage costs about $40 to $80 for a short trip. The factors that affect the cost include:

• Your age
• Trip length
• Medical and evacuation coverage 

There are also 3 types of coverage you can get: 

• Single trip travel medical: As the name suggests, this is coverage for a single trip.
• Multi-trip travel medical: This covers you if you plan to take multiple overseas trips over a period of 3 months to 12 months.
• Long-term major medical: If you plan to be abroad for a long time — 12 months or more — this type of travel health insurance can cover you.

You may be able to deduct the price of your premium from your taxes if you’re self-employed or own a business and purchased coverage for a professional trip.

What Does Travel Health Insurance Cover?

No one makes plans to suffer an injury or illness when traveling, but that doesn’t mean you can’t plan for coverage just in case. Travel medical insurance helps you with minor emergencies like spraining an ankle, chipping a tooth and food poisoning. It also helps with transportation, evacuation and in extreme cases, death. Here’s what you can expect your policy to cover:

• Medical/dental costs
• Advance payments to medical facilities and emergency transport
• Emergency medical evacuation services
• Accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) and travel accident benefits
• Emergency travel assistance

What Does Travel Health Insurance Not Cover? 

Don’t confuse travel insurance with travel health insurance. This type of policy is meant to cover your medical expenses when you visit another country. It doesn’t cover expenses related to your trip like:

• Trip cancellation due to weather, social unrest or another reason. Travel health insurance won’t cover the costs.
• Trip interruption: Travel health insurance doesn’t cover expenses you might incur if your trip is interrupted due to a strike or some other reason.
• Lost baggage
• Travel delays

For these inclusions, look to travel insurance policies (which may include medical coverage, too).

Carry an Umbrella in Case of Rain

Whether your trip is the culmination of patient planning or a spur-of-the-moment impulse, travel medical insurance helps protect you if you’re injured or ill. It’s as important as finding the right place to stay. It’s one of those things you may not need on a trip but could be indispensable if you do need it. Think of it as an umbrella — always in your go-bag to protect you in the event of a heavy downpour. And even if you don’t use it on your trip? It’s still an inexpensive and easy way to make sure you’re protected in any situation.

Consider this: if you forget to pack an umbrella, there’s plenty of (overpriced) options at the airport on your way out. But if you fail to purchase travel medical insurance before you leave, and end up needing it, then you’re on the hook for some major expenses. 

Frequently Asked Questions

The post Best Travel Health Insurance by Eric Huffman appeared first on Benzinga. Visit Benzinga to get more great content like this.