For most people who vacation abroad, purchasing travel insurance is a no-brainer. After all, why not? Travel insurance protects your trips from cancellation and offers you immediate — but sometimes inadequate — coverage for emergency care abroad.
Here's the reason you should make sure to read the small print: the medical coverage that comes with travel insurance tends to be limited. In the case of an emergency, you’ll likely be sent to a local facility, and they’ll only cover treatment costs up to a certain expense limit. You need to be aware of what those caps are, because YOU will be liable for all costs over those limits, and some are often set very low.
If an injury or illness is more extreme than the local facility can handle, basic travel insurance will also likely send you to the next nearest facility that is qualified to treat you. You don’t get much of a choice; the insurance company decides whether a hospital is an “adequate facility,” not you, which can be a little scary in a foreign country that might not have the same modern equipment as you’re used to in the USA. There can also be language barriers, making communicating with doctors, and informed treatment decisions, difficult for you. Why risk this?
Fortunately, businesses such as Medjet have swooped in, creating affordable medical transport membership programs to help get you home to your own doctors and hospital in a medical emergency during travel.
But treatment and transport decisions are not the only differences between travel insurance and “supplemental” plans. From how doctors are paid to who can weigh in on your care, here's a look at the major differences between your own health insurance, travel insurance, and medical protection membership plans.
How Health and Travel Insurance Can Let You Down When You’re Abroad
Health Insurance Can Only Help a Little
When it comes to traveling, particularly overseas, many people will assume their existing health insurance will help them cover the cost of international injuries. While some do, many don't, which means that you should pick up the phone and check your coverage with your insurance before traveling.
Taken from the U.S. Department of State website, here is a non-exhaustive list of questions you should ask your insurer: does my plan cover emergency expenses associated with returning to the U.S. because of a serious illness or injury; do I need pre-authorizations or second opinions before a treatment can ensue; does the insurance guarantee payments for medical expenses when traveling outside the U.S.?
If the answer is “no” to any of these questions, you may want to consider supplemental protection. While the major health insurance companies say they cover you if you are “seriously injured” abroad, they all have different ideas of what constitutes a serious injury, which is why that phone call is necessary. Purchasing supplemental health coverage will fill any gaps from your existing health insurance plan.
Same goes for Medicare. Many people will wrongly assume they are protected when traveling outside the U.S. but Medicare isn't extended when you are out of the country. There are some very rare exceptions to the rule but, in large part, you're out of luck if you just have Medicare and get hurt overseas.
You Don't Have Much Of a Say With Your Simple Travel Insurance
When it comes to travel insurance, many people wrongly think that it covers them in the event of an injury or accident. This is often false: the main benefits only include protection from trip cancellations, lost luggage, and a series of other travel interruptions. Make sure yours has an acceptable level of medical coverage and a deductible that you can afford.
One of the big differences between travel insurance and a supplemental medical transport plan is who decides what medical facility you are transported to if you do get injured and need a medevac to get out of the country. Travel insurance will evacuate you, but only to the nearest qualified doctor or hospital, even if it isn't at the level of care that you are accustomed to or need.
With a medical transport plan, you get to choose where you are transported to and the transports are completed by either by air ambulance or commercially with a nurse to escort you to your home hospital. Without the extra protection, you can expect to spend thousands of dollars to get airlifted to the care facility of your choosing.
But it doesn't just stop with medical emergencies. Some transport membership programs, like Medjet, also offer membership options that cover security issues. For example, Medjet’s elevated MedjetHorizon option offers 24/7 crisis response and covers the cost of getting you to safety in the event of political unrest, terrorism, or a natural disaster. While travel insurance may also cover some safety evacuations, they typically have to wait for the government to officially issue a mandate to evacuate, which puts you in the same last-minute scramble to get out as everyone else. Such an insurance supplement can begin security evacuation protocols prior to official mandates, which could give you a jump on getting out of the way of a hurricane, or other safety threats.
Unlike travel insurance, most transport plans will even cover the expense of bringing the remains of the deceased back into the country. Nobody likes to think about that, but some foreign countries make it incredibly difficult, or absurdly expensive, to get remains released, and that’s probably the LAST thing a grieving relative should have to deal with.
Supplemental Medical Protection Is for Everyone
International travelers will often balk at the idea of getting a supplemental medical protection plan, figuring that they're just sightseeing, not climbing Mount Everest, so why do they need it? Injuries and emergencies can happen at any time and to anyone, not just people traveling abroad who engage in extreme sports or activities.
Consider this: more than ten million travelers end up in a hospital overseas each year when traveling internationally. What's more, two million-plus travelers each year require medical transport, with the cost ranging from $30,000 to $150,000 that their travel insurance or credit card can't—or won’t—cover.
Don't ignore the facts. Insurance is necessary for travel to help cover doctors, nurses, specialists, and hospital and ambulance charges, but supplemental protection is a comfort that you should definitely consider adding to your travel expenses. According to U.S.A Today, a medical evacuation from London to the U.S. will cost $70,000. This includes the evacuation happening on an air-based ambulance with two pilots, a nurse, and a paramedic. From Africa, it is roughly $120,000 and in Asia, it jumps to $140,000. This all comes at a time when travelers are increasingly worried about their safety while abroad thanks to geopolitical strife and anti-American sentiment around the globe.
When assessing a travel insurance policy, make sure to read the small print and to watch out for any exclusions. Travel insurance may very well exclude “extreme activities,” and while you might not think you’re doing anything too “extreme” on your trip, some insurance providers may consider certain tourist activities “extreme,” or consider a moped a “motorcycle” and therefore exclude it from coverage (which is not something you want your provider to determine AFTER you’ve had a moped accident). Pre-existing conditions, “adventure travel,” and other “easy outs” for not honoring a claim are the things you want to watch out for.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to travel insurance, many people wrongly think that it covers them in the event of an injury or accident when the main benefits only include protection from trip cancellations, interruptions in travel, lost luggage, and limited medical evacuations. Medical insurance is another one that many international travelers rely on, only to find it doesn't cover enough of the expenses in the case of an injury.
In order to have peace of mind when traveling abroad and to know you can be returned all the way home for treatment, or evacuated quickly in the event of strife, terrorism, injury, or natural disaster, you'll need the added protection of supplemental coverage.
Kim Dinan is an author and avid traveler. Endlessly curious about the world, she has backpacked to over twenty-five countries on five continents and called India, Mexico, and numerous campgrounds around the USA home. Her love of the outdoors has compelled her to climb mountains in the Himalayas, raft frigid river in Patagonia, and walk five hundred and fifty miles across Spain on her own. Her debut travel memoir, The Yellow Envelope, was published in 2017.