What Your Travel Insurance Should Include for Health Purposes

Hazen Mirts
3 min readFeb 17, 2023

Nobody likes to get sick when traveling. Becoming ill or hurt might be one of the worst things that can happen. In these situations, travel medical insurance can be helpful. It’s particularly crucial if you’re going abroad, where your American health plan can provide little or no coverage. Also, Medicare only sometimes covers medical treatment outside the United States.

Emergency medical costs incurred while traveling are covered by travel medical insurance. Non-emergency or elective operations are not covered. The plan will compensate you up to the plan limitations if you have an unanticipated sickness, accident, or medical condition while traveling. Travel health insurance covers expenditures like ambulance calls, doctor visits, operating room fees, exams, lab tests, X-rays, anesthesia, and most medications.

There are plans for standalone and inclusive medical travel insurance. Standalone policies will pay for any unexpected medical or dental costs while traveling. The caveat is that it excludes other types of travel insurance protection, including baggage and trip cancellation fees. As a component of a thorough travel insurance program, you will also receive compensation for trip cancellation fees, delays, emergency medical evacuation, luggage loss, and more, in addition to emergency medical benefits. It’s the most effective technique to address a variety of possible issues. Several travel health insurance options cover Covid-related medical costs. However, because not all do, you should check if Covid coverage is crucial to you before purchasing a plan.

Depending on the plan, travel medical insurance may be the primary or secondary. Your health plan must pay first if you have health insurance and purchase travel medical insurance as supplemental coverage. Due to the absence of other insurance, a secondary travel medical plan will become the primary coverage if you go abroad and your U.S. health plan does not offer coverage.

Single-trip protection starts when you depart from home and ends when you return from your destination(s). You are covered for the whole journey under the package. Multiple-trip protection is suitable for travelers who make three or more journeys each year and is also referred to as yearly travel insurance.

Research your plan’s emergency medical evacuation coverage. Some plans will only cover your return to the United States after spending the last seven days in the hospital due to a medical emergency.

Pre-existing conditions may be covered in different ways. A pre-existing condition may have varied definitions depending on the insurance. Depending on the policy, some insurance companies may examine your medical history to see whether a problem existed within a specific time frame, which might be anywhere from 90 days to a year ago. Travel insurance policies often cover pre-existing conditions as long as you purchase your policy within a few weeks of paying your first trip deposit. You can lock in a pre-existing condition exclusion waiver by purchasing your plan as soon as possible.

Originally published at https://hazenmirts.co.

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Hazen Mirts

Based in Knoxville, TN, Hazen Mirts is the President & CEO of Enrollment First, Inc. To learn more, please visit https://hazenmirts.co.