Travelling abroad comes with costs: airfare, hotels, car rentals, restaurants, and more. It’s understandable that you shy away from thinking about travel insurance. It’s just one more thing to pay for.
But none of these costs will compare to having a medical emergency in another country.
Change of Travel Plans
Imagine being overseas in a foreign country and your travelling companion falls unexplainably ill on the final day of the trip. Think about the potential costs:
- Flight change fees or new flight paths
- Extending your hotel stay by a day, a week, a month
- Missed income
- Extending child or pet care back home
When medically ill or injured, air travel especially can either be out of the question or medically unfeasible. (You can’t even board a plane with any symptoms of illness these days.)
In the end, hotels, restaurants, and air travel providers do not accept responsibility for your personal health issues.
And we haven’t even gotten to the real costs.
What Will US Medical Care Cost You?
Travel insurance within Canada is becoming more and more relevant as the cost of administering medical treatment increases. If you are in the United States, the average daily hospital cost is $2,607 USD. A hospital stay in the US averages at $11,700 USD.
Average Costs for Common Surgeries in the US (2018):
- Heart valve replacement: $170,000
- Heart bypass: $123,000
- Spinal fusion: $110,000
- Hip replacement: $40,364
- Knee replacement: $35,000
- Angioplasty: $28,200
- Hip resurfacing: $28,000
- Gastric bypass: $25,000
- Cornea: $17,500
- Gastric sleeve: $16,000
What Does Travel Insurance Cover?
Most Canadian insurers offer $1M – $5M in emergency medical care and trip cancellation insurance. Coverage includes things like:
- Single or Multi-Trip Plans
- Coverage for COVID-19
- $5 to $10 million for emergency medical care
- Hospitalization fees
- Ambulance (Ground or Air Transportation)
- Fees for nurses, physicians and other health care professionals for emergency medical treatment
- Prescription drugs required to treat emergency situations
- Emergency repatriation by air ambulance or commercial flight with a medical escort
- Emergency dental treatment as a result of an accident
- Return of your travelling companion and/or family members covered by the same policy
What Travel Insurance is Covered with My Credit Card?
Yes, some credit cards come with an embedded travel insurance policy. However, look closely at the policy wording. These areas are especially important:
- Coverage for pre-existing conditions
- Maximums and limits on the benefits offered
- Length of stay
Bottom line: Don’t rely on your credit card. Check the fine print.
What are the Travel Insurance Cost Factors?
There are a number of things that determine the cost of your travel insurance policy:
- Ages of those on the trip
- Duration of your trip
- Value of your trip
- Current health and medical stability of all travellers
This is where talking to an expert helps. Comparing multiple policies from a number of insurers is daunting as the coverage and wording is all a little different. And when you consider the unique health situations for yourself and your fellow travellers it can seem impossible.
So is Travel Insurance Worth It?
With all these variables it’s hard for us to give you a specific cost. Expect to add between 4 – 12% to the total cost of your trip.
If you’re spending $10,000 for a bucket-list experience, adding $400 – $1,200 to give you peace of mind doesn’t seem like a stretch. Especially when you consider the current state of the travel industry and the global pandemic.
If you’d like to have a conversation with one of our advisors, we’re happy to provide a quote.
Our advisors are not tied to a particular insurance company…they work for you, and their services and advice are free. As well, they are all certified by TRIP- a governing body for travel insurance professionals.