Do You Need Travel Insurance?

Travel insurance is not a moral question and there is no universally correct answer. It is a calculation with four inputs: how much money you have already paid out, how likely you are to lose it, what medical care costs where you are going, and how far you would have to be moved to reach a hospital that could treat you. For some trips the answer is clearly no. For others it is not close.

What You Need to Know

Start by separating the two risks, because they are insured by different products and priced differently. The financial risk is that you paid for a trip you cannot take, or that gets cut short. The medical risk is that you need care abroad and have to pay for it, or need moving to somewhere that can provide it.

The financial risk scales with what you have prepaid and how refundable it is. A trip built from a refundable hotel booking and a flexible airfare carries little of it. A trip built from a nonrefundable tour deposit, internal flights and a lodge booked a year out carries a great deal.

Why the medical side is the one that decides it

The CDC states that your current medical insurance may not cover care in another country, and that even where a country has nationalized health care, that system may not cover people who are not citizens. Medicare and Medicaid do not apply overseas at all, a point the State Department repeats on 205 of the 211 destination pages it publishes.

Then there is evacuation, which is the cost that turns a bad situation into a ruinous one. The CDC puts emergency transportation from a remote area to a high-quality hospital at more than $100,000 without cover. That figure is why a two-week trip to a country with excellent hospitals and a two-week trip to somewhere genuinely remote are not the same insurance decision, even at the same price.

When declining is reasonable

Short trip, low prepaid cost, a destination with hospitals you would be content to be treated in, no existing condition, and a domestic policy you have actually read and that actually covers you abroad. That combination exists, and a traveler who has checked all five and declines is making an informed choice rather than a mistake.

What to Do Before Your Trip

• Add up what is genuinely nonrefundable, not what the trip cost.
• Read your existing health policy’s overseas section before you shop for anything.
• Read your credit card’s travel benefit, specifically for medical and evacuation.
• Look up your destination’s health section on the State Department’s country page.
• Buy before the first thing that could go wrong, which for most policies means at or near booking.

Important Considerations

Timing is a genuine constraint rather than a sales tactic. Policies exclude events that were foreseeable when you bought, so a storm already named, an advisory already published or a condition already diagnosed will not be covered by a policy bought afterward. Some benefits, particularly cancel-for-any-reason options and waivers of pre-existing condition exclusions, are only available within a short window after your first deposit.

Read the exclusions before the benefits. A policy is defined by what it will not pay for, and the exclusions are where trips like yours either are or are not covered: adventure activities, motorcycles, altitude, alcohol, and anything a doctor could describe as a pre-existing condition.

Tips for Group Travelers

• Require it rather than recommend it, and say so at the deposit stage.
• Ask for proof, with a policy number and an emergency assistance line, not a yes.
• Explain what it is for. Most people picture canceled flights, not evacuation.
• Let people buy their own. A group policy that does not fit one traveler’s health leaves that traveler worse off.
• Keep the group’s policy details together where a leader can reach them at three in the morning.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Deciding on price alone, when the products differ more than the prices do.
• Assuming a credit card covers medical care abroad.
• Buying after a named storm or a published advisory.
• Insuring the deposit and not the evacuation on a remote itinerary.
• Not declaring an existing condition, which voids the part you most need.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does travel insurance typically cost?

Pricing depends on age, trip cost, destination, trip length and the cover selected, and it varies enough between insurers that a general figure would mislead more than it helped. Get two or three real quotes for your actual trip and compare what each excludes rather than what each costs.

When do I have to buy it?

Before the event you want covered, and for several benefits within days of your first deposit. Cancel-for-any-reason cover and waivers of pre-existing condition exclusions are typically only sold in a short window after booking, so the practical rule is to decide at booking rather than later.

Do I need it for a country with good hospitals?

The evacuation argument weakens considerably, because you are less likely to need moving. The payment argument does not: you may still be asked to pay at the point of care and claim afterward, and a nationalized system may not treat a non-citizen for free. Read your own policy’s overseas terms before deciding.

Does it cover me if I catch something?

Travel health insurance generally covers treatment for illness that begins during the trip, subject to the policy’s exclusions. Whether a specific outbreak, a specific activity or a condition you already had is covered is a question only the policy document answers, and it is worth reading that section before you buy rather than after.

Related Travel Tips

• Health, insurance and travel protection, the section this guide belongs to.
• Travel Insurance vs. Trip Protection. Which product is which.
• What Travel Insurance Covers. The benefits and the exclusions.
• Medical Insurance Abroad. Whether your existing cover travels.

Plan Your Trip With LABUSA Travel

How remote an itinerary really is, and therefore how much the evacuation question matters, is not obvious from a brochure. LABUSA Travel can tell you where the nearest capable hospital is before you decide what to buy.

Talk with a LABUSA Travel advisor about a trip you are considering, or browse our destination guides for a specific country.

Verify Before You Travel

The three kinds of travel cover and the evacuation figure quoted here are published by CDC Travelers’ Health. Country health conditions are published by the U.S. Department of State. What any individual policy covers is set by the insurer and must be confirmed with them.