Travel Insurance: A Plan For Every Need

In a little over a decade, travel health insurance has evolved into a multifaceted range of products serving all Canadians regardless of age, interests or travel habits. Now, anyone traveling for vacation, business, study or overseas posting, can be fitted out with a plan that protects their health and possibly their life savings.

And though there are many different plans available in what has become a very sophisticated marketplace, most fall into a few major categories.

The Single Trip plan, which covers the customer for one specific trip with designated beginning and ending coverage dates, is most appropriate for people traveling once or twice a year, primarily for vacation. They can buy the plan well ahead of time. They can buy coverage for only the days they need. And it’s particularly suitable for people such as snowbirds, who may stay out of the country for up to six months continuously. As with all plans, the single trip variety has numerous variations, benefit levels, restrictions and limitations depending on the applicant’s age, health status and trip duration. There is no such thing as one plan that fits all.

The Annual or Multi-Trip plan is most appropriate for frequent travelers who take shorter trips at shorter notice and don’t want to bother reapplying for insurance each time. Manulife’s annual plan allows travelers to make as many trips out of the country as they wish, up to a maximum number of days per trip, e.g. 4, 10, 18, or 30-day segments. The only condition is that coverage is limited to the segment purchased. However, if they need to extend any one of these segments they can buy top-up coverage. Travelers must be cautioned, however, that an accident or illness in any of the segments may become a pre-existing condition in subsequent top-ups or trips.

If that happens, customers may need to contact their insurers to adjust their status.

Visitors to Canada represent a buoyant market that is often overlooked. Canadian hospitals are not cheap. A hospital can easily charge a foreign patient $4000 to $5000 a day for routine inpatient care, and hospital administrators are not hesitant about demanding payment or payment guarantees—perhaps from the very relatives being visited. Visitors to Canada should also have their insurance in place before they set foot here. Plans that are bought after the visitor arrives often have a waiting period—perhaps two or three days or longer—before coverage kicks in. Many American visitors also need supplemental visitor’s insurance for Canada.

Another very important niche product is a plan that covers Canadians returning home after long absences. Most provinces require returnees to live in the province for three months and be able to prove it, in order to restore their eligibility for
government health insurance. During that time they need to be covered as surely as visitors to Canada do.

Finding the right plan for you may require hard work. You should contact your financial advisor for more information.