Does Trip Insurance Cover Medical Care?

When most travelers think about trip insurance they think about trip cancellation protection and lost baggage coverage. While it’s true that these are benefits of trip insurance, there’s much more trip insurance has to offer. Trip insurance can help American travelers if they become sick or injured during their travels. 

Trip Insurance Medical Coverage

So what exactly does trip insurance offer as far as medical coverage goes? For Americans traveling abroad trip insurance offers the following coverage related to medical coverage: 

• Accident & Sickness benefit: Coverage for any new injury or illness like Covid, up to $500k 
• Emergency Medical Evacuation: Coverage related to evacuating an injured or sick traveler from a remote area, usually involving an airlift, and transferring them to the nearest medical facility 
• Quarantine that extends your stay: Through trip delay benefits, if you are required to quarantine by a medical official and it extends your stay, trip insurance can cover certain per diem costs related to your quarantine. 

Trip Insurance Medical Coverage vs. Travel Medical Coverage

Travel medical insurance is popular coverage that offers medical coverage for Americans traveling abroad or foreign visitors to the U.S.  But American travelers also have another coverage option when they’re traveling abroad: Trip insurance. 

Most, if not all, trip insurance plans offer Accident & Illness coverage. Travelers should take a look at the coverage maximum amounts on a trip insurance policy to determine if it might be more beneficial to them than a travel medical insurance policy. 

Unlike travel medical insurance, trip insurance offers major trip coverage benefits unrelated to medical care, like adding Cancel For Any Reason coverage, and costs associated with missed connections and lost luggage. For an older American or someone who might be more susceptible to illness, travel medical coverage may be the better option. Here are some of the limitations of trip insurance medical care as compared to travel medical coverage. 

• Trip Insurance medical care is more limited in its coverage.
• The insured’s costs are not as clearly defined through Trip Insurance medical care.
• Because there’s no PPO network there’s no outline of coverage percentages and copay amounts.
• With Trip Insurance medical care, travelers would be expected to pay out-of-pocket and would not have the option of direct billing.

How CFAR & IFAR Can Help in Times of Illness or Injury

Before you even leave on your travels, trip insurance can help reduce your stress. If you, your traveling companion, your spouse or your child is injured or falls sick before your trip, you can rely on the trip cancellation benefit to protect your financial investment. 

Basic trip insurance plans will reimburse you for prepaid travel expenses in the event that you are unable to go on your trip for a covered reason. Sudden illness or injury is usually one of those reasons. But even if your particular situation ends up not being covered by basic insurance, Cancel For Any Reason can help save you money. When you add CFAR to your basic trip insurance plan you’ll be able to cancel your trip for any reason and still recoup certain prepaid travel expenses. 

Similarly, if you are already on your trip and you suddenly fall ill or suffer an injury and need to cancel your trip plans. Interruption For Any Reason (IFAR) can help you recoup prepaid expenses like unused event tickets or hotel stays. 

Top Trip Insurance Offering Medical Coverage

There are a lot of options when it comes to trip insurance medical coverage. So how do you know which one to choose? You can always use VisitorsCoverage’s comparison tool to see how plans stack up against each other. Here are some of the top trip insurance plans available:  

iTravelInsured Travel LX

RoundTrip Choice

Safe Travels Voyager

Here’s a comprehensive list of trip insurance plans offering Accident & Sickness coverage. 

The next time you’re looking into travel insurance for your next trip, remember that if you’re an American preparing to travel abroad, both travel medical insurance and trip insurance offer medical coverage. If you have any questions or need help deciding on your travel insurance options, our team of licensed travel insurance experts are happy to help.