The Best Travel Insurance for Long Term Travelers
By: Brodi Cole
Tags: Travel, Healthcare, Insurance, Travel Tips, Traveling

The best travel insurance for long term travelers (aka: digital nomads) isn’t actually travel insurance. It’s health insurance. Turns out, there’s a big difference between travel insurance and global health insurance (sometimes called expatriate health coverage). Both are important, whether you’re taking a weekend trip or moving to a continent across the globe. You need to make preparations for how you’ll be cared for in case you need medical attention. Like when my son fell in the pool area at Hacienda Tres Rios in February. He cracked his tooth. We foolishly opted not to get travel insurance because I assumed we’d be perfectly safe at a fancy, all-inclusive resort. It wasn’t too bad so we waited until we got home to see our regular dentist. But it could have been worse, and we might not have had that luxury.

Travel insurance has some benefits that are similar to health insurance, but it is not the same. Health insurance defrays the cost of regular medical care, emergency medical treatment, medicine, and other medical-related costs inside a health insurance network. The goal of travel insurance on the other hand is to offer coverage for a short period of time. Travel insurance exists to get the traveler back home safe and sound to the primary insurance network. Then the home insurance network will take on the bulk of the treatment and expense. Travel insurance is basically out of home network gap coverage.

What Type of Coverage is Best?

Travel insurance is designed for vacationers to cover cancellations, personal belongings, and emergency medical treatment. Alternatively, international health insurance is designed to cover inpatient treatment check-ups and continuing treatment of chronic conditions while the insured person is living and/or working abroad for a prolonged period of time. International medical insurance will usually allow a person to choose where you have treatment. Travel insurance returns the individual back home to continue treatment once they are well enough to make the journey home.

When choosing between travel insurance and international medical insurance it’s important to decide what factors are most important. Are you worried about losing baggage or being airlifted home in the case of devastating accident? Or are you more worried about having access to vital healthcare if you develop a chronic condition while living overseas?

These are the top seven things covered by both travel insurance and international medical coverage:

Top 7 Things Covered by Travel Insurance:

Lost luggage

Delayed departure

Trip cancelled

Personal belongings

Personal Liability

Travel Documents

Emergency Medical Coverage Until You Can Travel Home

Top 7 Things Covered by International Medical Insurance:

Emergency Medical Coverage Until You Can Travel Home

Regular Medical Checkups

Rehabilitation

Short Term Coverage in the Home Country

Maternity Coverage

Newborn Coverage

Cancer Treatment

You may have figured out that we aren’t planning to get travel insurance. Our trip will be too long, and ideally indefinite. However, we will have global health insurance when we leave for our travels! Which company will we choose? The choice was difficult. It turns out that many companies recommended to us as the best travel insurance did not actually offer global health insurance. Others didn’t offer coverage to US citizens, or they had coverage gaps in what they did offer that was undesirable for us in the long term.

This is our list of “must-have” items in our insurance plan:

Affordable monthly premiums

Covers pre-existing conditions, even if a reasonable waiting period is applied

Customer service is accessible 24/7

Strong worldwide coverage network

Limited amount of US coverage for when we visit home

Translation services

More than one year of coverage offered. “Indefinite” options preferred

Includes coverage for sports like skiing, hiking, etc.

Covers all emergencies and worst case scenarios

Underwritten by strong company

High life coverage and high in hospital coverage for worst case scenarios.

Our general plan for health insurance is to cover basic doctor visits and prescriptions out of pocket. Not surprisingly, the United States has the most expensive medical care on earth. In most other countries, basic healthcare is affordable. Singapore is one of the most expensive places on the planet. Yet a digital nomad I know spent just $153 on an ER visit there for food poisoning. We’ll have a savings cushion for things like that. Complex things like hospital stays or goodness forbid a cancer diagnosis will need actual health insurance.

Below I outline some recommended insurance companies we considered in making our decision. Some companies we considered before realizing the difference between travel insurance and global health insurance.

Travel Insurance Companies

World Nomads: This is an incredibly popular option with some circles of bloggers and digital nomads. It’s user friendly in that you just have to go online and update your account when there are new countries to add for coverage. However, they are very expensive and don’t seem to cover catastrophic medical that is non-accident related (IE: cancer diagnosis). Ultimately, World Nomads essentially sells many different policies depending on the destination and is essentially just more thorough travel insurance.

Allianz: Their products offer similar coverage to world nomads at a cheaper cost. The fine print says you need to have a booked return flight to your country of origin on the day you say your trip is ending. If you do not or “do not intend” to return on the date, the insurance contract is void. Again, although highly recommended it is still travel insurance rather than global health coverage.

Travel Guard: Offered by AIG, this is very comprehensive travel insurance. It has a mid-range price point and is a good choice for people going on vacation or traveling a few months.

Berkshire Hathaway: This is another travel insurance company that even offers different types of coverage. Notably, it will quote cruise insurance separately than standard travel insurance. Their website also has a handy explanation on how much trip insurance usually costs.

Two other travel insurance companies that were recommended, but not as often were Covermore and TripAssure. I didn’t look into them too deeply because their Google description clearly said “trip insurance”. By this time we’d found the difference between travel and global health insurance, so I just moved my search along.

Global Health Insurance Companies — Budget Options

IMG/GNI: Provides worldwide health insurance that’s fairly affordable. They even offer different levels of coverage, from catastrophe coverage with high deductibles to comprehensive plans that even cover annual wellness visits and dental care. Quotes say “Plans only available to non-US residents and those who reside outside their country of residence”. So, this would not be offered to US residents living in the US until after they leave the country.

Cigna Global Health: Cigna has affiliates in almost every country worldwide. When I requested a quote, I had to tell them I was already in Indonesia not the US. Otherwise they wouldn’t quote me because they don’t want to deal with US. Cigna coverage is pretty comprehensive. It requires even basic stuff like checkups and full coverage. This can increase the premium, though.

A+ Medical Health Insurance: They claim their plans are bulletproof. In addition, they claim to offer customized plans, but in reality they have four levels of coverage from which to choose. And, one can save money by choosing just individual countries at a time instead of covering the entire world indefinitely. They seem to partner with local providers and coverage networks. So, choosing a smaller geographic area could be a good way to save money if one is travelling long term in perhaps Asia for a few years.

Global Health Insurance Companies — Pricier Options

Regency for Expats: According to their website, Regency offers worldwide services to globally mobile individuals and corporate clients in over 120 countries. In addition to health insurance they also offer life insurance. We’ll save that type of coverage for another post. Regency is the only company I’ve seen that separates Bali from Indonesia in crafting quotes. It didn’t change the rates by location, though. I got quotes for several countries to see how it would work. Overall, their rates were mid-range compared to our expectations. Being insured in the US for so long, we have major sticker shock on quote prices.

NOW Health International: This plan was one of the more expensive options I found. However, it is also very comprehensive. It’s one of the few I found that covers organ transplants. It also has a higher lifetime maximum than some of the budget plans we’ve considered.

Insurance Brokers

Pacific Prime: Instead of being an insurance company, Pacific Prime is actually a broker. This means it helps digital nomads, expatriates, and long term travelers compare a variety of insurance options. When we ran quotes for our ages and genders, the quotes were higher than expected. We also couldn’t select USA as our nationality. So, I’m not sure if it covers people from the US living abroad full time. People interested in working with a broker could easily call for more information. I just don’t feel that a broker is what our family needs right now.

International Care: This one is another full service insurance broker that sources both travel insurance and global health insurance. It does not actually provide insurance on its own. In addition, it seems to specialize in servicing international organizations who want to find insurance for their employees. Individuals have to request quotes separately from each company with which International Care partners. However, their partnership list is extensive.

Conclusion

Although this is not a complete list, it’s more expansive than any blog I found on the topic. Many digital nomad bloggers who recommend insurance seem to confuse the two, which worries me that they’re travelling under insured. Please don’t make the same mistake if you’re planning to travel long term, especially without a return plane ticket. Coverage for catastrophes is vital whether you’re living at home or abroad.

Choosing a international health care plan comes down to risk tolerance. This concept is also applicable when picking any insurance plan, The phrase “you get what you pay for” comes to mind here. Decide what you’re willing to risk. Compare it to what you’re willing to pay. You’ll likely need to make some compromises before making a final choice.

Long term travelers, digital nomads, expatriates and global citizens should do their research. Don’t buy the first quote you get. Compare a few different options and ask a lot of questions when making a decision. When it comes to the best travel insurance, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all that’s best for everyone. I can’t and won’t tell you what insurance is best. How could I since I don’t know what’s best for your family. I know what’s best for mine, though. But it did take a lot of research to figure that out!

If you remember nothing else from this post, here are four steps that can help in making your final decision:

Know what type of insurance you need based on the duration of your travels. Don’t just buy the cheapest plan. Price is only one factor. Benefits coverage and exclusions for various plans matter. Read the fine print!

Follow the four steps above, and you’re much more likely to be properly covered for all your travel needs.