The cover attached to your credit card is travel insurance. It is just a much narrower version.
The worst possible moment to find out what your policy actually says is in a hospital in another country. The Government of Canada’s travel insurance factsheet lists three things to make sure your coverage includes, and the one to settle first is the condition you already had before you left.
Ask us to read your cover Read the short answer firstGetting you to care, and back to Canada if needed.
A condition you already have, whether or not you are being treated.
What the policy pays if you die abroad.
What should travel insurance actually cover?
The Government of Canada’s travel insurance factsheet says to make sure your coverage includes three things: medical evacuation, pre-existing medical conditions, and repatriation in case of death. Those are three different things and the names get mixed up, so check your policy for all three whatever it calls them.
Provincial health cover does very little once you leave Canada, and a card benefit is narrower than a standalone policy. The gaps that matter are not the broken ankle. They are the flight home with a medical escort, which sits under medical evacuation, and the heart condition you have been managing for years and did not think to mention. The same government guidance is blunt about whose job this is: “It is your responsibility to know the terms of your insurance policy.”
Pre-existing conditions are what to settle first. It is not enough to assume you are covered because you feel well. The advice is to get it in writing that your condition is included, before you fly, because the conversation afterwards is with a claims department in another country and a hospital that wants paying now. A stability period is a stretch of time before your trip in which your condition, your symptoms and your medication must not have changed, and nothing new must have appeared. Age limits matter too, and so does any recent change to your medication. Read the Government of Canada guidance on travel insurance (opens in a new tab).
Four things to check before you book.
Whether your condition is named
Ask for written confirmation that the condition you already have is covered. A medication changed a month before you fly can be enough to put a claim in doubt.
How you get home
In the Government of Canada’s three, this one is medical evacuation rather than repatriation. A commercial seat is not the same as a medical transfer, so check both that the policy will pay for the transfer and how much it will pay.
What the card really gives you
Card benefits often depend on paying for the trip with that card, cap the number of days, and cut off at an age. Read those three limits before relying on it.
Who is on the policy
Children, a partner travelling separately, a parent joining you for part of the trip. Who is insured is set by the policy wording, not by whose name is on the booking, and a card benefit is the exception. Check that everyone travelling is actually named.
Three trips, three ordinary assumptions. All three are illustrations, not client files.
The card that covered the flight
The trip was booked on the card, so the cover was assumed. The trip ran three weeks and the benefit stopped at fifteen days.
The condition nobody asked about
Well managed for years, no recent trouble, so it never came up. The claim turned on a prescription change eight weeks before departure.
The trip home
The treatment abroad was handled. Getting home lying down, with someone qualified in the next seat, was the bill nobody had pictured.
The questions people ask the week before they fly.
My provincial health plan covers me abroad, does it not?
Very little of it. What it pays is set by British Columbia, not by the hospital treating you, so it will not go far against a foreign hospital bill. Treat it as a small contribution, not as cover.
Is an annual policy better than buying each trip?
If you travel more than twice a year it is worth pricing, and it means one less thing to remember. The limit to check is the maximum length of any single trip.
I have a heart condition. Can I still get cover?
Yes, if the condition meets the policy’s stability period. Declare it and get the answer in writing. Declaring does not on its own mean the condition is covered, because it can still be excluded by name, but hiding it can put the whole policy in doubt.
Does it cover me if I cancel the trip?
That is trip cancellation, a separate part. Medical cover and cancellation cover can be sold together, but they are not the same thing, so check you have both if you want both.
I am already abroad and forgot. Too late?
Sometimes, but options narrow sharply once you have left. Cover bought after departure normally starts only after a waiting period, and anything that began before the cover started is generally excluded. Tell us where you are and we will tell you honestly what is left.
Two that sit next to this on the same site: what your landlord’s policy does not cover, and who must be listed on your ICBC policy.
Not the question you had? Describe the trip through the short contact form and you will get a written answer, not a sales call.
Read the policy here, not in a hospital there.
Send us whatever cover you already have and we will tell you what it does and what it does not. Do not cancel anything before you have that in writing, because a new policy can test your health again from the start.
Checked for technical accuracy by Amrit Sidhu of S&S Insurance Services Ltd. Last checked 28 September 2026.