The cover attached to your credit card is not the same thing as travel insurance.
Most people find out what their policy actually says in a hospital in another country, which is the worst possible moment. The Government of Canada names three things a travel health policy should always cover, and the one that catches Canadians out is the condition they already had before they left.
Ask us to read your cover Read the short answer firstGetting you to a hospital that can treat you.
Anything you were already being treated for.
Getting you home again afterwards.
What should travel insurance actually cover?
The Government of Canada says a travel health policy should always cover three things: medical evacuation, pre-existing medical conditions, and repatriation. If your cover is missing any of the three, it is not really travel health insurance.
Provincial health cover does very little once you leave Canada, and a card benefit is usually narrower than people assume. The gap is almost never the broken ankle. It is the flight home with a nurse, or 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’s your responsibility to know and understand the terms of your insurance policy.”
Pre-existing conditions are where most refused claims begin. 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. Stability periods, age limits and how recently your medication changed all matter. 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
Repatriation is the expensive part. A commercial seat is not the same as a medical transfer, and the difference is measured in aircraft, not in tickets.
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. Cover follows people, not the booking, and families often assume otherwise.
Three trips, three ordinary assumptions.
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, and usually at Canadian rates rather than what a foreign hospital charges. 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 usually is, and it removes the risk of forgetting. The limit to check is the maximum length of any single trip.
I have a heart condition. Can I still get cover?
Usually yes. What matters is being straight about it and getting the answer in writing. Declaring a condition is what protects the claim, not what breaks it.
Does it cover me if I cancel the trip?
That is trip cancellation, a separate part. Medical cover and cancellation cover are often 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. Call us and we will tell you honestly whether anything can still be arranged.
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? Tell us about the trip and a licensed person will answer it. Use the short contact form.
Read the policy here, not in a hospital there.
Send us whatever cover you already have and we will tell you what it does, what it does not, and whether it is worth keeping.