Travel Medical Insurance

Travel medical coverage is a very popular option for many people who plan to be out of their country of citizenship for different periods of time.

Typical health plans only offer emergency coverage out of the State or country or origin and you need to be conservative about the meaning of "emergency".

Chest pain that turns out to be a heart attack will generally be covered but if it's heartburn, that might not and could result in 10's of thousands of dollars in exposure.

Travel medical provides more comprehensive coverage in foreign countries but more importantly, the process is much easier with a true travel medical plan since they have international networks when you're sick or hurt.

This can apply for many different scenarios while outside your country :

The quoting tool allows you to select by these categories (more info below).

So...what's the best approach?

We'll cover these topics:

• The best carrier for travel medical insurance
• What type of travel medical plan by length of stay
• Different travel medical options 
• How to quote and enroll travel medical

Let's get started!

The best carrier for travel medical insurance

With 25+ years of experience, we've worked with multiple international carriers and by far, IMGlobal has been the easiest and most reliable option to deal with.

First, they have the track record:

Source: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/imglobal.com?utm_medium=trustbox&utm_source=Carousel

More importantly, with international medical insurance, they have the breadth!

The 800,000 providers is the more important piece for true international coverage.

For both short term trip medical or longer term expat coverage, we've never had an issue where a legitimate claim was not covered correctly. 

IMGlobal's pricing is extremely competitive which makes it our go-to option both in and out of the US.

What about the types of insurance?

What type of travel medical plan by length of stay

The first fork in the road revolves around length of stay.

Generally, there's are two main topics:

• Travel or Trip Medical insurance (shorter term)
• International health insurance (long term)

So...what's the dividing line in terms of length?

Generally speaking, the Travel medical plans have a defined period of time.  Say...from Feb 1st to Feb 15th. 

You're applying for this period of time and any insurance needs beyond that period would require a new plan.   Some plans have the ability to extend coverage within one policy.

The international health insurance (called Global Medical) allows you to renew month to month, and continue beyond 1 year.  This works better for longer term needs such as working in another country.  

Essentially, ex-pat coverage.

You can quote both options here:

Within each category, there are different options available.  Let's narrow those down as they tend to align with different needs (student versus trip, etc).

Different travel medical options 

Under the shorter, fixed term travel medical plans, the most popular suite is the Patriot option:

• Patriot Lite
• Patriot America Lite
• Patriot Platinum

Each plan within the Patriot Travel Series provides various levels of coverage for individuals, families, and groups who need temporary medical insurance while traveling for business or pleasure anywhere outside of their home country. 

The AmericaLite plan is for people who need coverage while traveling to the US.

Beyond those popular travel medical plans, there are specifically designed options:

• Visitor Protect - designed for people with existing health issues visiting the US or Canada
• Patriot Exchange - designed for students; meets school insurance requirements
• Student Health Advantage - designed for exchanged students
• Outreach Travel - designed for missionaries and mission groups
• Globehopper Senior - single trip or multi trip; extendable
• Patriot MultiTrip - for multiple trips up to 30-45 days

You can quote all these options here.  You can even select "Travel Medical Insurance" on the left.

What about longer term options.

Global Medical Insurance

Here, there's one option and the biggest difference is that it's an annual plan that you can renew annually.

This is important if you plan to be in a country outside your citizenship for a year or more and want to avoid new health issues preventing you from renewing coverage.

This is more similar to traditional health insurance that most people are used to.

Global medical is more inline with a longer term move to a different country from yours (citizenship).

You can quote the global medical options here (select "International Health Insurance" on the left).

Trip insurance

One note...some plans will embed trip insurance (covering the financial cost of missing a trip) but you can also add trip insurance to travel medical or just get trip insurance itself.

You can select "Travel insurance" on the left to see these stand-alone plans here:

Travel medical insurance for groups

You'll notice in the quote window that some plans allow for "Group Quote" to the right.

This allows an entire group (company or mission for example) to quote and even enroll together where an entity may be paying the premium.

So...how do you check out the rates and even enroll online?

How to quote and enroll travel medical

You can easily quotes all the plans here:

A few notes.

It helps to narrow the options on the left side according to your length of stay:

• Travel Medical Insurance - short term, fixed period
• Global Medical - long term; 1+ years of continuous coverage

Then there's the filter by need:

This really helps narrow the options to the most popular and appropriate plans.

Generally speaking, these go from shorter (trip) to longer term needs (mission) but you can quote all the plans if you like.

Enrollment is all online right through the quote engine.

Reach out with any questions at help@calhealth.net   We're happy to address any questions!

Again, there is absolutely no cost to you for our services.  Call 800-320-6269 Today!