Travel Health Insurance for Canadians

As the global travel scene reopens we’d like to highlight the importance of travel health insurance for Canadians.

Trust Mr. Thrifty: the only thing worse than getting sick while travelling is getting sick while underinsured.

Are You Covered Under Your of Provincial Healthcare Plan?

Yes and no.

Yes, most Canadians are covered by their provincial government’s healthcare plan while travelling temporarily outside of Canada. However, there are restrictions on the amounts and length of coverage. And, of course, the government is tightening these policies all the time.

You don’t want to be subject to the whims of the government’s changing rules. And, you really don’t want to pay a health care bill from a hospital in, say, the U.S. Regrettably, all the savings strategies on the Thrifty site won’t be enough to pay for that bill.

There is a solution, however: private travel health insurance.

Travel Health Insurance Has a Role Within Canada As Well

Travel health insurance isn’t just for Canadians travelling abroad. It’s very useful for newcomers to Canada as well. While the details of each province’s healthcare insurance programs are beyond the scope of this article, they commonly impose a waiting period (3 months in the case of Ontario) on newcomers to Canada as well as returning Canadians who have been outside of the country for extended periods. The waiting period also applies to international students when they first arrive to study in Canada.

What Kind of Travel Health Insurance Plans Are Available to Canadians?

Good Question!

Mr. Thrifty thinks it’s prudent to supplement Canadian government healthcare insurance with a private plan in several scenarios: 

• You’re a digital nomad who regularly spends extended time away from Canada;
• You’re a newcomer to Canada (either a student or immigrant);
• You want the comfort of a private health insurance plan.

Travel Health Insurance Programs Offered by SafetyWing

SafetyWing is a Norwegian-founded company specializing in travel health insurance. Its core product is the Nomad Insurance Plan – offering travel medical insurance covering people from all over the world, while outside their home country. SafetyWing Insurance is not primary health insurance.

Prices start at around US$40 for a 28-day policy (excluding U.S. coverage) for those under 40 years of age.

Important restrictions for Canadians: Under Canadian law, you can only purchase SafetyWing insurance when physically outside Canada. For example, when you land at your destination or even once the plane leaves Canadian territory (if you’ve got onboard wi-fi). You can start the sign-up process before you leave, to make sure you’re eligible, but the actual purchase needs to wait until you’ve left Canada.

Here are some of the key features of SafetyWing’s Nomad Insurance Plan:

• Insurance provider: Tokio Marine HCC Medical Insurance Services Group.
• Overall maximum limit: US$250,000 (except for individuals aged 65 to 69, who are limited to US$100,000)
• Deductible: US$250 per certificate period
• Coinsurance: policy pays 100% of eligible expenses after the deductible, up to the overall maximum limit
• Ages covered: 14 – 69 years of age. One young child per adult, up to two per family, aged between 14 days and 10 years of age, can be included without added cost.
• Period of coverage: from 5 – 364 days (renewable)
• What is covered: unexpected illness or injury, including eligible expenses for hospital, doctor or prescription drugs for those travelling outside their home country. In addition, it provides emergency travel-related benefits such as emergency medical evacuation, bedside visit, travel delay and lost checked luggage.
• What isn’t covered: pre-existing conditions, high-risk sports, pregnancy, mental health, cancer, routine checkups, preventative care and more. Excluded countries: Iran, Syria, North Korea. For a complete list of exclusions and limitations please refer to the Description of Coverage on their website.

What Are SafetyWing’s Customers Saying?

As of August 2020, SafetyWing had 71 reviews on TrustPilot, with an overall rating of 3.8 out of 5.0.

Many of the reviews only describe the insurance coverage so they are less helpful than those that describe the actual claims experience. We’ve reproduced excerpts from a few representative reviews which specifically refer to the claims process:

“…. Only used it once in Bangkok and they didn’t accept it beforehand so I had to pay first and then file a claim. The bill was about 500$ and 250$ were deductible so I got reimbursed 250$ after 2 months.”

“Underwent a political evacuation during Corona, they booked my flight for me, I didn’t pay anything up front but just arrived at the airport and got home safely. They made a stressful situation easy to navigate.” 

“Recently had to do the thing nobody wants to do on holiday and go to hospital. The hospital said they had no trouble getting a guarantee of payment from SafetyWing once they had my details, and when I was dispatched the hospital and SafetyWing sorted things out in under an hour….” 

As you would expect, there are also several complaints and low ratings from people who were frustrated by either the length of time that it took to process their claims, or limitations or exclusions in the coverage that they thought they had. Always make sure to read the fine print. Insurance is a complicated product.

SafetyWing is definitely monitoring their reviews on TrustPilot and normally responds to any public complaints. The image is of a company that places a high value on customer satisfaction.

Mr. Thrifty encourages you to read all of their TrustPilot reviews here: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/safetywing.com

Need Long-Term Health Insurance Coverage?

SafetyWing also offers a RemoteHealth Plan – global health insurance for individuals and remote teams and startups, with no exclusions for pandemics (COVID-19 treatments are included!). This is for those who permanently work or live outside of their home countries. Unfortunately, it does not appear to cover Canadian residents.

Click here to learn more about SafetyWing

What About Other Providers of Travel Health Insurance for Canadians?

While we’ve focused on SafetyWing’s Nomad Insurance Plan in this article, travel health insurance is a fairly common product and is normally offered by your airline or travel agent when making a travel booking.

SafetyWing is essentially an online insurance broker with a slick, easy-to-use website targeting risk-averse, healthy millennials. Apart from that, what sets SafetyWing apart is the portability of its plans. As a SafetyWing customer, you save time by using their service because you don’t need to review the details of each alternative travel insurance being proposed by different providers, and the cost differences are not large.

Have fun out there, but be safe!

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