International Travel Insurance for Expats and Digital Nomads

Travelling while living abroad introduces a number of different challenges regarding what kind of cover your travel insurance may provide you.


When travelling, many people simply choose one of the options presented to us either by the travel agent, airline company or travel website. However, as an expat, your personal situation might exclude you from all the benefits available so it is vital that you read all the terms, conditions and small print to ensure that you are fully covered while travelling.

A comprehensive expat travel insurance policy can protect you against a variety of scenarios such as, emergency medical treatment and bank card theft protection.




What Should Travel Insurance Cover?

There are five main categories of travel insurance:

  • Trip cancellation
  • Travel medical
  • Major medical
  • Emergency medical evacuation
  • Accidental death/flight accident

Trip Cancellation Insurance
As its name implies, trip cancellation insurance (sometimes known as trip interruption insurance or trip delay insurance) covers you in the event that you or your traveling companions need to cancel, interrupt or delay your trip. Policies differ in terms of which reasons are acceptable.

Travel Medical and Major Medical InsuranceBoth of these types of insurance provide medical protection if the policyholder becomes ill or is injured while traveling. The difference between these two types of insurance is the duration of coverage.

  • Travel medical insurance provides only short-term medical coverage; the duration can be anywhere from five days to up to one year, depending on the policy.
  • Major medical insurance is for travelers who are planning to take longer trips of six months to one year or longer.
Emergency Medical Evacuation Insurance
This type of insurance provides coverage for medically necessary evacuation and transportation to medical facilities.

Extended Stay Travel Insurance for Longer Trips

The duration of your planned travel is an important consideration in purchasing travel insurance. As a matter of statistics, the longer the trip, the greater the chances that something disruptive will happen. Also, longer trips and vacations are often more expensive than short-term travel, which means that a major disruption to your plans could be financially more burdensome.

For long-term travel of up to six months, it’s a good idea to look into a travel medical plan, which can offer you the additional health care coverage you may need while abroad for an extended period of time. Travel Medical plans may offer not only coverage for emergency care, but also emergency evacuation coverage.

When a traveler plans to be away from home for months at a time, practical considerations like medical care become a very real need to be addressed.

There’s a good chance that, in the course of three, six, or twelve months abroad, you might need to seek medical care at some point – whether for a minor injury, serious treatment, or even for preventive care.

If you’re planning a long-term trip outside your home country and are concerned at all about medical insurance while traveling, you’ll first need to check with your regular health insurance provider to find out what the terms of your usual coverage are when you’re traveling abroad. Some providers cover you while traveling just as they would at home, but it may be only for a defined period of time.

With internatinal travel insurance You can cover a specific single trip or, for total flexibility, an annual policy that covers you for any trip you take abroad; regardless of how often you travel.

Just Make Sure You Have Something

The most important thing is to buy travel insurance. When you are traveling abroad there is an increased risk of a fall or another easy injury. Without insurance you could be looking at a very large bill.