Travel Insurance and Medical Expenses: What You Need to Know

One of the main reasons many travelers buy travel insurance is for its emergency medical coverage. Travel medical insurance covers all sorts of emergency medical expenses, either in conjunction with your existing health plan or by itself. And the emergency assistance services that come with our travel protection plans works with your health insurance and the medical system where you’re traveling to help get you to safety and medical care when disaster strikes.

Does travel insurance cover medical expenses?

Our travel protection plans cover most types of expenses related to emergency medical treatments for illness or injury that occurs during your trip and are physician-ordered, including:

Physician/nurse services
Charges for hospital confinement and services
Local ambulance services and emergency medical evacuation
Necessary medical care en route
Prescription drugs and medicines
Therapeutic services
Emergency dental treatment
Repatriation to a hospital or to your place of residence in the U.S., when deemed medically necessary and approved

With Generali travel insurance and assistance services, you can be reimbursed for costs that aren’t covered by your standard health insurance. Even if your health insurance can cover most of your costs, you might be held responsible for deductibles or copays that your travel insurance can cover.

Also read: Top 6 Travel Emergencies and How To Deal With Them

Helpful Tip: While dental coverage ends with your trip, coverage for medical expenses is available for up to one year from the date you become sick or injured during your trip, even after you return home.

What medical expenses will not be covered?

Understanding what medical expenses are not covered by travel insurance is just as important.

Our plans do not cover:

Routine physical exams
Mental health care
Replacement of hearing aids, eyeglasses, contact lenses, sunglasses, prosthetic devices and dental/orthodontic devices
Alcohol or substance-abuse treatment
Experimental treatments
Medically unnecessary procedures
Vaccines or testing required for travel
Expenses resulting from civil disorder or service in the armed forces of any country
Travel for the purpose of receiving medical care
Pre-existing conditions that did not first occur during your trip. However, coverage for pre-existing conditions is available with the Premium plan, if requirements are met. Learn more below and review plan documents for full requirements.

Also read: What to do if You Need Medical Attention Abroad

Medical Expenses for Pre-Existing Conditions

For many people pre-existing condition coverage is vital, and they wouldn’t be able to travel safely without it. So, we’ve made sure you can get coverage for pre-existing medical conditions with Generali insurance.

Many travel insurance plans don’t cover pre-existing conditions at all – and others usually exclude them from coverage if the plan isn’t bought within a specified window after making an initial deposit on the trip. Generali’s timeframe is prior to or within 24 hours of your final trip payment. Other rules for securing coverage for pre-existing conditions are: you are medically able to travel at the time the plan is purchased, and all prepaid trip costs that are subject to cancellation penalties or restrictions have been insured.

Read your plan documents and understand each plan’s policies on pre-existing conditions before you buy it. It’s the best way to help protect yourself from unwelcome surprises.

Also read: 5 Things Most People Get Wrong About Pre-Existing Medical Conditions and Travel Insurance

Emergency Medical Evacuation Expenses

Emergency medical coverage is great, but many times the actual cost of treating a medical emergency overseas is less than the cost of extracting the patient from wherever they happened to get hurt.

People don’t generally fall down a rainforest mountainside in London; instead, they fall in remote areas of less-developed countries, miles and miles away from any decent treatment facility.

It’s important that your travel plan covers emergency medical evacuation as well as emergency medical treatment – and it should cover evacuation at a level many times that of treatment.

For instance, Generali’s Premium plan has $250,000 in Medical & Dental coverage and up to $1 million in Emergency Assistance and Transportation coverage. That’s a lot of coverage – but if you’re the person who hits the plan maximum, you’ll be grateful for the high level of coverage.

Why You Need Travel Medical Insurance

A misconception surrounding many health insurance plans is that they cover you anywhere you may go, even if you may have to pay some out-of-network charges.

Domestically that might be true, but if you’re traveling internationally, coverage is much less likely. At best, some conventional health plans may have only a handful of network providers abroad, and may only consider a few more to be out-of-network for coverage purposes. Medicare and Medicaid, for instance, do not provide coverage outside the U.S.

Making matters worse, in many countries, providers may ask for payment up front, either from the patient or through insurance, before proceeding with treatment.

The bottom line is that you should carefully consider getting travel medical insurance, especially when traveling internationally, because you can’t be sure what your health plan will cover around the world, and you don’t want to be in a situation where you need medical care overseas and you have to scramble to find out if you’re covered.

There’s no in- or out-of-network with the medical coverage provided by our plans. They insure medical expenses for covered events up to the policy limit – period.

It’s important to find a travel protection plan that can cover just about any emergency medical expenses you might encounter on vacation. Understanding how it works is essential for your safety and to avoid huge medical expenses on your trip. Generali Travel Insurance is committed to helping you understand your coverage.

Get a quote today and see what we mean.