Travel Insurance

[philipreal]

I'm planning my trip to Japan and one thing I'm thinking about is travel insurance. Have people here purchased it while traveling and if so found it valuable/not valuable/etc? If you have, do you have recommendations? I know it's often true that self-insurance is best if possible, but I'd be interested in hearing any/all thoughts about the topic.

[chenda]

Yes it's absolutely necessary, especially for medical expenses or if you damage someone's Mercedes. Go to a price comparison website. Be aware of exclusions such as winter sports coverage.

[theanimal]

How long is your trip?

[OutOfTheBlue]

I think this was shared elsewhere before:

https://www.safeandnotsorry.com/

Haven't had to use mine so far to attest to its value, but I'd recommend considering one when traveling abroad.

[rube]

@Chenda I think it is als depending on your personal situation.

Our existing liability insurance will cover when we damage someone Mercedes, also in Japan. And our (required) medical insurance does already cover medical expenses outside our own country. But the coverage might for example not be sufficient for the USA.

In other words, what additional risk do you have when travelling to Japan compared to your home situation. And if you can't or are not willing to take on those risk, look at the possibilities and costs for the relevant the insurances.

[Ego]

We do not get travel insurance. I believe I mentioned before, but the common practice these companies use is to stabilize then recommend repatriation. When they do that they are no longer responsible to pay costs if 1) you are repatriated or 2) you do not follow their advice. So, in essence, it is insurance that pays for the process of stabilization in the country where you are visiting. Some do not cover the cost of repatriation and those that do will get you on a plane fast, or at least offer it. Also, if you book your tickets with a good credit card, they will offer similar cover for free.

[philipreal]

How long is your trip?

About two months.

[loutfard]

The single payer health insurance over here used to include decent worldwide coverage. Not anymore. We now pay about 100€/year as a couple.

There's also one bank offering a free credit card with good travel insurance included, but they refuse to offer me this card because some computer says no.

[2Birds1Stone]

I used to use travel insurance for all international trips until last year.....this year the premiums went up significantly, while what was covered decreased......and thus we are now "self insured". YMMV

[suomalainen]

Friend of mine recently started using it. $80 for a 10-day trip to Spain with $50,000 max coverage from https://trawickinternational.com/ i think it’s a little about the insurance aspect, even tho he can certainly self-insure 50 grand, but it’s more the service of coordinating care and/or repatriation (possibly on a private medical flight) in a to-you foreign system. For him, the psychology of already having that asset in place is worth the cost.

[liberty]

It depends. I don't waste money on insurance when healthcare is provided cheap or free by the local government. Some countries offer free healthcare even for tourists, for example Brazil. Other countries offer free emergency care, which may be sufficient as you can go back to your home country in less urgent cases, like cancer. As EU/EEA/Swiss resident, you get health coverage at the level of locals in other EU countries (with the European Health Insurance Card). As a Norwegian, I don't buy health insurance when I go to Italy, for example.

[Western Red Cedar]

We used World Nomads for the first five months of our trip then switched to Safetywing as it was cheaper and had more flexibility in terms of renewals and we didn't need to identify the countries we planned on visiting. I was happy with Safetywing and they paid out for our claims for a multi-day hospitalization and a more minor urgent care visit.

DW has been hospitalized in four different foreign countries. I wouldn't travel without insurance. It isn't that much money. I have a family member who works for a major insurance company, and I've heard a lot of horror stories. In general, I tend to lean into insurance rather than avoiding it. You aren't paying for the random food poisoning or minor accident that you could easily cover. You are insuring for a major accident or illness, like getting clipped by a moped, hit by a bus, or holed up in the hospital with Dengue Fever. These things happen. I've been around enough to have witnessed them and experienced them.

[ertyu]

Do these services tend to be open to travellers of all nationalities? Or are these companies that serve the US market

[liberty]

@Western: Surely you should buy travel insurance if the government doesn't offer one for you. Unfortunately you are paying for the random food poisoning or minor accidents - they are all covered by the insurance, and that makes insurances more expensive than they would if they were true insurances against major stuff. Would love to see an insurance that not covers these smaller incidents, but just the bigger ones. The interesting part is that these insurances don't really cover disasters - they have a max limit. Safety Wing has a limit of 250k to 1.5M USD (dependent on plan), for example.

[Western Red Cedar]

@liberty - I think you can find cheaper packages that come with a deductible. This is what we did with World Nomads early in 2024, though I'd rather just pay a bit more and not have to deal with the hassle of the deductible and keeping all the medical receipts. I would expect 250k -1.5 million to cover most medical disasters. I suppose costs depend a lot on the particular country, but everywhere we've traveled has been significantly cheaper than the US. You have the option to adjust the maximum payout and select plans if you are going to be engaging in higher risk activities like climbing or high-elevation trekking.

One other thing people should think about when relying on government insurance in developing countries, is the difference in medical care in public and private hospitals abroad. As frugal backpackers, we often gravitated to the cheaper public options, but the doctors almost always recommended going to a better private hospital (knowing we had insurance). The facilities were cleaner, the equipment was modern, the medical staff were multilingual and typically studied abroad. In some cases, we could find an intermediate option (which is what we went with in Indonesia last year).

@ertyu - I believe most travel insurance sell to most nationalities. For years, they didn't cover pre-existing conditions for Americans due to our regressive health insurance laws.

[liberty]

@WRC: That's great! I wasn't aware of the possibility for deductibles on travel insurance. Then I will check that out next time.

Yes, language and quality of service should be taken into account.