Travel insurance: what actually gets paid

The four things sold as "travel insurance"

Medical cover pays for treatment when you fall ill or are injured abroad. This is the one that turns a catastrophe into an inconvenience, and it is the reason to buy at all. Your domestic health plan often does little or nothing outside your country.

Trip cancellation and interruption reimburses money you have already spent and cannot recover, when you cancel or cut a trip short for a covered reason. Note both halves: already spent, and a covered reason from their list.

Medical evacuation moves you: to an adequate hospital, or home. It is the expensive part of a bad day abroad, and the limits in a standard plan can be far below what an air ambulance actually costs. Some travellers carry a separate membership for it.

Baggage, delay and missed connection cover the annoyances. Useful, capped, and rarely the reason to choose a policy.

Where claims usually fail

Pre-existing conditions. Most policies exclude anything you were already being treated for unless you bought early enough to qualify for a waiver, usually within a short window of your first trip payment. This is the single most common reason a medical claim is refused.

Known events. Once a storm is named or a strike is announced, it stops being unforeseen. Cover for it ends at that moment, which is why buying insurance while watching a hurricane form does nothing.

"I just did not want to go." Standard cancellation cover pays for reasons on their list, not for a change of heart. The product that covers changing your mind is called cancel-for-any-reason, it costs more, it must usually be bought soon after your first payment, and it reimburses only part of what you paid.

Activities and alcohol. Scuba, climbing, motorbikes and off-piste skiing are commonly excluded or need an add-on, and injuries where alcohol was involved are a standard exclusion.

No paperwork. Claims are paid on evidence: police or medical reports, original receipts, and written confirmation from the airline or hotel. Collect it while you are still there, because it is far harder to get afterwards.

Your credit card probably covers less than you think

Card cover is real but conditional. It usually applies only to the portion of the trip paid with that card, is often secondary to any other insurance you hold, carries lower limits than a standalone policy, and frequently excludes medical care entirely. Read the benefits guide rather than the marketing page, and check whether medical and evacuation appear at all. For a short domestic trip the card may genuinely be enough. For international travel it usually is not.

When to buy, and how much to buy

Buy shortly after your first non-refundable payment. That timing is what unlocks the pre-existing-condition waiver and cancel-for-any-reason on the policies that offer them, and it covers the weeks before departure when most cancellations actually happen.

Size the medical limit to the destination and the trip, not to the fare. A week at a resort an hour from a good hospital is a different risk from a remote trek or a cruise, where getting to care is itself the expensive part. If you travel several times a year, an annual multi-trip policy is usually cheaper than three single ones.

And read the certificate, not the summary. It is a boring twenty minutes that decides whether the policy you bought is the policy you think you bought. Nothing here is advice about your own circumstances, so when a condition or a big-ticket trip is involved, check the wording with the insurer before you pay.

What filing a claim actually involves

Two things decide whether a claim goes smoothly. The first is the assistance line: good policies run a 24-hour number that can arrange direct billing with a hospital, which means you are not paying a foreign hospital up front and arguing later. Call it before treatment where you can, and keep the reference number.

The second is paperwork gathered on the spot. A police report for theft, a medical report and itemised bills for treatment, written confirmation from the airline or hotel for a delay or cancellation, boarding passes, and original receipts. Photograph everything as you go. Most insurers give you a window of weeks to file, so start while you still remember the sequence of events, and keep a copy of everything you send.

Flight delays are a separate right

In some regions, a delayed or cancelled flight gives you a statutory claim against the airline, independent of any insurance you hold, and it is worth checking after the fact because airlines rarely volunteer it. That is a different process from an insurance claim and the two do not cancel each other out.

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