Does Travel Insurance Cover Mental Health?
Key Takeaways
- Coverage for mental health conditions is not commonly found within travel insurance policies. However, at Squaremouth, we offer 21 plans that can cover emergency medical care, trip cancellations, and occasionally trip interruptions related to mental health conditions.
- Travel insurance plans that cover mental health care typically have strict requirements and often exclude existing mental health conditions unless you qualify for a pre-existing condition waiver.
- Keep in mind that for a mental health crisis, most plans won’t cover both Trip Cancellation and medical care on the same plan. If you need both types of protection for an international trip, we recommend opting for a CFAR upgrade.
- Both Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) and Interruption For Any Reason (IFAR) coverage offer the greatest flexibility if a mental health condition disrupts your trip.
- Use our quote form to find and compare plans with medical coverage for mental health, or CFAR and IFAR coverage.
Can I Get Travel Insurance With a Mental Health Condition?
Yes, you can buy travel insurance even if you or a family member has a mental health condition.
Although mental health conditions don’t disqualify you from being able to purchase travel insurance, not every policy will cover claims related to a pre-existing mental health condition or a sudden mental health crisis while you’re away.
Most policies have specific terms and conditions regarding mental health-related scenarios, so it’s important to review the policy wording before purchasing coverage to understand what is or isn’t covered. If your claim involves a mental health issue that isn’t covered under the policy, the insurer could deny your claim.
Do I Have to Declare a Mental Health Condition When Buying Travel Insurance?
You do not need to declare a mental health condition when you purchase a policy since travel insurance doesn’t check your health history upfront. Rather, when you submit a claim, your insurer will review your health history to determine if your condition is pre-existing and whether it qualifies for coverage.
What Does Travel Insurance Cover for Mental Health?
Coverage varies by plan, and many policies limit benefits to medical emergencies.
Policies with mental health coverage can often reimburse medical expenses due to a mental health emergency, or lost trip costs due to cancelling or interrupting your trip. However, we are not aware of a plan that can cover both scenarios.
Emergency Medical Care
Most travel medical policies with mental healthcare coverage reimburse medically necessary treatment for a mental health condition that arises or worsens during your trip. Coverage is generally limited to emergencies that require hospitalization, not routine therapy, medication refills, or planned treatment.
Trip Cancellation
Some Trip Cancellation plans can reimburse up to 100% of your prepaid, non-refundable trip costs if you need to cancel a trip due to the flare-up of a mental health condition. Under most plans, the condition must be severe enough to require hospitalization to qualify for reimbursement.
Trip Interruption
A very small set of plans can reimburse up to 100% to 150% of your prepaid, non-refundable trip costs if a mental health flare-up forces you to cut your trip short. Like Trip Cancellation, the condition must be severe enough to require hospitalization in order for coverage to apply.
Optional CFAR & IFAR Upgrade
Many plans have CFAR and IFAR upgrades that will allow you to cancel or interrupt your trip for any reason, including a mental health crisis. Depending on the plan, you may receive 50% or 75% reimbursement of prepaid, non-refundable trip costs.
What Mental Health Scenarios Are Not Covered By Travel Insurance?
Even plans that include mental health coverage have limitations. Most policies exclude routine care and certain types of treatments or circumstances.
Routine Therapy and Medication Refills
Travel insurance is designed to cover medical emergencies rather than routine medical care. As a result, you won’t get coverage for ongoing prescription refills or for a therapy check-in while you’re on your trip. Plans may also explicitly exclude various types of therapy, like behavioral training, biofeedback, or neuro-feedback therapy.
Self-Harm
Self-harm is excluded from nearly every travel insurance policy, regardless of whether it’s related to a mental health condition. It’s also excluded on plans that would otherwise cover mental illness.
Learning Disabilities / Disciplinary Issues
Learning disabilities, attitudinal disorders, and disciplinary problems are typically not included in the definition of a mental health condition. For many plans, your condition must qualify as a mental health disorder as classified by the APA. You should read your policy certificate carefully to confirm.
>> Learn more: What Does Travel Insurance Not Cover?
Which Mental Health Conditions Can Travel Insurance Cover?
Which health conditions are covered varies by plan, but many insurers like Trawick and Blue Cross Blue Shield state that they will cover illnesses classified as mental health disorders by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).
Examples of mental health conditions that travel insurance could potentially cover include:
- Anxiety disorders
- Depressive and bipolar disorders
- Psychosis
- Schizophrenia
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia
- Personality disorders like borderline personality disorder
- Neurodevelopmental disorders like ADHD, autism, and tourette syndrome
- Substance abuse and addictive disorders
Before purchasing coverage, we always recommend reviewing a plan’s certificate of insurance and talking to the insurer to confirm if and how your condition may be covered.
Does a Mental Health Condition Raise the Cost of Travel Insurance?
No, having a mental health condition won’t directly affect your premium, since travel insurance doesn’t require you to disclose health information when purchasing.
That said, plans that cover mental health conditions tend to cost more due to the added coverage for pre-existing conditions. Our review of plan pricing showed that plans with pre-existing condition coverage cost 50% more on average than those without it.
Is a Mental Health Condition Considered Pre-Existing?
A mental health condition may be considered pre-existing, and subject to exclusion, if it was diagnosed or treated by a physician within your insurance plan’s look-back period.
How travel insurance defines pre-existing conditions varies by policy and provider, but can include visiting a doctor, being prescribed medication, or even just adjusting the dosage on a current medication during the look-back period. Therefore, even stable mental health conditions could be excluded on some policies, depending on how long they have been stable.
That said, several travel insurance plans offer pre-existing condition waivers that can restore coverage for these conditions. If you have an existing mental health condition, we recommend searching for policies that include pre-existing condition coverage.
To qualify for a pre-existing condition waiver, you need to purchase the policy within a time-sensitive period, usually 14 to 21 days from your first trip payment. Lookback periods usually range from 60 to 180 days, though some plans look as far back as 5 years.
Which Travel Insurance Plans Cover Mental Health?
Squaremouth offers 21 policies with mental health coverage for either:
- Emergency medical care during a trip
- Cancelling a trip due to a mental health crisis
It’s rare for travel insurance policies to offer mental health coverage at all, and no plan on our site offers mental health coverage for both medical care and trip cancellations.
Travel Medical Insurance for Mental Health Issues
7 Squaremouth plans explicitly mention coverage for mental healthcare on a trip. 3 of these offer pre-existing condition coverage. 4 do not cover pre-existing conditions, which means your mental health condition will be subject to the plan’s lookback period:
- IMG Intl. Travel Medical Premium (No coverage for pre-existing conditions)
- IMG Intl. Travel Medical Plus Premium (No coverage for pre-existing conditions)
- Trawick Pathway Essential (No coverage for pre-existing conditions)
- Trawick Pathway Plus
- Trawick Pathway Premium
- Blue Cross Blue Shield Single Trip Platinum
- Blue Cross Blue Shield Single Trip Gold (No coverage for pre-existing conditions)
Trip Cancellation Insurance for Mental Health Issues
14 Squaremouth policies cover trip cancellations due to a mental health condition. WorldTrips’ plans also cover trip interruptions. However, these plans have stringent requirements for cancelling or interrupting a trip for a mental health condition.
- IMG iTravelInsured Travel LX
- IMG iTravelInsured Travel LX Basic (no coverage for pre-existing conditions)
- IMG iTravelInsured Choice
- IMG iTravelInsured Choice Cruise
- Worldwide Trip Protector
- Worldwide Trip Protector Edge
- Travel Insured International FlexiPAX
- Atlas Journey Economy
- Atlas Journey Preferred
- Atlas Journey Premier
- WorldTrips Explore
- WorldTrips Elevate
- Travelex Ultimate
All of these plans require you to be hospitalized for the condition and stipulate required time limits. (e.g., requiring you to be hospitalized for more than 72 hours).
What to Consider When Buying Travel Insurance With A Mental Health Condition
Consider CFAR & IFAR Coverage If You Want Cancellation Flexibility
CFAR and IFAR are two of the best coverages if you are concerned about a mental health condition disrupting your trip, because they give you the flexibility to cancel or cut your trip short for reasons not covered under standard trip insurance.
Even when mental health is a covered reason for cancelling a trip, requirements are strict and merely being unstable or having travel anxiety won’t qualify you for reimbursement. However, CFAR and IFAR can cover you for these scenarios and more.
CFAR and IFAR can:
- Reimburse you for any cancellation or interruption, allowing you to be covered even on policies where standard cancellation/interruption coverage excludes them.
- Offer extended coverage to cancellations on plans that only provide medical care for mental health conditions.
- Offer cancellation and interruption coverage even if mental illness is excluded as a pre-existing condition.
>> See: our analysis of the Top CFAR Travel Insurance Policies
Consider Plans With Pre-Existing Condition Coverage
Since travel insurers can be finicky about pre-existing conditions, a plan with a pre-existing condition waiver is a good idea even if you have a stable mental health condition.
Make sure you purchase coverage within 14 to 21 days of your initial trip deposit to qualify for a waiver. If you’re purchasing coverage at the last minute, consider BCBS’ Single Trip Platinum plan, which will cover pre-existing conditions with no time-sensitive period, provided you have primary health insurance.
Watch How Your Doctor Classifies Treatment
When it comes time to make a claim, sometimes how your doctor classified ongoing treatment of your mental health condition can mean it’s excluded as a pre-existing condition. So, again, we recommend looking for policies with pre-existing condition coverage.
A medical record showing new symptoms, a minor adjustment to your medication dosage, or a change to your therapeutic approach could be flagged as a pre-existing condition, even though your condition is stable. For this reason, it’s best to err on the side of caution and assume that an existing mental health condition could be defined as a pre-existing condition when you file a claim, and plan ahead by buying a policy with flexible coverage.
Decide on Medical-Only or Comprehensive Travel Insurance
No travel insurance policy covers both Trip Cancellation and medical care for a mental health condition, so you’ll need to determine which makes sense for your trip.
If you’re traveling internationally and have concerns about a condition flaring up on your trip, we strongly recommend a plan that offers at least $100,000 in Emergency Medical and $200,000 in Medical Evacuation for a pre-existing mental health condition. If you have significant trip costs to protect, consider purchasing a policy that covers trip cancellation for a mental health flare-up.
If you have an international trip with high trip costs, you may need to purchase a CFAR upgrade if it’s an option on your medical plan. Trawick’s International Pathway Premium offers both mental healthcare coverage and CFAR.
>> Learn more about Medical-Only Travel Insurance
Always Read the Fine Print
You should read the policy certificate carefully to understand if your condition qualifies for coverage and what the restrictions are. Travel insurance plans generally don’t provide a specific list of conditions that they will cover. Instead, coverage depends on the policy’s terms, which can vary significantly. You may find differences in the types of conditions that can be covered, whether hospitalization is covered, how pre-existing conditions are defined, and types of care that are covered.
If you are unclear about anything, contact the insurer or call our customer service line at 1-800-240-0369.
What Do I Do If I Have a Mental Health Crisis While Traveling?
In an emergency, always reach out to local emergency services first, and then your travel insurance. In a non-life-threatening situation, contact your provider’s 24/7 emergency assistance line for help locating and coordinating treatment. Your insurance provider can assist you with finding a hospital, offering translation services, coordinating coverage, and more.
Before leaving, check if you can access your regular mental health provider via a telehealth appointment during your trip. Some travel insurance companies like BCBS also offer telehealth support.
Lastly, we recommend keeping your country’s embassy on hand in case you need additional assistance.
FAQs: Mental Health and Travel Insurance
Travel insurance doesn’t cover routine therapy appointments, and regular health insurance won’t cover care outside the U.S.
You may be able to continue therapy remotely while traveling, but it depends on where you’re traveling and your therapist’s licensing restrictions. Therapists generally can’t provide services across state lines unless they’re authorized to practice in that location, and are typically prohibited from providing international care. Also, some travel insurance providers, like BCBS, may offer telehealth services for mental health issues.
Only CFAR travel insurance can reimburse for a portion of your trip cost if you cancel out of fear or travel anxiety. Otherwise, fear of travel is not a covered reason for cancellation under standard travel insurance.
A doctor’s recommendation that you shouldn’t travel due to a mental health condition is one of the requirements for being reimbursed for a cancellation due to a mental health condition. Your plan must explicitly cover mental health conditions, and travel insurers usually require you to be hospitalized under specific conditions, like at least 5 days before your departure date, to qualify for coverage.
If your plan covers mental health disorders and your condition is severe enough to meet your plan’s requirements, depression may be a covered reason for cancelling. Simply experiencing worsening symptoms or receiving a doctor’s note won’t qualify for reimbursement. You should consider purchasing a CFAR upgrade to get more flexibility to cancel for these reasons.
Some plans may cover mental health disorders as classified by the APA, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. However, coverage varies by plan, and pre-existing conditions exclusions may apply.
If your plan covers cancellation due to a mental health condition, you can be reimbursed for your companion’s prepaid, non-refundable trip costs if you cancel your full trip. You must include your companion on your plan when you purchase it, and your condition must meet the requirements for coverage.
If you change psychiatric medication ahead of your trip within your plan’s lookback period, your condition could qualify as a pre-existing condition. Unless you have a pre-existing condition waiver, your condition could be excluded from your plan’s coverage. You should review your plan’s definition of a pre-existing condition to confirm.
If your mental healthcare claim is denied, you should request a written explanation from your insurer. If the reason for denial is missing documentation, you should try to track down the missing documents, then resubmit your claim.
If your claim was denied because it didn’t qualify for coverage under your policy terms, you should review your policy certificate. If you believe your insurer incorrectly applied the terms, you can write an appeal letter explaining why the claim should be paid. Be sure to submit it along with supporting evidence within your insurer’s deadline.
If you purchased the plan through Squaremouth, a licensed claims adjuster can help review your case and assist with the appeals process through our Zero Complaint Guarantee.
While definitions vary by plan, ADHD can qualify as a mental health condition for travel insurance. Many policies define a mental health condition as any mental health disorder as classified by the APA. Since ADHD is on the APA’s list of disorders, it could potentially qualify as a mental health condition. You should contact your insurer to confirm if your condition is covered.