Long-Term Travel Insurance: What You Need to Know
The coverage offered by a long-term travel insurance policy can be financially beneficial when your travel itinerary spans months or involves multiple trips within a year.
Travel insurance for long trips provides reimbursement for nonrefundable expenses that result from unexpected events. Long-term travel medical insurance can cover the cost of care when you need medical treatment abroad or require transport to a nearby medical facility or one in the U.S.
What is Long-Term Travel Insurance?
Long-term travel insurance typically offers financial protection for travel that spans a few months to a year or more.
This type of extended travel insurance can cover medical care and healthcare costs when you’re traveling abroad, including emergency evacuation back to the U.S. In addition, if your trip is impacted by cancellations, delays, lost luggage and other interruptions, you can be reimbursed for non-refundable, prepaid expenses or additional costs such as meals, hotel accommodations and transportation.
Who Needs Long-Term Travel Insurance?
Long-term travel insurance is recommended for anyone who travels for an extended period of time without returning home. This could include professionals who travel for work or are digital nomads working abroad, or students studying abroad or taking a gap year trip, for example. Retirees on extended trips, adventure seekers, culture immersion travelers or any other frequent traveler can also benefit from extended travel insurance.
Medical care is one of the top reasons to purchase long-term insurance. Most health insurance plans don’t cover overseas medical care, regardless of whether it’s an emergency or routine. The U.S. government won’t pay medical costs for U.S. citizens traveling abroad, either. For those reasons, the State Department recommends you buy travel insurance that includes medical insurance and trip cancellation benefits.
How Long Does Long-Term Travel Insurance Last?
Your travel insurance policy will offer coverage for a specific period of time based on your dates of travel. That time period could cover one trip or multiple trips, depending on your travel plans and the type of policy you purchase.
Single-trip travel insurance covers one trip that may be anywhere from a few days to a year. Coverage begins the day you leave your home and ends the day you return home. If your trip is more than a few weeks, then single-trip insurance can be classified as a type of long-term travel insurance.
Another type of long-term travel insurance is annual travel insurance. These are plans that last for one year, and can be renewed at the end of the 12 months. It’s also known as multi-trip insurance and can be a great option for frequent travelers because it covers unlimited trips during the 12-month policy period.
Key Features to Look For in a Long-Term Travel Insurance Plan
When shopping for travel insurance for long trips, look for these insurance providers that offer these key policy benefits:
Coverage for Medical Emergencies
If you become sick or injured during your extended travels, medical treatment could cost you thousands of dollars, and a medical evacuation back to the U.S. will compound your financial burden.
Emergency Medical benefits can reimburse you for covered medical expenses such as necessary treatment, hospital care, medical tests, prescriptions and other medical services. In addition, Medical Evacuation and Repatriation can cover the transport costs to get you to the nearest appropriate medical facility, even if that’s in the U.S.
Minimum coverage amounts of $100,000 for emergency medical and $250,000 for medical evacuation are recommended by Squaremouth.
Trip Cancellations and Interruptions
Trip Cancellation can reimburse you for airfare, hotel expenses, and other non-refundable trip costs when an unforeseen and uncontrollable event, like an illness or severe weather, forces you to cancel your trip.
If you’re only able to partially take your trip because you had to start late or end your trip early, Trip Interruption can reimburse you for unused, prepaid, non-refundable trip costs. Common expenses covered include airfare, hotel, cruise bookings, excursions, rental cars and event fees.
While single trip travel insurance plans are often comprehensive, annual policies often do not include cancellation benefits. If you need to cover your trip costs for multiple trips throughout a year, buying a single trip plan each time you travel may be the best option.
Travel Delays
Common carrier delays caused by bad weather, mechanical failures, lost travel documents and other events can significantly disrupt your carefully planned extended trip. Travel Delay can reimburse you for unplanned expenses such as meals, hotel stays, local transportation and other unexpected costs.
Luggage Benefits
If an airline or other common carrier mishandles your luggage during your extended trip, Baggage Delay can cover the cost of purchasing clothes, personal care items and other necessities while you wait for your luggage to catch up to you.
Additionally, Baggage and Personal Items Loss will reimburse you for your personal belongings if they are permanently lost, stolen or damaged at any time during your covered trip.
How to Buy a Long-Term Travel Insurance Policy
Long-term travel insurance can often be purchased from the airline, cruise ship or other common carriers used during your trip or through a travel insurance comparison website. Let’s take a closer look at each option.
Purchase Directly From a Travel Supplier
Travel insurance will typically be offered to you by the common carrier you use for your trip. This could include an airline, cruise line, train service or other transportation company. If your extended trip includes more than one carrier, say a cruise and a train trip, you may have to purchase a separate policy for each.
Use a Travel Insurance Marketplace
Purchasing long-term travel insurance through a comparison website, like Squaremouth, can offer you a single comprehensive travel insurance policy that covers all the common carriers involved in your trip. It also provides the opportunity for you to compare the costs and benefits of several different travel insurance plans to find the right coverage for your trip.
Search Out a Travel Insurance Provider
Long-term travel insurance can also be purchased from a specific travel insurance provider, such as Tin Leg, Berkshire Hathaway, John Hancock and others. We recommend you compare the coverage benefits and premiums offered by at least three companies. This can help ensure that you get the best coverage and price for your extended travel.
How Much Does Long-Term Travel Insurance Cost?
Based on proprietary sales data from Squaremouth, a comprehensive long-term travel insurance plan will typically cost between 4%-10% of your total insured travel expenses. On average, that’s around $400 overall. The cost of non-comprehensive plans is much less. For example, medical travel insurance costs around $90 on average.
There is a large variance in annual travel insurance costs, ranging from a low of $100 to a high of $1,780. An annual comprehensive policy that included medical and cancellation benefits averaged $533, while an annual travel medical policy averaged $310.
Factors That Influence Cost
Here are some factors that are used in the calculation of the premium for your extended travel insurance coverage:
- Trip length
- Trip cost
- Traveler ages
- Coverage amounts
- Type of trip
No single factor determines the premium you pay. However, certain factors may move the cost up or down. For example, a long trip, expensive airfare, luxury hotel accommodations and high coverage amounts could all increase your premium costs. Also, younger travelers may pay less than older travelers, or a leisure traveler may pay less than an adrenaline seeker whose trip includes high-risk activities.
Is Long-Term Travel Insurance Worth It?
Yes, long-term travel insurance is worth the cost of a policy. Because extended travel is often a large investment, like any investment, you want to safeguard it from loss.
Travelers, especially those on a long trip, want to avoid the unexpected expenses that come with cancellations, delays, lost luggage, medical emergencies and any number of other events. Instead of risking their trip investment, they purchase travel insurance to provide financial protection and the peace of mind that they have coverage for travel disruptions.