Travel Health Insurance
Travel health insurance is a private cover against the risk of illness during a stay abroad, outside the reach of statutory health insurance protection.
Comparison profile
- Trigger
- Indemnity
- Insured interest
- The traveller's financial interest in unforeseen medical treatment costs incurred abroad, where statutory health insurance protection does not apply or applies only in limited form.
- Rating basis
- Trip duration, Destination region, Age of the traveller, Single-trip or annual scope
- Typical limits
- Cover is typically provided up to a high fixed sum insured per trip or policy year (often unlimited or in the low-to-mid six figures), sufficient for the cost of emergency treatment and repatriation abroad.
- Target segments
- Private
Insured events
- Unforeseen illness requiring medical treatment abroad
- Accidents requiring medical treatment abroad
- Inpatient treatment including accommodation and necessary transport to the nearest suitable hospital
- Medically indicated repatriation to the home country
Key exclusions
- Pre-existing and chronic conditions known before departure
- Non-provisional dentures and crowns
- Treatment sought primarily for the purpose of receiving it abroad (medical tourism)
- Costs recoverable under statutory or private health insurance at home
Concept
Travel health insurance is a private cover against the risk of illness during a stay abroad, particularly outside the European Union and the European Economic Area, where statutory health insurance protection does not apply or applies only in limited form.
Scope of Benefits
For unforeseen illness and accidents, travel health insurance reimburses, within the terms of the policy, costs for medical treatment, medicines and dressings, remedial treatments, X-ray diagnostics, inpatient treatment including accommodation and necessary transport to the nearest suitable hospital, surgery, and pain-relieving dental treatment. Non-provisional dentures and crowns, however, are typically excluded.
Practical Relevance
Where the standard of medical care abroad makes it necessary, a medically indicated repatriation to the home country may also form part of the benefits – an aspect that closely links travel health insurance to assistance services.
Comparison and delineation
Travel health insurance is a short-term, indemnity-based cover for the duration of a single trip; where a stay abroad extends beyond a few weeks or months, or amounts to a genuine relocation of residence, international private medical insurance becomes the appropriate alternative, since travel health wordings typically limit or exclude cover beyond a maximum trip length and do not replace home-country health insurance on a permanent basis. It is regularly complemented by assistance insurance, which organises the repatriation and local medical referrals that travel health insurance finances.