Nowadays every traveller needs good travel insurance. Finding the best travel insurance for long-term travellers is an easy task because you have a lot of companies providing good coverage.
This is without a doubt one of the most important things you’ll need for your trip. Why? Travel insurance for long-term travellers is essential in providing medical coverage when you get sick or injured. Even if you break some of the equipment, your flight is cancelled, if you lose your bag or something gets stolen and in worst case scenario if a family member dies and you have to come home.
What to looks for?
Insurance is a million-dollar business, and you must be careful because everyone wants to profit from this. In some of the cases, travel insurance companies aren’t honest. With a large number of choices that can be confusing and overwhelming, you must to considerer every point.
First of all, you need to think about where are you going, because your destination will make a big difference. Second, think of what you want to do, what kind of sports or activities because, most of the time travel insurance only covers the basis or in other cases, they have another option, sometimes expensive that includes risky sports and activities.
So then, you must look at a few things, just consider:
- Medical Insurance. Always think if you are putting yourself in a needless risk situation, and you aren’t taking reasonable care, the travel insurance company for sure won’t cover that. Don’t risk your life, an accident or injured abroad can be quite serious so, you need to check if your expenses are covered and that they’ll help you fly home if you aren’t able to keep travel.
- Sporting Injuries. Verify all policy covers. Even some of the most extreme ones, like if you’ll need to be helicoptered to hospital in case of breaking a leg. Some companies have different planes for risky sports.
- Contents Insurance. If you travel with lots of gadgets you will need to take coverage for that. Many policies have conditions that apply to high-value items so, be aware. In other cases you will need to take extra cover so, this indicated spend more money on travel insurance.
- Delay and Cancellation. On the chance of any event, you may have the capacity to spend your expanded occasion in the aeroplane terminal with a portion of your costs secured by your travel insurance.
Knowing what’s not cover it’s also important
Everyone wants to know what cover when doing travel insurance for long-term travellers. But, it is also important to know what is not covered by your plan. Some sports activities aren’t cover, only if you pay an extra fee or do a different cover plan. With this, we mean some policies don’t cover accidents sustained while participating in extreme adventures activities, such as hang gliding, paragliding, or bungee jumping.
If you injure someone on the road (third-party liability) a big part of companies don’t cover. Please be responsible, alcohol or drugs are not tolerated so in case of incidents, isn’t cover.
The same for your baggage, if you act recklessly don’t expect to be reimbursed, these incidents aren’t covered.
Besides, don’t expect to be covered for pre-existing conditions or general check-ups covered. If you need to see a doctor for a general check-up, you aren’t cover either. As you may know, when doing travel insurance for long-term travellers, companies also have their limits. Please always check it and see if it’s good as you thought.
Travel insurance for long-term travellers is there to protect you in case of emergency and even if you need to get home in a hurry. Travel Insurance is different from the insurance that you need at home.
Some of the best Travel Insurance for Long-term Travellers
At this point, you must understand there’s a world full of insurance companies. Most of them offered the same things but, you have to be careful with the things they don’t cover.
This is the main difference between insurance companies. Do some homework, check and compare some companies so you can choose the best for you. Bellow, you can find some travel insurance companies:
- STA Travel – a company for a budget, student and youth travellers. Have some limited cover so be careful if you need more.
- IM Global – this company provides you insurance if you want to live in a place. But, prepare yourself, it’s expensive.
- Insure My Trip – Normally insurance companies don’t cover seniors and if they do could be very expensive. So if you are senior or over 65 use this one, they offer the best coverage for older travellers.
- World Nomads – they’re a very reputable company among travellers. No wonder why, they cover a lot of things at a fair price. The company was built by an ex-nomad so he knows what most of us need. You can purchase and renew your insurance policy online. They have great customer feedback, the staff is friendly and responsive, they answer questions and help solve problems via social media.
Buy Early
It’s secure to buy before you leave. Don’t wait to get insurance because it will only cover you for things that happened after you bought the plan. Don’t wait and get out of luck. When you know you are going somewhere and have the dates, buy travel insurance.
There’s a big chance that you will never need to use the policy you bought, but accidents happen and travelling is uncertain. It’s always to be safe than sorry, especially when you are in a different country, thousands of miles from home.
Be smart and get your travel insurance as soon as possible.
So, what to choose?
This is the big question and everyone wants to know the answer. But, travel insurance for long-term travellers is distinct from traveller to traveller. So, what is good for us may not be good for you.
Meanwhile, our favourite travel insurance company is World Nomads. We used in our recent 6 months trip to Southeast Asia. They are very reputable and very popular among travellers.
Normally the claims are quickly and fairly processed. Another bonus is that you are able to buy and renew your insurance policy online in a matter of minutes. The staff is always there to help you solve problems and to answer your questions.
Lonely Planet and National Geographic endorsed World Nomads most of the time, telling how good they are. We didn’t use claims so, we can’t actually refer to the process but, to purchase and all the process it was very easy and quick. We have done a 6 months travel insurance with coverage of risky sports and some of our equipment and it was really great. If we had to recommend one company is this one.
Are you travelling the world but, don’t even have a backpack? Don’t know what’s right for you? Check out our post ‘How to choose the right backpack’ and you will find the best suggestions.
