*A little exclaimer before anything else. These are my own reviews and experiences. I do not get paid by either of the two companies (sure, if Mr. Oom or Mr Safety would want to thank me, he knows my email address, but at least not at the moment of writing this article 😉
A question I get very often asked is how I deal with travel and health insurances when being a national in one country, a resident in another and basically spending my time everywhere in between.
Good question, because let’s be honest: though they can get expensive, travelling without an insurance can get a lotttt more expensive even!
Where most travel insurances only allow you to travel for a maximum of 30 days in a row, there are some insurances that are a bit non-mad friendly. Before diving into this and finding yourself all kinds of different advices and what you will need. Consider these things:
- Do you need to keep an insurance in your home country?
- If not, will this travel insurance also cover you in your home country and are there limits to the amount of visits you can make to your home country?
- What are the deductibles? Are they per year, or per claim?
- What are reasons for nót being covered, both health related as well as on lost or stolen luggage?
- How long will it maximum take them to reimburse your claim? ( you don’t want to be sitting somewhere for months eating bread while waiting for your insurance company to reimburse you)
- Are extreme sports included (for me as a surfer, motorcyclist, mountainbiker, this one is key), and what do they consider ´extreme sports´
- Does it offer world-wide coverage? Including or excluding the USA?
- Does it cover private health care (I have been in situations in which I honestly was quite happy I did not have to rely on public clinics only)
For the dutchies: Oom Verzekeringen
Being a Dutch national, the very best insurance I have been able to find is the one from Oom-verzekeringen. For my health insurance with
- worldwide coverage (except for the USA) and
- coverage for extreme sports
- I pay 50,- euros a month.
I have their ´temporarily in a foreign country´ insurance which covers me for two years having my residence in Spain. If after that I still live in Spain, I need to switch to the ´permanently in a foreign country´ insurance and the price will go up a bit.
- I chose to not have coverage in the USA, as otherwise my monthly fees will go up a lot. Whenever I travel over there I just get myself a short-term travel insurance for some weeks, that doés cover my short-term stay over there.
- Also, I decided to ´buy-out´ my deductible, which means that monthly I pay 5,- extra, but I set my deductible at 0,-, instead of the usual deductible of 100,-. Because I have noticed that the few times I go to doctors in foreign countries, it’s for little things and they charge very little. So I ended up never hitting the 100,- own risk and therefore always paying myself. So what did I have that insurance for then?
- They do not cover any pre-existing conditions though (such as in my case PCOS or anything related to this).
I also have a travel insurance with them, this includes reimbursement if anything valuable gets stolen, transportation home in case of emergencies, etc. I pay 80,- a year for this insurance.So in total I pay 680,- for both my international health as well as my travel insurance.
For the internationals: SafetyWing
I´ve heard and read good reviews about SafetyWing. Their insurance is called ´insurance for nomads´, something we like!
- Their prices are very nice at 37,- USD a month (if you are aged between 10 and 39 years old, if you are older than that, the prices go up a bit. Also when excluding the US).
- They do have a 250,- deductible, though this is per year, and not per claim as usual.
- Also, this is both a travel health insurance as well as an insurance covering trip interruptions and lost/stolen checked in luggage. They do not cover equipment and belongings in their standard rate though, so if this is something you want, make sure you get extra coverage for this.
- As usual, they also do not cover pre-existing conditions nor preventative care.
- Weirdly enough their world-wide coverage does not include North Korea, Cuba and Iran (don´t ask my why) and does not include the US if you opted out for that.
- Also, they state that they do not cover not covered for kidnapping or express kidnapping that begins in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Somalia or Venezuela or any country for which they are prohibited from transaction due to sanctions by the United States Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
- There is ´limited´ coverage for adventure sports. They made quite a long list with sports that are or are not included: surfing and snowboarding are included (though not if you decide to go off-piste snowboarding) and motor accidents as well. That’s all I need in the end 😉
- Also, they include 30 days for every 90 days of medical coverage in your home country –unless you’re a US citizen– if the US is your home country you get 15 days of coverage for every 90 days you’re there (a rarity for travel insurance)
Have a little emergency fund
Sure, I don’t want to sound like your mum, but no matter what you decide to go for, it’s always good to have a little emergency fund just in case of.. well.. emergencies.
