Travel Assurance

When you’re travelling, even a minor accident or sickness can become a major expense and inconvenience. So whether your plans include a trip outside your home province or territory, to the U.S. or to another continent, having travel insurance will go a long way toward ensuring you enjoy your time away.

Government Health Insurance Plans don’t cover everything. Anytime you leave Canada—even for a few hours—without travel medical insurance, you’re taking a risk. Like many Canadians, you might be surprised to know that when you travel outside Canada, you leave up to 90% of your government health insurance plan behind. Government health insurance plans also typically cover only a limited portion of medical costs once you leave your home province or territory, even if you are still in Canada.

We used www.kanetix.ca to find the best rate which happened to be with happened to be with TIC Travel Insurance. Be sure to read the find print, a lot of companies will not cover trips greater than 6 months. Also if you read the fine print, one of the conditions of the travel insurance is that you have valid provincial coverage or else the coverage will be Beverly limited; up to $500 max in some cases. A good alternative that we’ve found is from www.worldnomads.com. It is a little more expensive but allows you to buy insurance after your trip has already started and allows for online unlimited online renewals and has a comprehensive online claims are.

You should also check with your provincial health care to see how long you can remain out of the province before your coverage will end. In British Columbia, a resident can maintain coverage for up to 24 months during a temporary absence but approval is limited to once in five years for absences that exceed six months in a calendar year.

Whatever you decide on, don’t skimp out on medical coverage and do your due diligence!