How to read a travel insurance policy before you buy

Read the certificate, not the sales page

Every policy has two documents: a summary written to be chosen, and a certificate of insurance written to be enforced. Only the second one pays. It is usually a PDF, it is usually forty pages, and the parts that decide your claim are the definitions and the exclusions rather than the table of limits everyone reads.

This is not advice about which policy to buy — nobody can give that without knowing your health, your trip and your existing cover. It is a list of what to look for so the comparison you make is a real one.

The seven things that decide whether it pays

1. The medical limit, and its sublimits. A headline emergency-medical figure often sits above much smaller caps for dental, and a separate one shared between evacuation and repatriation. Three benefits drawing on one pot look identical in a table to three separate pots.
2. Primary or secondary. Primary pays without involving your health insurer. Secondary requires you to claim at home first, from a foreign hospital, while unwell. Same limit, very different week.
3. The cancellation reasons list. This is where policies differ most and disclose least. Some reimburse only for medical reasons; others include weather, strikes, jury duty and job loss. A policy is not “cancellation cover” in general — it is cover for a specific enumerated list.
4. The pre-existing conditions clause. The single most common reason a real claim is refused. Most policies exclude anything you had symptoms of, took medication for, or saw a doctor about during a look-back window before purchase — commonly 60 to 180 days. A waiver is often available but only if you buy within 14–21 days of your first trip payment.
5. Who is covered. Named travellers, not “whoever is on the trip”. Check that everyone travelling is actually on it — and specifically whether a policyholder who stays home leaves the others uncovered.
6. The excess. A low premium with a high per-claim excess can be worse than the reverse for the small claims you are most likely to make.
7. The claim window and the assistance line. Notice periods are short and many benefits require pre-approval. A medical evacuation you arrange yourself is frequently not reimbursed, however genuine the emergency.

The exclusions worth searching for by name

• Alcohol. Very broadly worded in many policies, and it reaches ordinary accidents after an ordinary evening.
• Adventure and sports. Skiing, diving, quad bikes and — the one that catches people — riding a scooter or motorbike abroad, often excluded outright or conditional on holding the right licence.
• Mental health. Frequently excluded or heavily limited, including as a cancellation reason.
• Pregnancy. Usually covered only to a stated week, and complications are defined narrowly.
• Government advisories. Travelling to somewhere your own government advises against can void the policy entirely.
• Known events. Anything foreseeable when you bought — a named storm, a strike already announced — is excluded from that moment on.

“Cancel for any reason” is narrower than it sounds

It is an optional upgrade, it typically reimburses 50–75% rather than everything, it must usually be bought within days of the first trip payment, and it normally requires cancelling at least 48 hours before departure. It is genuinely useful for an uncertain trip, and it is not the blanket escape hatch the name suggests.

Check what you already have first

Two sources of cover often already exist. Your credit card may carry trip cancellation, delay and baggage benefits — attached through the airfare, with their own limits and their own restrictions. Your health plan may or may not reach beyond the border, and its answer is usually different for emergency treatment than for getting you home.

Buying a policy that duplicates cover you have is a smaller mistake than assuming cover you do not. But both are avoidable by checking, and the checking is genuinely tedious — which is most of the reason people skip it.

Where TripTov fits

Forward a policy and TripTov reads the certificate, pulls out the five medical sub-limits, records who it names, and lines it up against the cards and health plan you already have — so you can see the gap before you buy rather than the overlap after. Where the document simply does not address something, it says so instead of guessing. Try it, or read when your health insurance stops working abroad.