Travel insurance for a medical trip: what it will not cover

Standard travel insurance excludes what you came for

Read the exclusions page before the summary page. Almost every off-the-shelf travel policy excludes planned medical treatment abroad and, critically, anything arising from it, so if a complication from your surgery sends you back into hospital, the ordinary policy does not respond. Buying travel insurance and assuming it covers your operation is the single most common mistake we see.

What it still covers, and why you should have it anyway

The policy remains worth its 30 to 60 euro for everything unrelated to the treatment: a broken ankle on wet cobbles, appendicitis, a cancelled flight, lost baggage with your medication in it, a hotel night you have to buy because a strike grounded you. Those risks do not disappear because you are here for surgery. Buy it for those, not for the operation.

Surgical complication cover is a separate product

A handful of specialist insurers sell medical-tourism complication policies that pay for revision surgery, an extended hospital stay, repatriation and, in some cases, the flights. Expect to pay roughly three to six per cent of the procedure cost, and expect the policy to require a licensed, accredited facility, which is precisely why the accreditation questions in your first email matter.

What we carry ourselves, stated plainly

Our own cover is not insurance and we will not call it that. It is a written warranty, a revision policy, intensive care inside the hospital building rather than a transfer across town, and a coordinator who answers after you fly home. What it does not include is your flight, your hotel extension or your lost working days. That gap is what a complication policy exists to fill.

The Ones People Actually Ask.