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Can Travel Insurance Cover Canadian Hospitals?

Can Travel Insurance Cover Canadian Hospitals?

Old Feb 8th 2023, 12:54 pm
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Default Can Travel Insurance Cover Canadian Hospitals?

My mom is coming to Canada in a week,
She has a visit visa and staying in Canada for 6 months

She has travel insurance from Jordan and the plan as the insurance company says covers hospitals

Do Canadian hospitals recognise this kind of insurance or shall she get Canadian Private Health insurance?

Any advice?
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Old Feb 8th 2023, 2:03 pm
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Default Re: Can Travel Insurance Cover Canadian Hospital

I spent 5 days in hospital in Toronto 10 years ago when I was visiting from the US. We had US travel/health insurance. My husband had to settle the bill before I was discharged. A guy actually came and escorted him to the office to pay! It was $30K+. There was no surgery involved, X-ray, pain meds and observation. I have no idea what would have happened had we not had means to settle the bill.
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Old Feb 8th 2023, 2:21 pm
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Default Re: Can Travel Insurance Cover Canadian Hospitals?

If she's got travel insurance from her home country then that should be fine. Just check that it definitely covers the whole trip (as 6 months is a long time - some travel insurances won't cover trips that long), and that it has really good medical coverage.

As JG has said, normally you have to pay for any treatment but then claim it back via insurance anyway.
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Old Feb 8th 2023, 4:21 pm
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Default Re: Can Travel Insurance Cover Canadian Hospitals?

Originally Posted by christmasoompa
If she's got travel insurance from her home country then that should be fine. Just check that it definitely covers the whole trip (as 6 months is a long time - some travel insurances won't cover trips that long), and that it has really good medical coverage.

As JG has said, normally you have to pay for any treatment but then claim it back via insurance anyway.
Definitely check the duration of cover - I read of an incident recently where someone had purchased annual cover but didn’t appreciate there was a maximum number of individual trip days at any time, typically 15 or 30 for any one trip. Costly mistake to make.
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Old Feb 8th 2023, 4:44 pm
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Default Re: Can Travel Insurance Cover Canadian Hospitals?

Originally Posted by KenA
My mom is coming to Canada in a week,


Do Canadian hospitals recognise this kind of insurance or shall she get Canadian Private Health insurance?

Any advice?
As a visitor to Canada she won't be able to get Canadian Private health Insurance.
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Old Feb 8th 2023, 6:08 pm
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Default Re: Can Travel Insurance Cover Canadian Hospitals?

Originally Posted by KenA
My mom is coming to Canada in a week,
She has a visit visa and staying in Canada for 6 months

She has travel insurance from Jordan and the plan as the insurance company says covers hospitals

Do Canadian hospitals recognise this kind of insurance or shall she get Canadian Private Health insurance?

Any advice?
It's impossible to say what your mother's travel insurance policy will and won't cover without knowing the details of the policy.

For a start, travel insurance is usually offered in different tiers, from the most basic cover to fully comprehensive. Obviously, what is covered, and the monetary limit of the cover, increases through the tiers along with the premium.
Travel insurers want to know where you're travelling to, and for how long, and will base their premiums on this.
Pre-existing conditions need to be declared, and the insurer will then either provide cover for these conditions at an additional premium, or decline to cover those conditions.

To give an example of how just having travel insurance doesn't mean they'll pay for everything, if your mum had an illness in Canada and needed medical treatment in hospital for a month which cost $200,000:

If the illness was the result of a pre-existing condition and this wasn't declared in her travel insurance application, or the travel insurance company had declined cover for this condition, then she'd have to pay the entire amount herself

If her illness wasn't from a pre-existing condition, or was from a pre-existing condition that the insurance company had agreed to cover - but the hospital/medical cover limit of her policy was $50,000, then she'd need to pay the $150,000 shortfall. Whereas if the hospital/medical insurance cover had a limit of $200,000 or more (some policies have unlimited cover for medical/hospital treatment) then she wouldn't have to pay anything.

If I were you I'd get a copy of your mum's policy to see exactly what it does and doesn't cover, and what the policy limits are on medical/hospital expenses.


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Old Feb 10th 2023, 4:02 pm
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Default Re: Can Travel Insurance Cover Canadian Hospital

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl
I spent 5 days in hospital in Toronto 10 years ago when I was visiting from the US. We had US travel/health insurance. My husband had to settle the bill before I was discharged. A guy actually came and escorted him to the office to pay! It was $30K+. There was no surgery involved, X-ray, pain meds and observation. I have no idea what would have happened had we not had means to settle the bill.
Years ago our young daughter was injured skiing in Canada and was taken to the local cottage hospital with suspected concussion. When we all arrived at the hospital my wife and daughter went one way and I was taken immediately to the office where our ID's were recorded together with my credit card details that had $500 reserved on it! She was kept in overnight for observation and released the following morning bill was just under $1000. Compare that to the UK where when it was found that the NHS was losing millions to medical tourists their response was "it would be too complex to try and collect the money"

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Old Feb 12th 2023, 12:29 am
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Default Re: Can Travel Insurance Cover Canadian Hospitals?

The detail will be in the fine print. Read it before you sign the policy.

I'm in Australia, where our Medicare system is far better than the Canadian one. Even with this government aid, many Aussies opt for private health cover as protection for the 'extras'. Different health plan providers have varied plans. So to repeat myself, read before you sign.

The last time I took out private health - admittedly this was some years ago when SO and I travelled to Malaysia for a family reunion and time to explore the country in depth with occasional forays into Thailand and Singapore. In all we were away for three months and we decided we wanted this cover. All that to say things here may have changed now, probably not for the better given the 10%-20% rate yearly increases the providers here all try to slug us with. I phoned several providers and talked to call center staff. All mostly said "yes yes yes" to all my questions. The crunch time came when I asked them to confirm what they had told me in an email. I recall I spoke to six providers. Only one bothered to reply - I've forgotten who this was, but I recall it most definitely wasn't the mostly-now-privatized ex-government provider.

Naturally, we signed up with the one who had bothered to send the email. They weren't the cheapest, but I was satisfied they would honor the agreement if we needed the help, which as it turns out we didn't.

Most Asian hospitals and medical clinics insist on payment upfront for any services they provide. You can then claim from the provider when you return home. Obviously this isn't really the ideal way for us, but it's how the systems work in many countries.
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