The first time I ever bought travel insurance was when I visited St. Petersburg, Russia, for a few days in 2018. It wasn’t because I was afraid anything would happen — it was because travel insurance was required for my visa! That was a new experience for me, but luckily I found a company called World Nomads that made it easy to get the insurance I needed for a good price.
Since then, I’ve used World Nomads for other situations when I’ve wanted travel insurance. But for our long trip to Asia, we went with a company called SafetyWing instead. Here’s what you need to know about travel insurance and the difference between World Nomads and SafetyWing.
How Travel Insurance Works
If you’ve ever bought an international flight, you’ve probably seen the option for “protect your trip” with some sort of travel insurance offered by Allianz. I’ve never selected this option — partially because it always seems soooo expensive. Also, I’m not sure whether it’s trustworthy.
Obviously, the point of travel insurance is to protect you if something goes wrong while you’re on your trip. Whether that’s helping you get a refund if you miss a flight, covering the cost of your medical care if you need to go to the doctor/hospital while traveling, or even getting you back to your home country if you die. (RIP.)
Matt and I typically would only buy travel insurance in a couple situations: one, if we were going somewhere for a long period of time (like when we went to Ecuador for two months); or two, when we were traveling in the first few years after COVID (like when we went to the UK and Ireland in 2022). For all of those trips, we used World Nomads.
Our Experience With World Nomads
I looooove World Nomads and have recommended them to all my friends and family who have asked me about travel insurance. (And they are NOT paying me to say this, haha.) Though I’m sure I’ve funneled a lot of business to them, like last year when lots of our friends were traveling to Europe for the first time for our wedding!
The World Nomads application process online is so easy — all you have to do is put in your age, gender, where you live, and where you’re traveling along with your dates, and you’ll have your quote. It always seems like such a good deal, especially compared to the option available when you’re booking your flight. Plus, you can buy it anytime before you leave, so you don’t have to decide right at the time of booking whether you want travel insurance.
Luckily, Matt and I have only had to actually USE the World Nomads travel insurance during one trip — and we used it twice on that trip, actually. It was the trip to Ecuador. Matt apparently decided to drink the water in the Galapagos Islands, and it gave him stomach issues for a few weeks. While we went to the emergency room in Puerto Ayora, it was a public hospital that was actually free for everyone on the island.
When we got back to our home base in Quito and he still wasn’t feeling well, we were worried he’d picked up a parasite, so we scheduled an appointment with a doctor in the private system. From what I remember, he used his U.S. health insurance for the visit and labs at the time, with the knowledge that he would be billed by his health insurance later. Then, when we finally got that bill, we logged into the World Nomads portal and uploaded all the documentation we had about the doctor’s visit, his health insurance, and our travel insurance policy. We then received a check from World Nomads for the amount we were billed by his health insurance!
And we also used it for a small travel hiccup. When we flew back to the U.S. from Quito, our flight was delayed more than two hours. (This isn’t Europe, so we didn’t get anything for that, lol.) Since we arrived into Miami’s airport and were flying out of Fort Lauderdale to Kansas City the next day, we were staying in a hotel overnight.
But the delayed flight meant that the free airport-hotel shuttle was no longer running because it was too late. I was annoyed that it meant we had to pay an additional $40 out-of-pocket to get an Uber to the hotel, which was a direct result of the delay. I decided to try my luck with filing a claim with World Nomads. After uploading all my documentation, the claim was approved, so we received a check for the amount spent on the Uber!
Why We Chose SafetyWing Travel Insurance This Time
When it was time to plan our honeymoon trip to Asia, we knew we would get travel insurance — it meets our qualifier of being a “long trip” and we’re also visiting three countries that neither of us have ever been to. Better to be safe than sorry if any surprises pop up.
I went to the World Nomads website to get our travel insurance policy and then realized something pretty important: World Nomads is only for current residents of the United States.
That’s because it uses your U.S. health insurance as your primary insurer, and then World Nomads is meant to fill in the gaps. But now that Matt and I live in Spain, we don’t have U.S. health insurance. Which meant that we would need to find another option.
Fortunately, I was aware of another company, called SafetyWing. SafetyWing has a different target market than World Nomads — it’s designed for remote workers who are based outside the U.S. and even has the goal of building a “global social safety net.” While I’ve known about SafetyWing for a few years, this was actually my first time booking a policy with them. We got the “Nomad Insurance Essential” plan — you can read here what that plan covers, as well as the exclusions.
I felt pretty happy with the price of our coverage for two people, for nearly six weeks: $161. Total!
Of course, I can’t say at this point how their claims process works compared to what I experienced with World Nomads. So I’m interested to see how it goes! (Though I certainly hope we don’t have to use it. 😉)
So, there are a couple of travel insurance options that I recommend to others, and you can see the types of situations they work best for. If I ever lived full-time in the U.S. again, I’d probably go back to World Nomads, but if I stay in Spain, SafetyWing will be my go-to.
Have you ever bought travel insurance? Which companies have you used — and would you recommend them or not? Let me know in the comments!
-Cathy
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