Travel Insurance for Seniors With Pre-Existing Conditions: What to Know

Résumé détaillé

Learn how seniors with pre-existing conditions can compare travel insurance waivers, medical coverage and evacuation benefits.

When considering travel insurance for seniors, it can be easy to confuse it with health insurance, but these are two separate policies with different benefits and older travelers typically need both.

Several major travel insurance providers offer coverage for pre-existing health conditions if eligibility requirements are met. While these policies can be more expensive than general travel insurance for younger travelers, seniors should focus on medical coverage, emergency evacuation benefits and waiver rules rather than price alone.

Travel insurance and traditional health insurance serve different purposes, although some travel insurance policies include medical benefits like:

Health insurance, on the other hand, typically focuses on medical care within your home country and may offer little to no international coverage so most plans exclude problems arising during travel. Even major plans like Medicare do not offer benefits outside the U.S. except in limited emergency cases.

“Many seniors find out the hard way that their health plan doesn’t follow them abroad,” Lauren Gumport, VP of communications at Faye Travel Insurance, told Newsweek.

Travel insurance can fill this gap in care while traveling and Gumport said it also offers coverage for the trip itself. “If a covered illness or injury forces you to cancel before you leave or cut your trip short, travel insurance can reimburse your non-refundable trip costs, like flights, hotels and tours.”

Older travelers with pre-existing conditions can get travel insurance but the premiums, eligibility and benefits can vary with age, the severity of pre-existing conditions, the type of trip and the specific provisions based on the policy.

Eligibility criteria typically include the following factors, Chrissy Valdez, senior director of operations at Squaremouth, told Newsweek:

“A common misconception is that conditions only need to be declared if you are currently receiving treatment or taking medication, when in reality past diagnoses…

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