Travel Insurance Average: North America

July 23rd, 2017  |  Travel Insurance

Travel insurance is a bit of a mystery for a lot of people. It isn't a popular commodity like clothes or electronic goods. Unless you've investigated or purchased it on multiple occasions, you probably have little-to-no idea of how to value it.

What's problematic about that is that when it comes time to plan a trip, you might not know how to factor in travel insurance accordingly. If you're working with, let's say, a $2,000 budget at the outset, then you'll have to adjust that based on how much goes towards travel insurance, leaving you with less to spend on all the nice things that people shell out for on a trip.

So clearly it's in your best interests to know approximately how much you can expect to spend on travel insurance based on demographics and destinations.

Over the coming weeks, HUB Insurance Hunter will be running a series of posts that investigate those variables and how they work to define what the average travel insurance payments are for Canadians when they travel. We begin today with North American destinations. For consistency's sake we'll look at 15-day vacation terms with all-inclusive, single trip policies, and for variety's sake we'll explore some different demographics.

Traveling within Canada

When you travel outside your home province in Canada, there's a chance you won't be covered for some pretty critical benefits. While immediate treatment is usually included with an out-of-province health card, you could miss out on things like prescription drugs, ambulance services, medical-related transportation, and dental emergencies. These are all things that travel insurance would take care of.

Then, there's also a number of non-medical travel expenses that having insurance would come in handy for. This includes trip cancellation/interruption and baggage loss/theft.

With all of that in mind, let's take a look at what inter-provincial travel insurance would cost someone. Here are the terms of our case study:

• Duration: 15 days
• Province of departure: Ontario
• Gender: Male
• Age: 30
• Cost of trip: $2,000
• Existing medical conditions: None
• Number of additional travelers: None
• Coverage type: All-inclusive

This is how 5 well-known insurers in Canada would charge for that sort of a policy, based on an online quote:

Average: $165.01

Traveling to the United States

Here are the terms of the case study:

• Duration: 15 days
• Province of departure: Ontario
• Destination: United States of America
• Gender: Female
• Age: 30
• Cost of trip: $2,000
• Existing medical conditions: None
• Number of additional travelers: None
• Coverage type: All-inclusive

This is how the 5 well-known insurers from above would charge for that sort of a policy, based on our online quote:

Average: $178.67

Traveling to Mexico

Here are the terms of the case study:

• Duration: 15 days
• Province of departure: Ontario
• Destination: Mexico
• Gender: Male
• Age: 30
• Cost of trip: $2,000
• Existing medical conditions: None
• Number of additional travelers: None
• Coverage type: All-inclusive

This is how the 5 well-known insurers from above would charge for that sort of a policy, based on our online quote:

Average: $178.67

Conclusion

As we can see, there isn't a huge different in the quote amounts between the three countries. Obviously that could change a bit with a larger sample size, but the notion of paying in the mid-to-upper hundred range for an all-inclusive policy to each of the destinations is pretty firm.

Another interesting facet of this was that that quotes for the United States and Mexico came out to be the same amount. Again, it could be just a coincidence, but it shows that with these insurers at least, one country does not demand greater coverage over another.