Yes, you need travel insurance if you leave your province
Traveling within Canada is awesome. Whether you're visiting bed and breakfasts or provincial parks in Ontario, spending a weekend discovering Calgary, traversing the country by train, hitting Bucket List-worthy spots, or doing something else entirely, there is no shortage of worthy destination options.
Adding to the appeal is the fact that they come free of hassles like clearing customs, crossing a border, changing currencies, altering phone plans, etc. A traveler can certainly get used to all of that!
But any seasoned traveler will immediately notice (at least) one glaring omission from that list: insurance. Unfortunately for Canadians it is not an accidental omission. Travel insurance for out-of-province trips may not be mandatory, but it's about as close as you can get to a must-have purchase for provincial border crossers.
Here's why.
Extended medical coverage
Critics of inter-province travel insurance will be quick to point out that the Canada Health Act will "extend coverage for medically necessary hospital and physician services to their eligible residents during temporary absences from the [home] province/territory" (including walk-in clinic visits)—and they'd be absolutely right. That coverage can be exceedingly useful in a rough and unexpected situation. Aside from the fact that you might have to pay for it up front before being reimbursed later, it's a real godsend.
However, even the national coverage blanket has its limits. According to the Government of Ontario, this is what's not covered elsewhere in Canada (outside of a traveler's home province):
- services not covered in Ontario (e.g. cosmetic surgery)
- ambulance services (including transport and paramedic)
- prescription drugs and other drugs given outside a hospital
- home-care services
- fees charged by private hospitals or facilities
- diagnostic or laboratory services outside of a public hospital
- long-term care or residential services
- assistive devices (e.g. prosthetics)
That's a lot of things! Though a handful of them would be unlikely to apply to the majority of injured or sick travelers, passing on the chance to cover them is a major gamble, given the steep costs they would call for in an emergency.
The other stuff
Medical benefits make up a substantial piece of the travel insurance puzzle, but they aren't everything. Think about it. When people travel abroad, they're getting that coverage for much more than just maladies and injuries. Travel risks also include flight cancellation, loss of baggage, theft, etc.
All of these incidents would likely run you up way more than what you'd be paying for travel insurance. On top of that, they're incredibly deflating. Who wants to have the agony of being wronged hanging over their head for the rest of a trip? At least with inter-provincial travel insurance, you have a peace of mind that might not be there otherwise.
Less expensive than international insurance
That's right. Traveling between provinces is pretty much always cheaper from an insurance standpoint than going abroad is. And as we established above, traveling Canada is awesome. You're getting more bang for your buck for visiting comparably awesome destinations at home. Which is just another reason to buy out-of-province travel insurance.