Visitors insurance is also known as travel medical insurance. Visitors insurance generally provides the coverage for any new medical conditions, injuries or accidents that may occur after the effective date of the policy.
Visitors medical insurance for USA does not cover preventive care or anticipated care. In other words, visitors insurance does not provide the coverage for all the healthcare you may want or need while visiting the United States.
Visitors insurance is a short term travel medical insurance that provides coverage for trips up to 364 days in most cases. However, the exact coverage duration may vary by the specific product.
Fixed coverage insurance plans for visitors to the US are also called scheduled benefit plans. For each medical expense, there is a fixed maximum limit that the insurance company will pay and you will be responsible to pay for the rest.
E.g., if you visitor a doctor, and the doctor charges $300, and if the maximum benefit for a doctor’s visit is $65, the insurance will pay $65 and you will have to pay $300 – $65 = $235 out of your pocket.
If you need get a surgery done and if the surgery costs you $35,000, and if the maximum benefit for a surgery is $3,000, you will end up paying $32,000 out of your pocket.
In other words, the benefit amounts are typically significantly lower than the actual healthcare expenses in the US.
Additionally, most fixed coverage plans have the deductible per incident. Therefore, for each new sickness or injury, you will have to pay the deductible again.
Moreover, majority of the fixed coverage visitors insurance plans do not participate in any PPO network. In most cases, there would be no trip related benefits such as trip interruption or baggage delay.
Even though fixed coverage plans are highly insufficient, they exist in the market primarily due to the fact that many travel insurance companies in India offer only this kind of coverage for people of 55+ years of age (sometimes, 50+ years of age). And many Indian customers typically look at the visitors insurance plans from both India and the US and simply compare the price. But that is not an apples-to-apples comparison.
Fixed coverage insurance plans for visitors to the US are also called scheduled benefit plans. For each medical expense, there is a fixed maximum limit that the insurance company will pay and you will be responsible to pay for the rest.
E.g., if you visitor a doctor, and the doctor charges $300, and if the maximum benefit for a doctor’s visit is $65, the insurance will pay $65 and you will have to pay $300 – $65 = $235 out of your pocket.
If you need get a surgery done and if the surgery costs you $35,000, and if the maximum benefit for a surgery is $3,000, you will end up paying $32,000 out of your pocket.
In other words, the benefit amounts are typically significantly lower than the actual healthcare expenses in the US.<.p>
Additionally, most fixed coverage plans have the deductible per incident. Therefore, for each new sickness or injury, you will have to pay the deductible again.
Moreover, majority of the fixed coverage visitors insurance plans do not participate in any PPO network. In most cases, there would be no trip related benefits such as trip interruption or baggage delay.
Even though fixed coverage plans are highly insufficient, they exist in the market primarily due to the fact that many travel insurance companies in India offer only this kind of coverage for people of 55+ years of age (sometimes, 50+ years of age). And many Indian customers typically look at the visitors insurance plans from both India and the US and simply compare the price. But that is not an apples-to-apples comparison.
Comprehensive coverage plans for visitors to the U.S. typically don’t have sub-limits for each benefit but have an overall policy maximum.
In most plans, you will first pay the chosen deductible, then the plan will pay a certain percentage up to a certain limit, and then it will pay 100% up to the chosen policy maximum for eligible medical expenses. Some plans provide 100% coverage after the deductible. In some plans, the deductible is waived when visiting the provider within the PPO network.
Some examples of the coverage are:
Please look at the details of specific visitors insurance plans for exact details.
Additionally, most of the comprehensive visitors insurance plans participate in the PPO (Preferred Provider Organization) network, which is a list of doctors and hospitals that participate in the network, typically bill the insurance company directly and also charge you the network negotiated fees, which are typically significantly lower than their regular fees. Some people call this arrangement cashless treatment.
Moreover, comprehensive coverage plans typically have the coverage for trip interruption and loss of checked luggage as well.
It is always recommended to purchase comprehensive coverage plans only for visitors to the USA.
Visitors insurance is a short term travel medical insurance plan designed to cover unexpected and new medical conditions, injuries or accidents that may occur while on the trip to the US. Common examples of travel related ailments would be getting food poisoning, diarrhea, cold, flu, fever, pneumonia, insect bites, or injuries such as falling down the stairs or in the snow or getting hit by a car etc.
Most visitors insurance plans also provide the coverage for COVID-19 just like any other sickness that occurs after the effective date of the policy.
Most of the visitors insurance plans will not provide the coverage for pre-existing conditions. However, many of them would provide the coverage for acute onset of pre-existing conditions, which is generally an emergency occurring all of sudden without any prior warning or symptoms and you need to take the treatment within the next 24 hours. Please read the details of each visitors insurance plan for further details. However, Visitors Protect can provide the coverage for pre-existing conditions as well, with a few limitations, as mentioned in its certificate wording.
Additionally, there are several trip related coverages generally available in visitors insurance, such as:
