Travels with my laptop

I’ve now been ‘traveling’ (ie away from home) for over a year and so time to renew my backpacker’s travel insurance policy. As I’ve been living in Bali for nearly 9 months I thought it was about time I got myself some proper health insurance, designed for expats. However, after researching several insurance comparison sites and emailing insurance brokers for quotes, I realized that a year-long health insurance policy was going to cost significantly more than I’d anticipated.

The cheapest quote I could find for one year’s health insurance in Indonesia (incidentally, Bali is more expensive, though I did not realise this at the time) was approximately 550GBP (approx 900$) for a basic policy. This was with William Russell through a broker – the quote I got directly from the William Russell website was higher. I know that this is a very competitive quote as everything else I’d found was nearly double that amount, if not more. However, I was hoping for something a little less expensive. I live very cheaply out here and £550 (or rather more as I’m in Bali rather than elsewhere in Indonesia) would be a big chunk out of my budget.

I looked through the policy wording of this quoted policy and wondered what the differences were between this and my normal backpacker’s travel insurance which covered emergency health care as well as lost baggage, flight cancellations and a whole host of other things. The differences between a basic health insurance policy and a travel insurance policy? Not a lot. They both only cover emergency inpatient care (ie a stay in hospital) and transportation out of the country if needed.

If you need comprehensive health insurance – outpatient care, dental treatment, maternity cover and so on then a travel insurance policy is just not going to cut it. However if you’re looking for basic emergency cover that will pay for expensive operations if you’re unlucky enough to need them, and you’re willing to pay for basic health care yourself then there’s a good chance that normal travel insurance will be sufficient.

But… and there is always a ‘but’ and this is a big one, nearly all travel insurance policies (including long-stay, gap year and backpacker insurance) require you to be a resident of your home country in order to take out the policy. If you’ve already been away for a year or more it’s likely that you are no longer legally ‘normally resident’ in your home country. Different policies have different wording but it’s not uncommon for them to state that you must have been in your home country for 6 months out of the last 12 – not much good for long-term travelers. Even worse, nearly all policies require you to be in your home country when you take out the policy. This means that if you’ve already started your trip, you’re stuck.

There is a solution. After many hours of research the only policy I found that will give you cover if you’ve already started your trip is World Nomads. The policy itself is excellent, you can extend your policy (up to 18 months) and even make claims online and you can choose to cover expensive single items such as ipods and laptops – perfect for us digital nomads! They have glowing reviews from a whole host of high profile travel bloggers and are recommended by Lonely Planet and more. I wasted no time in signing up for a new policy with them once I realised they covered my needs and the price is very competitive for what they offer (at least half the price of a basic expat health insurance policy).

So in summary, if you’re actually living in a country rather than just passing through, you’ve been away for longer than 18 months, or you want comprehensive health insurance cover for all eventualities – you need proper health insurance. Don’t risk taking out a cheap travel insurance policy and finding out you’re not actually covered when you need it. On the other hand if you’re a long-term traveller and just want some decent insurance to cover you in medical emergencies, sign up for a World Nomads insurance policy.

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