Global Rescue Insurance Review

Many people buy insurance just for the sense of security that having a plan provides. When things go unexpectedly wrong, whether it’s collapsing from heat exhaustion in the desert or a fractured ankle while hiking a mountain, it’s reassuring to know that there’s a safety net to catch you.

Global Rescue is the ultimate safety net. Although they are not insurers, they specialize in offering emergency aid and medical evacuations, arranging and funding transport to a hospital that can provide you with any urgent care you need.

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Their plans are ideal for the digital nomad who intends to go on adventures like climbing Kilimanjaro, skiing in the Dolomites or motorcycling in the footsteps (or should that be tire marks?) of Che Guevara.

What Is Global Rescue Insurance?

Global Rescue isn’t exactly insurance, since they don’t reimburse you for medical expenses or travel costs. Instead, they focus purely on field rescue and medical evacuation. They have been described as the “red-button option,” since their reputation is based on saving people from serious threats to life.

What that means in practical terms is that they will arrange and pay for transportation to an appropriate hospital when you need urgent care. Once your condition is stable, they will return you to your country of residence, where you can receive medical treatment under your home healthcare system.

The company was founded in 2004, partly as a response to the events of 9/11, which massively destabilized global travel. More than 20 years down the line, they’ve got a popular personal memberships program as well as several high-profile enterprise clients, including NASA and National Geographic.

The Global Rescue website prominently displays testimonials showing off the diverse kinds of situations they can help with, such as the 2019 civil unrest in Hong Kong, catching malaria in the Democratic Republic of Cong or sustaining a broken kneecap in the Bahamas during a fall.

Key Features & Coverage

Global Rescue has two main membership types for individuals: Travel and TotalCare. Travel focuses purely on field rescue and medical evacuation with secondary services like medical advisory and destination reports. It’s the base level for all plans.

TotalCare includes everything that you get with Travel but beefs up the policy with increased medical services. There are four tiers to choose from: Silver (only covers your home country), Gold, Platinum or Unlimited.

One thing that Global Rescue doesn’t usually do is pay out for treatment themselves. They only facilitate medical care. For people that do want some health and travel coverage, we’d recommend getting a separate policy in addition to Global Rescue membership.

If you absolutely insist on having everything under the Global Rescue roof, they do have a partnership with IMG to offer a limited health and travel insurance policy. It’s quite pricey for what it is but does include some emergency aid as well as reimbursement for trip cancellation and interruption.

✅ Medical Coverage

• Standard coverage is limited to virtual medical advisory sessions. These consultations provide Global Rescue members with advice from medical professionals on everything from a rash to symptoms of nausea. In some cases, they may suggest an immediate trip to the emergency room, while in others an over-the-counter ointment may be sufficient.
• With TotalCare, you can receive a limited number of urgent consults, ranging from 1 (Silver and Gold) to 4 (Platinum), all the way up to unlimited (Unlimited). The doctors you speak with can issue prescriptions as well as order labs and scans.
• The TotalCare plan also provides specialty consults starting at $150 if you want a second opinion on your diagnosis or treatment.
• If you plump for the IMG Signature Travel Insurance add-on, you can receive medically necessary treatment up to $100,000. This excludes any pre-existing conditions that you have visited a doctor about or received medication for in the past 60 days. (However, this clause can be waived if you purchase the policy within 20 days of an initial trip payment.)
• The IMG Signature Travel Insurance limits emergency dental to $1,000.

✅ Emergency & Evacuation Coverage

• The meatiest part of Global Rescue’s policies is its medical evacuation. This is covered up to an unlimited amount. Basically, they will pay whatever is necessary to get you to an appropriate medical facility – as long as you go through their services. Don’t forget that they won’t pay out for reimbursement if you use another medivac provider. That’s a sure-fire way to get stuck with a massive bill!
• Global Rescue also offers repatriation back to a home hospital of your choice for onward care.
• Evacuation due to natural disasters or civil unrest is not covered as standard for Travel plans, but you can purchase a security package add-on that will protect you in these types of emergencies.
• TotalCare memberships come with security extraction for the Platinum and Unlimited tiers.
• There’s also an option to cover High Altitude Evacuation, which provides protection if you are travelling about 15,000 feet (4,600 meters), say, up Everest, K2 or Aconcagua.
• Unlimited virtual security advisory sessions are available for all Global Rescue members. These allow you to speak with former Navy Seals, Pararescuemen and similarly experienced individuals about how to deal with incidents of civil unrest, natural disasters and terrorism.

✅ Travel-Related Benefits

• All Global Rescue members have access to destination reports, which provide details on common scams, personal security and other travel advice for 215 countries and principalities through the My Global Rescue app.
• For people who purchase the IMG Signature Travel Insurance add-on, trip cancellation is covered up to $100,000, while expenses incurred due to trip interruption are reimbursable up to 150%.
• The IMG add-on also provides a $250 per day payout for trip delays (as long as the delay is more than 6 hours, max. $1,000 total), as well as $500 per person for a missed connection (as long as it was caused by a delay of more than 3 hours).
• Finally, the IMG add-on will cover lost baggage up to $250 per item (maximum claim $2,500) or baggage delay up to $500 total.

✅ COVID-19 & Pandemic Coverage

• Global Rescue will evacuate people with COVID-19 when it is medically necessary, as long as it is in line with local regulations regarding pandemics.

Pricing & Plans

Global Rescue’s plans are charged at a flat fee, depending on the type of coverage that you want. That means the premiums are the same for anybody under the age of 75, regardless of nationality.

Aside from the standard individual option, there’s also a student option (for anyone in full-time education who is aged under 35) and a family option, which covers a primary member, their partner and up to 6 children aged under 26.

For those aged 75 to 84, it’s still possible to get a membership, but the pricing is higher, and you’ll first have to submit an Extended Plan Medical Form before you can get an accurate quote.

There are plans for short-term coverage that last 7, 14 or 30 days, but these aren’t particularly useful for digital nomads – unless you just want coverage for a single journey that is particularly adventurous.

We’re going to focus on the annual memberships, which can be purchased for 1 to 5 years. The price for the Travel plan varies based on how long each trip abroad lasts. The shortest (and cheapest) option is 45 days per trip, but you can also select 90 days, 180 days or 365 days.

The TotalCare plan offers a choice of Silver, Gold, Platinum or Unlimited, but there’s no discount for students. Silver only covers domestic emergencies in your home country, while Gold has a limit of 45 days per trip and Platinum has a limit of 90 days per trip. Unlimited lives up to its name by allowing, well unlimited days per trip!

There is a small discount for signing up for any membership over multiple years, but we’d say it’s pretty negligible given the inconvenience of being locked in.

For example, if you go for a 45-day max trip length plan for one year, the premium is $369, but a 3-year plan will work out at $358 per year (a saving of $11) and a 5-year plan will cost $350.6 (a saving of $19.6).

Travel:

• 45 days. $369 for individual membership, $655 for family membership, $295 for student membership.
• 90 days. $480 for individual membership, $820 for family membership, $410 for student membership.
• 180 days. $650 for individual membership, $1,070 for family membership, $560 for student membership.
• 365 days. $800 for individual membership, $1,300 for family membership, $770 for student membership.
• Adding on the Security Package increases the premium by $366-800 for individuals, $645-1,275 for families and $290-750 for students.
• High Altitude Evacuation is a flat fee, adding $395 to the premiums for individuals and students and $795 to the premium for families.

TotalCare:

• $319 for individual membership, $449 for family membership.
• $445 for individual membership, $795 for family membership.
• $1,080 for individual membership, $1,740 for family membership.
• $2,420 for individual membership, $3,265 for family membership.
• The High Altitude Evacuation add-on costs the same as for the Travel plan.
• Each urgent care consult beyond the included number for your level of membership costs $45.

How does pricing compare to competitors?

Global Rescue works out at a very reasonable price per month. However, in some ways comparing it to travel insurers is like comparing apples and organs. Since Global Rescue’s unique selling proposition is evacuation with field rescue, it doesn’t come with any of the medical coverage that you would expect if you purchased an Allianz, World Nomads or SafetyWing policy.

Pros & Cons of Global Rescue

Pros

✅ Excellent evacuation services
✅ No limitations on sports and activities
✅ Covers multiple countries with no need to update location
✅ Flexible health and travel add-ons

Cons

❌ Not as comprehensive as full expat health insurance
❌ Civil unrest and natural disaster coverage cost extra
❌ Limited trip durations for lower-tier plans

How to Sign Up & Use Global Rescue

• Sign-up process:

1. On the Global Rescue homepage, click “Join” in the top righthand side corner.
2. Select your plan, beginning with either the Global Rescue Travel insurance or the TotalCare package. There are slightly different user journeys for each option. If you select Travel, choose between the individual, family, student or 75-84 options, then specify your desired membership duration and add-ons. If you select TotalCare, you will also need to choose the level of plan.
3. Once you’ve done all this, you’ll see the estimated premium. If you’re happy with the price, enter an email address and click “Continue.”
4. Enter your personal details, including your home address.
5. Select whether you want to add the Travel Protection Plan to your coverage.
6. Enter your billing address and your payment information.

Note: for the 75-84 option, you will have to fill in and email an Extended Plan Medical Form before you can proceed with signup. This form asks some basic questions about your health, including things like if you’ve ever been diagnosed with high blood pressure, liver problems or asthma.

• How to activate the services:

Since Global Rescue does not offer traditional insurance services, there’s no claims process. Instead, they will mobilize their medical evacuation and field rescue services once you contact them. This is easily done through phone, email or the My Global Rescue app.

Self-service benefits like travel advisories and destination reports are directly available through the app.

• User experience:

The Global Rescue website is a smart-looking piece of digital real estate. The user journey to sign up is very smooth from a PC, with the whole process taking a short amount of time.

Admittedly, everything looks a bit cramped on a smartphone, but it all works well. The app looks a bit dated, but it’s very navigable, making it easy to contact emergency services, read destination reports and check up on your family at the touch of a button.

Global Rescue vs. Competitors

*To provide a more direct comparison, we’ve scaled all prices to be equal to roughly 1 month of coverage. Quotes vary based on age, trip duration, destinations and several other factors, so only treat this as a rough estimate.

Customer Reviews & Ratings

Global Rescue doesn’t maintain a presence on any major review sites, relying on positive media coverage and its own testimonials to spread the good word about the brand.

Speaking to digital nomads that have used the service before, though, it’s clear that the coverage is generally well regarded, though with a few major caveats.

What people like:

• The wide-ranging evac policy. Being covered all over the globe is a big bonus for members, who have found it handy for travelling the world.
• That no activities are excluded. A lot of people have signed up with Global Rescue to go mountaineering and trekking, with plenty of positive feedback regarding the level of service when accidents have happened everywhere from Aconcagua to Kilimanjaro.

What people don’t like:

• Waiting for Global Rescue to arrange transport. Since Global Rescue will only cover members for medivacs that they have organized, it can take longer to receive emergency evacuation than if you used a local service.
• There’s no medical coverage, so you may need to pay out of pocket for treatment at a hospital unless you have health insurance.

Who Should & Shouldn’t Use Global Rescue?

• Recommended for → Mountaineering adventurers, extreme sports enthusiasts, travelers to remote areas
• Not ideal for → Expats needing long-term healthcare, people seeking trip-related coverage

Final Verdict: Is Global Rescue Worth It?

Global Rescue is usually only worth purchasing if you are a digital nomad who enjoys lots of adventure and excitement – and as a result can’t find insurance policies that will cover you for field rescues and/or medivacs! They have a specific niche that they fill, with a handful of extras to make your travel easier.

Even with their add-ons, however, Global Rescue’s health insurance is fairly limited. This is definitely not the company to go with if you want your emergency care, outpatient treatments and/or chiropractic adjustments paid for while living abroad.

For these kinds of circumstances, somebody like SafetyWing, Allianz or PassportCard has a lot more to offer. You’ll also find that IMG offer better-value policies direct, rather than if you go through their partnership with Global Rescue.

If you anticipate being in a remote location with limited medical facilities or access to emergency transportation, however, there are few companies that offer the level of evac services that Global Rescue sell.

Sign up for Global Rescue.