Travel Guard Insurance Review

People are taking longer trips abroad than ever before. It’s a trend that is being fuelled by younger generations who want to combine work and adventure in their overseas travel.

For these nomads, it’s not always necessary to go with a full, year-long travel insurance package. Instead, a plan that allow for multiple trips abroad per year can be a more cost-effective way to purchase protection for emergencies.

Travel Guard travel insurance has one of the better offerings in this category. Their Annual Plan allows for up to 90 days per trip – that’s 3 months at a time, a very generous allotment compared to many of their competitors.

After all, even if you are trying to squeeze in a good 40 hours of toil a week, you’ll still find plenty of time to visit the Taj Mahal or hike the Inca Trail if you’ve got 90 days to divide up between work and play!

What Is Travel Guard Insurance?

Travel Guard is an offshoot of AIG, a massive multinational insurance and finance company. Its specialty as a subsidiary is travel insurance for the North American market, selling policies for journeys abroad. The scope is pretty broad, encompassing families looking for coverage for their big annual holiday as well as couples who go on skiing vacations.

Several of their plans offer a multitude of optional add-ons, including a pre-existing medical condition waiver, cancellation for any reason and an adventure sports bundle. Unfortunately, most of these bits and bobs are only for single-trip plans!

For digital nomads, Travel Guard’s best offering is an annual plan that allows for multiple trips a year overseas. It’s not the most robust policy, but it covers quite a few bases across medical and trip-related benefits. Plus, it’s a sweet deal.

Key Features & Coverage

While Travel Guard’s single-trip policies offer several optional upgrades, the Annual Travel Plan offers a standard package that is set in stone. This lack of flexibility might put off some nomads, but if all you want is a basic bundle to tide you over in an emergency, it might just do the trick.

There’s a mixture of medical coverage and travel-related benefits, so that you are set for most unforeseen eventualities. Plus, you can always rely on the evacuation benefit to get you out of sticky local situations!

Each trip you take can only last up to 90 days, which basically means you have to return to your country of residence at least every three months. That’s not as good as what you would get with proper expat insurance, which would cover you for a whole year abroad, but it is better than a lot of annual multi-trip policies that only allow for trips of 30 or 45 days.

✅ Medical Coverage

• Medically necessary treatment is available for up to $50,000. This covers things like the services of a physician or registered nurse, tests, treatments, hospital charges, prescriptions, hospital room and board, and prosthetic devices.
• Travel Guard will also reimburse customers for treatment of mental or psychological disorders – which is pretty unusual for most basic types of medical coverage.
• A discretionary $5,000 is available as an advance payment if the hospital you visit for emergency treatment requires an immediate deposit. Travel Guard will pay this directly to the medical provider, and it will be taken out of your overall maximum claim allowance.
• Emergency dental treatment for pain and/or the repair of teeth is available for up to $500.
• Pre-existing conditions are not covered.
• Adventure activities and extreme activities are not covered, and there’s no option to add an upgrade for these pursuits.
• The Travel Guard health insurance is bolstered with some non-insurance assistance services. These include things like physician referrals and prescription replacement requests.

✅ Emergency & Evacuation Coverage

• The medical evacuation benefit tops out at $500,000 and can be used to transport you to the nearest appropriate medical facility for treatment if the initial hospital or clinic your visit is unable to provide you with adequate care.
• This coverage can also be used to repatriate you to your primary residence or a medical facility near your primary residence where you can receive further treatment.
• If it is recommended by your physician, part of the $500,000 can be utilized to pay for an escort or attendant.
• Natural disasters are covered by the evacuation benefit.
• Evacuation due to civil unrest is only covered if the US government issues an advisory for a country while you are in that country or in the middle of a trip that includes that country.

✅ Travel-Related Benefits

• Costs associated with trip interruptions will be reimbursed up to 100%, capped at $2,500. This can be applied when you are forced to cut your overseas travel short and need to purchase a ticket home due to one of several reasons. There are quite a few grounds that Travel Guard will accept, including: you, your traveling companion, a family member or a business partner suffer a serious illness or die; you are subpoenaed, must serve on a jury or are required to appear as a witness in court; you are called up for active military service; your home is made uninhabitable due to a natural disaster, fire, vandalism or burglary; your travel supplier defaults financially; your travel is impeded by strikes; your trip is disrupted by a terrorist incident; or your plans are thrown into disarray due to inclement weather.
• Trip delays are covered up to $150 per day for reasonable expenses, maxing out at $1,500. This money can be claimed if you are delayed due to things like a traffic accident, a stolen passport or illness, among others. The benefit can only be used once per trip.
• If a travel delay means you miss a connection, you can claim up to $500 for alternative transportation – as long as there was at least 2 hours between your scheduled arrival and scheduled departure
• Baggage that is lost, stolen or damaged can be claimed for up to $2,500. This particular benefit comes with a lot of fine print, including a limit of $500 for the first item you claim for, then $250 for each subsequent item. There is also a $500 maximum that you can claim for all jewelry and electronic devices – which won’t get you very far!
• If your baggage is delayed for at least 12 hours, so that you are forced to buy new, necessary personal items like underwear or a toothbrush, Travel Guard will reimburse the costs up to $200 per day, topping out at $1,000.
• There are also several non-insurance travel benefits, including identity theft assistance and virtual chats with security advisors.

✅ COVID-19 & Pandemic Coverage

• Travel Guard aims to treat COVID-19 like it would any other ailment. That means they will pay out for any expenses you incur related to treatment for COVID while abroad, as well as for a trip interruption that is caused by a COVID infection.

Pricing & Plans

Travel Guard’s Annual Plan is one of the simplest, most transparently priced options on the market. It doesn’t make a difference where you are traveling to, because all policies cost the same, regardless of how many countries you plan to visit.

The only major factor that influences the premiums is your age. Even then, there are just three age bands: 18 to 40, 40 to 65, and 66 and older.

Although there are upgrades for many Travel Guard plans, there aren’t any for the Annual plan, so it’s all pretty straightforward – although of course prices do fluctuate based on tremors in the market.

All policies must be paid for upfront, with no option for monthly installments.

• Ages 18 to 40. $202.46 per year ($16.87 per month).
• Ages 40 to 65. $275.66 per year ($22.97 per month).
• Ages 66 and upward. $569.06 per year ($47.42 per month).

How does pricing compare to competitors?

The Travel Guard Annual Plan is one of the cheapest insurance policies we’ve come across. At this price, you shouldn’t be surprised that it’s not the best digital nomad insurance in terms of comprehensiveness, with lower claim limits than most competitors. Nevertheless, it’s a good deal.

Pros & Cons of Travel Guard

Pros

✅ Affordable pricing for frequent travelers
✅ One annual payment for multiple trips
✅ Covers multiple countries with no need to update location

Cons

❌ No coverage for pre-existing conditions
❌ Only available for Americans and Canadians
❌ Not as comprehensive as full expat health insurance

How to Sign Up & Use Travel Guard

• Sign-up process:

1. On the Travel Guard homepage, click “Our Plans” in the navigation bar, then select “Our Plans” from the dropdown menu.
2. Scroll down and click “Get a Quote for Annual Plan.”
3. Select your state and the desired plan start date.
4. Enter your date of birth. This page also allows you to add other travelers to the policy.
5. Review what’s included in the plan, then click “Select.”
6. Enter your address and contact details, then confirm whether you want your policy documents sent by email or post.
7. Enter your payment details and purchase the policy.

• How to file a claim and get reimbursed:

1. On the Travel Guard homepage, click “My Policy Tools” in the navigation bar, then select “File a Claim” from the dropdown menu.
2. Enter your policy number and your last name.
3. Select the type of claim that you want to make from the list of options, e.g., interruption, medical, etc.
4. Depending on the type of claim you are making, there will a slightly different user journey, but the portal is good at guiding you through what’s required. Just make sure you have all the necessary documentation beforehand, as you’ll need to attach this to the claim after you’ve entered the basic details. This usually needs to include a medical certificate filled out by your physician and proof of payment for any expenses incurred, among other things.
5. Once you’ve submitted the claim, processing should begin within 1 to 2 days, although it takes longer for a reimbursement to be provided.

• User experience:

The website is a little cluttered, with a lot of window dressing that feels designed for sales funnels and SEO ratings, rather than usefulness.

For instance, the navigation bar has sections dedicated to different traveler types or trip types, but ultimately these all lead back to the same handful of insurance plans, rather than offering anything specially conceived for pregnant travelers or adventure sports enthusiasts.

The site does not have the most intuitive user journey for someone attempting to buy a policy, but it’s still mostly straightforward, with everything suitably mobile optimized.

And there’s no reason to complain about the sign-up process, which is as smooth as butter.

Travel Guard 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

There are fewer than 100 Travel Guard insurance review postings available on Trustpilot. Most of these are negative, but that tends to be the case when a company doesn’t engage with a review site.

We spoke to a few of our fellow nomads who have purchased policies with Travel Guard to find out what they made of their coverage, and this is what we found:

What people like:

• The ease of purchase. Many of the positive comments center on how easy it is to fill in the application and get a policy. The only thing slowing the process down is reading the fine print!
• The competitive pricing. In most cases, people have been happy that they got a good deal on their plan premiums. Rather like we noted in our review, they remarked that Travel Guard’s fees are notably lower than many competitors.
• The lack of upselling. Compared to some pushier insurance companies, people did not feel they were being pressured to go for a more expensive plan or add upgrades to their policy.

What people don’t like:

• The customer service. Quite a few people complained about the wait times on the phone lines, as well as the sometime poor attitude of the call handlers. Surprisingly, this was just as bad for potential customers inquiring about policies as it was for existing customers following up on claims – someone needs to give the sales team a pep talk!
• The website. Several people have found the Travel Guard webpage frustrating to navigate, as well as experiencing problems with connections timing out.
• The fine print. Some potential clients have noted that they struggled to digest the terms and conditions, which could have been written using clearer language. They also found that the customer service people they spoke to were sometimes unable to explain the details themselves.

Who Should & Shouldn’t Use Travel Guard?

• Recommended for → Budget-conscious nomads, freelancers who make multiple trips abroad annually
• Not ideal for → Expats needing long-term healthcare, adventure sports travelers

Final Verdict: Is Travel Guard Worth It?

Travel Guard is part of the budget clique that offers good deals on basic coverage, like Aegis General and (to a lesser extent) Trawick International. These guys are all wallet friendly, even if they don’t feature the perfect coverage for digital nomads.

For something that has the needs of nomads more keenly in mind, SafetyWing, WorldTrips and World Nomads are all brands that offer affordable packages that are specifically designed for people living and working abroad full time.

On the other end of the spectrum from Travel Guard, you can also find more comprehensive policies that include high maximum claim limits and a bunch of routine care treatment. PassportCard, for example, will pay out for annual health checkups and has a €1,000,000 maximum claim limit, even on its most basic tier.

One aspect of Travel Guard that is quite impressive is that they offer something for all ages, with plans that will cover 18-year-olds as well as 80-year-olds. In that respect, they are certainly in the minority.

Sign up for Travel Guard.