Generali Global Assistance Insurance Review

Sometimes all you want from travel insurance is the basics. We’re talking about a little bit of emergency healthcare – just enough to cover essential, urgent treatment – with an additional repository of funds to reimburse you in case of any serious travel snafus.

Generali Global Assistance strikes a decent balance between health coverage and trip coverage. With them, you can claim back for emergency health treatments, medical evacuation and trip interruptions. It might not be the most comprehensive option on the market, but they tick a lot of boxes in one neat little package.

What Is Generali Global Assistance Insurance?

Generali Global Assistance is part of the massive behemoth that is the Generali Group. The parent company has a ton of insurance products in their portfolio, including many personal travel products under the Europ Assistance brand that cover people living in Australia, France, Brazil and a handful of other countries.

Generali Global Assistance specifically focuses on the US market, offering plans for individuals as well for companies who want to protect their employees. What’s on offer is very much in the traditional travel insurance line, protecting trip cancellations and travel delays, with a little bit of health insurance added on top.

These kinds of policies are best for nomads and travelers who are only going to pop abroad for a single trip that covers no more than 180 days. While they are fine for country hopping, they are not ideal for long-term expats, who are probably going to want more routine healthcare coverage as well as a bit more than 6 months of insurance at a time.

Key Features & Coverage

Generali Global Assistance offers three levels of coverage to travelers: Standard, Preferred and Premium.

All tiers come with 24-hour travel assistance, telemedicine and Generali’s signature identity theft resolution services, which supports travelers with emergency cash advances, translation and the issuing of new cards.

Generali Global Assistance health insurance is relatively limited compared to companies that offer proper expat and digital nomad medical coverage. This is balanced out by the fact that trip cancellations and interruptions are protected to a greater degree than with health-focused policies.

Bear in mind that almost all the trip-related coverage is a percentage based on the non-refundable trip cost that you enter when you apply for a policy. In other words, if you lowballed your non-refundable expenses to get a cheaper insurance quote, Generali will (understandably) only cover the amount you specified, not the actual cost.

We should also note here that there is some variation in coverage on a state-by-state basis, but in general the terms are very similar.

✅ Medical Coverage

• Emergency medical and dental treatment is covered up to $50,000 for Standard, $150,000 for Preferred and $250,000 for Premium. This includes physician fees, ambulance services, prescription drugs and therapeutic services.
• Pre-existing conditions are only covered under the Premium plan. To qualify, you must purchase your Generali policy within 24 hours of your final trip payment.

✅ Emergency & Evacuation Coverage

• Medically necessary evacuation and repatriation are covered up to $250,000 for Standard, $500,00 for Preferred and $1,000,000 for Premium.
• If you are travelling alone and are hospitalized for more than 7 days, Generali will cover up to $10,000 of expenses for a companion to come and visit you.
• No funds are available for evacuation related to civil disorders.

✅ Travel-Related Benefits

• 100% of non-refundable trip costs will be paid out for trip cancellations that are due to reasons covered by your policy. These can be things like if you or your travel companion become ill, a family member dies, your flights are canceled due to bad weather, you lose your job, or your home is made uninhabitable due to a natural disaster.
• Trip interruption is covered up to 125% for Standard, 150% for Preferred and 175% for Premium. This means Generali will reimburse you for unrecoverable costs as well as any money spent on additional transportation if your trip is messed up by sickness, weather, travel document theft, a car accident or terrorist acts.
• Preferred and Premium policyholders are also protected if a travel supplier becomes financially insolvent, resulting in trip cancellation or trip interruption.
• Any out-of-pocket expenses you incur due to trip delays that last 12 hours or more are reimbursable up to $150 for Standard, $200 for Preferred and $300 for Premium per day. This maxes out at $1,000 per policy.
• Baggage that is lost, damaged or stolen is protected up to $1,000 for Standard, $1,500 for Preferred and $2,000 for Premium.
• Baggage is also covered for delays up to $200 for Standard, $300 for Preferred and $500 for Premium. This means that any money you spend on essential items because your baggage has been delayed for 24 hours or more, like a toothbrush or phone charger, will be reimbursed.
• Preferred and Premium policyholders can use their baggage insurance to cover sporting equipment.
• If you miss a connection due to a flight delay of 3 hours or more, you can apply for any additional expenses that are not covered by the airline up to $500 for Standard, $750 for Preferred and $1,000 for Premium.

✅ COVID-19 & Pandemic Coverage

• Generali Global Assistance will reimburse you for any cancellations, delays or medical emergencies resulting from COVID-19 specifically. However, their policies do not generally cover anything caused by pandemics or epidemics. In other words, COVID is treated as a special case, but other pandemics are excluded.

Pricing & Plans

Aside from the usual factors like destination and age that always affect the cost of premiums, the price of Generali Global Assistance travel insurance is also influenced by two big factors.

The first one is the length of your trip. It works out much cheaper to purchase a policy that lasts for 180 days (about 6 months) than for 30 days (about 1 month). For example, a 32-year-old traveling around Asia would pay $1,019.56 (approximately $169.93 per month) for a 180-day Standard plan but $307.50 for a 30-day Standard plan. That’s a difference of $137.57 per month.

The other big factor is the trip cost. When you apply for a quote, you’ll be asked to estimate the total amount that is non-refundable, including things like plane tickets, Airbnb accommodation or rental cars. This figure impacts enormously on the cost of your premium.

For instance, a 32-year-old going on a 180-day trip with non-refundable costs of $10,000 would pay $1,351.66 for the Standard plan. However, this would jump up to $2,460.38 if their trip cost $50,000 (the maximum amount Generali will insure).

Conversely, you could get a cheaper policy by opting for a low non-refundable trip cost. If we take the same hypothetical 32-year-old, they would only need to fork out a total of $707.81 if they just wanted $1,000’s worth of non-refundable trip coverage.

For the purposes of our quotes, we went with a trip length of 180 days and a trip cost of $10,000. We’ve also included the price if you go for the cancel for any reason (CFAR) add-on, which refunds 60% of the penalty amount if you bail on an overseas adventure for a reason not covered by the standard trip cancellation benefit.

• Age 24. $865.57 ($144.26 per month) for Standard, $1,213 ($202.17) for Preferred, $1,508.40 ($125.7 per month) for Premium. $2,262.60 with the CFAR add-on.
• Age 32. $1,019.56 ($169.93 per month) for Standard, $1,351.66 ($225.28 per month) for Preferred, $1,710.39 ($285.07 per month) for Premium. $2,565.59 with the CFAR add-on.
• Age 51. $1,246.43 ($207.74 per month) for Standard, $1,629.20 ($271.53 per month) for Preferred, $2,099.71 ($349.95 per month) for Premium. $3,149.57 with the CFAR add-on.
• Age 64. $1,545.24 ($257.54 per month) for Standard, $2,022.14 ($337.02 per month) for Preferred, $2,668.37 ($444.73 per month) for Premium. $4,002.55 with the CFAR add-on.
• For the rental car damage add-on, it’s a flat fee of $9 per day, regardless of age.

How does pricing compare to competitors?

As long as you go for the longest trip length, the pricing is reasonable. The health claim maximum is much lower compared to other insurers quoting a similar premium, but Generali Global Assistance boasts more trip-related coverage, so it kind of balances out.

The steep increase in cost for the cancel for any reason add-on means you only really want to go with this option if you already have serious concerns about needing to back out of a trip. Otherwise, it’s hard to justify the price tag.

Pros & Cons of Generali Global Assistance

Pros

✅ Includes both medical and trip benefits
✅ Covers multiple countries with no need to update location
✅ Easy to apply for a policy

Cons

❌ Maximum trip length is 180 days
❌ Limited coverage for pre-existing conditions
❌ Not as comprehensive as full expat health insurance

How to Sign Up & Use Generali Global Assistance

• Sign-up process:

1. On the Generali Global Assistance homepage, click “Get a Quote” in the navigation bar.
2. Enter the general area you’re visiting (e.g., Africa, Asia, Europe), followed by the primary destination and the date range you want covered by the policy. You will also need to indicate any additional travelers you want included in your plan, as well as your home state, your age and the rough cost of your trip.
3. Choose your plan (Standard, Preferred or Premium). Select whether you want the rental car damage add-on For Premium customers, there’s also an option to include trip cancellation for any reason for an additional fee.
4. Enter your personal details, including your name, address and contact information. If you want to, you can also input details of your travel agency (if applicable) and a beneficiary (in case you can’t accept benefits), but these are optional.
5. Enter your payment details, then click “Buy Plan” – and you’re done!

• How to file a claim and get reimbursed:

1. On the Generali Global Assistance homepage, click “Claims” in the navigation bar.
2. Enter your policy number.
3. Once you’ve been redirected to the eClaims portal, click “Start a new claim.”
4. Log in to your account (or, if it’s your first time, sign up).
5. Re-enter your policy number.
6. Select your claim type (e.g., medical and dental, trip cancelation, baggage delay). You can select multiple boxes.
7. Depending on the type of claim you selected, you will need to answer a couple of questions about your issue and provide a brief description of the incident, as well as specify the amount your want reimbursed.
8. Sign the legal notices and disclosures page.
9. Upload support documents. The portal will specify what information is required.
10. Generali don’t supply a timeframe for handling claims, but once you’ve submitted a request for payment, you can check its status through the eClaims portal.

• User experience:

Signing up for a policy is straightforward and fairly quick, so thumbs up on that side of things.

There’s nothing flashy about the Generali Global Assistance website, but it’s easy to navigate. We particularly like how both the application process and the claims process can be started from the navigation bar, as some insurers make the claims area less clearly accessible.

On the downside of the claims user journey, it seems convoluted to make you enter your policy number first before you can navigate to the eClaims portal. Why not just link to the portal login page directly? And surely the accounts are connected to the policy numbers, so why make users log in AND enter their policy numbers? A question for the developers perhaps…

Generali Global Assistance vs. Competitors

*The Generali Global Assistance quote is based on purchasing the maximum trip coverage (180 days), as this provides the best price and is more likely to match a digital nomad’s requirements. To provide a more direct comparison with competitors, 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

On the plus side, Generali Travel is very responsive, replying to 98% of complainants. On the minus side, the division has a mediocre rating of 3.4 out of 5, which puts it on the lower end of the scale compared to other insurers that we’ve looked at.

A substantial 32% of Generali Global Assistance insurance review ratings are 1 star, while only 61% are 4 stars or higher.

What people like:

• The ease of purchasing a policy. The smooth, streamlined purchase is one of the most liked things about Generali’s offering.
• The trip cancellation coverage. Customers have praised the efficacy of the trip cancellation benefit, noting that it’s helped them claim back non-refundable costs when they’ve been forced to back out of a trip due to illness.

What people don’t like:

• The time it takes to settle claims. Generali don’t provide a timeframe upfront, but several consumers are unhappy at the months-long process.
• The technical issues. Quite a few people in the past year have mentioned a recurring issue with incorrect links to contact customer service and/or to review policies. We didn’t have this problem, however, so it may now have been fixed.

Who Should & Shouldn’t Use Generali Global Assistance?

• Recommended for → Country-hopping travelers, part-time nomads
• Not ideal for → Expats needing long-term healthcare, year-long adventurers

Final Verdict: Is Generali Global Assistance Worth It?

To be honest, Generali Global Assistance is probably not the best digital nomad insurance that you can find, since it’s only designed for shorter-length trips abroad. While the company claims it is looking into creating annual plans that would be more appropriate for people traveling and working overseas all year long, they haven’t got a product that really suits the nomad lifestyle yet.

For policies that are specifically tailored for digital nomads, young guns like SafetyWing, Insured Nomads and World Nomads have a much better range of choices. Even some of Generali’s main competitors, like Allianz, have been quicker at adapting to the nomad market.

That said, there are some reasons why Generali Global Assistance might be attractive. XXX

Sign up for Generali Global Assistance.