The Complete Guide to Travel Insurance in Switzerland

Travel insurance

Travel insurance is an umbrella term for various types of coverage that can be useful when traveling, such as:

• Health insurance abroad
• Cancellation insurance
• Luggage insurance
• Rescue insurance
• Car rescue insurance

This means that if you want to be covered by everything, you may need different policies. But it also means that you can choose for yourself what you want coverage for.

Health insurance abroad

We will start with the coverage of health issues abroad. We are only talking about emergency health issues, not medical tourism to find a cheaper doctor.

Many people do not know that the basic health insurance in Switzerland already has coverage abroad. This coverage is for the entire world, but the exact conditions depend on which region you are traveling to.

In countries of the EU and members of the EFTA, the Swiss health insurance card functions exactly like a local insurance card. Indeed, it is considered part of the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) system. In this case, you are entitled to the same treatment as a citizen of the country you are visiting and will be following the same rules regarding payments.

This means that the foreign hospital or doctor can usually send the bill to your health insurance in Switzerland. However, some doctors or hospitals may not recognize it. In this case, you may have to pay in advance and then send the bill to your health insurance in Switzerland for reimbursement.

Also, it is important to note that many countries in Europe will ask for some direct cost participation. This part has to be paid directly by the patient. This varies from country to country. For instance, in France, this can be between 20% and 30%. You will have to pay this directly, and it will not be reimbursed (it acts similarly to the 10% retention fee).

Overall, supplemental health insurance is generally not necessary if you travel in Europe.

For the rest of the world, the base health insurance will cover costs up to certain limits:

1. For outpatient care, the insurance will cover up to twice the price of the equivalent care in Switzerland.
2. For inpatient care (hospitalization), the insurance will cover up to 90% of the equivalent costs in Switzerland.

If you travel outside of Europe, it becomes more complicated. In this case, the insurance card will not be recognized. Therefore, you will have to pay everything by yourself. Also, several countries, like the United States, Japan, or Singapore, have expensive health costs. This means that you will very likely go above twice the price of what it would have cost in Switzerland and reach the limit of your base health insurance. In the US, it is not uncommon for health costs to be at least 5 times more than in Switzerland.

So, outside of Europe, you may have to pay a lot of money in case of emergency. A frequent traveler to far countries may profit from supplemental health insurance.

Supplemental health insurance

If you want to get proper coverage in countries like the United States or Japan, supplemental health insurance policies can be very useful.

Supplemental health insurance for travel will cover you for health issues without limits. This will help cover the gap between the base health insurance and the real costs in a country with expensive health care.

Since it is supplemental insurance, this insurance can have a different name for each insurance provider. So, you will have to look around. It is also important to note that sometimes there are also some other benefits. Rescue is often included in this kind of insurance.

This travel insurance coverage is for the entire year. But it is worth noting that some insurance providers will have limits on the duration of your stay. Like all supplemental insurance, each provider has its own details.

One-time travel insurance

If you want coverage for a single trip or a few infrequent trips, you may want to avoid paying each month for supplemental health insurance.

For this, many insurance companies offer one-time insurance. This is insurance for a shorter amount of time. These insurance policies generally have the same coverage as the supplemental health insurance, but they only cover one trip or a specific time frame.

This form of insurance can help you save money if you do not need or want yearly health insurance.

Rescue insurance

Until this point, we have covered the health costs in detail, but there is something that can be costly: the costs of rescue.

If you are lost or injured in a special place, you will need rescue. And rescue can be expensive. In the worst case, if you need a helicopter to rescue you, this can easily cost many thousands of Swiss francs.

And sometimes, you need to be brought back to Switzerland. This can also be costly.

These costs are poorly covered by the base health insurance. Indeed, it only covers 50% of the costs and only up to 5000 CHF per year. And medical repatriation is not covered at all.

There are multiple ways to cover this gap:

1. Many supplemental insurance policies are covering rescue costs completely.
2. Some standard travel insurance packs also cover these costs.
3. Some private companies like the Rega or the TCS can help their members in such cases. But they are not insurance and will not cover all the local costs.
   • If you donate to the Rega, they may waive the costs of rescue in Switzerland or the costs of bringing you back from another country.
   • The ETI protection from TCS can cover many issues when abroad, for a very fair price.

This can be an interesting area to get some coverage if you are worried about this. It will also depend on your situation. If you go hiking in lonely places in many countries, rescue insurance may be important for you.

Private liability

Another case that is worth looking at is private liability. If you are in a foreign country and cause expensive damage, are you covered?

Fortunately, Swiss private liability insurance also covers damage in the world, not only in Switzerland. So, there is no need for extra coverage.

However, the same limitations of the private liability apply to the world. For instance, standard private liability insurance does not cover accidents you would cause by driving a car.

So, if you do not have vehicle private liability insurance in Switzerland, you may want extra coverage for this case abroad. In most cases, this is covered in the contract of the rental car. But if you bought the car or if there is no rental contract, you may want to take extra coverage from your private liability insurance (there are modules for driving cars of third parties).

Another lesser-known example is horse riding. This needs an extra module in your private liability insurance if you want to cover damage caused when riding a horse. Hunting and piloting drones are also often in a special module.

In most cases, we are well covered for private liability abroad. But there are some specifics that can limit the coverage depending on the activities we do when traveling.

Cancellation insurance

If you plan an expensive trip and cannot travel because of a severe health issue, you may have lost a lot of money. Cancellation insurance is a form of travel insurance that can help in this case.

Cancellation insurance will reimburse the entire price of the trip (everything paid in advance). However, the cancellation can only be done for severe health issues. If you want to cancel for personal reasons, you will not be able to get reimbursed. And a simple health issue like a flu is not considered severe enough. Poor weather in the target country is also not a reason to cancel. Also, some companies exclude certain events, like a pandemic, from the coverage.

There are a few important things to look at when you want to get cancellation insurance.

1. The first is that you should not get overinsured. If you are using an agency (or even a website) to book a trip, they often include an option to get cancellation insurance. In this case, it is pointless to have both cancellation insurances.
2. Then, you should make sure that the country you are traveling to is included in the insurance. Some insurance only covers some regions of the world. And there are some weird clauses, like Switzerland not being covered in a Europe pack.
3. You should check out your coverage limits to make sure that your trips fall within the limit and, conversely, that you are not insured way above the value of your trips.

Unless you are planning expensive trips or have some chronic health issues that may prevent you from traveling, I do not think such insurance is necessary. We never had it ourselves. We do not plan expensive trips, and the likelihood of cancellation is low.

Luggage insurance

If you are worried about your luggage not reaching its destination, you may want to get luggage insurance.

This will reimburse the value of your belongings (up to a limit) if they are lost. If they are delayed, some insurance will also give you a compensation that should help replace some of the content during the delay.

Unless you are traveling with expensive stuff or are particularly worried about your luggage, luggage insurance is rarely useful. If you really want some coverage, it is worth noting that household insurance generally has options for luggage insurance and will likely be cheaper than taking out extra insurance (and will cover you every day).

What about credit cards?

Finally, we must also talk about credit cards. Many credit cards include some form of travel insurance.

Such travel insurance coverage can be quite thorough, but there are some important facts to know:

1. Basic or free credit cards usually offer limited or no travel insurance.
2. A debit card means almost no travel insurance.
3. Expensive credit cards also incur higher currency conversion fees.
4. If you want coverage, you need to pay for the entire trip (hotel and transportation) with the same credit card.

Credit card insurance can be worth it, but I do not believe that one should choose a credit card based on the insurance it provides. The travel insurance perks provided by credit cards are quite strict and often limited. My strategy for credit cards is to minimize fees and maximize cashback.

Conclusion

There are many forms of travel insurance if you want to increase your coverage when traveling abroad. For me, the most useful is the health insurance coverage abroad. This can be very useful if you are traveling to countries where healthcare can be expensive.

Other forms of travel insurance are more debatable in my opinion. In most cases, other events are very rare and not that costly. When you choose insurance, you need to weigh the costs incurred in case of an event and the likelihood of that event. If the likelihood is too low or if the event is not expensive, insurance is not worth it.

It is also important to be careful about not being insured multiple times (for instance, through supplemental insurance and then a credit card) because this is only a waste of money. And as usual with insurance, you need to be cautious about the small print.

On our end, we only have supplemental health insurance to get coverage abroad as our only form of travel insurance

What about you? Do you use travel insurance?