Travelex Review: Medevac Services

Originally founded in 1996 in Omaha, NE, Travelex quickly rose to prominence as one of the top three travel insurance providers in the United States. In 2016, it expanded its global reach by joining the Cover-More Group, a subsidiary of Zurich Insurance Group, further solidifying its position in the industry.

Responds to the needs of travelers

Today, Travelex continues to innovate and adapt to the ever-changing needs of travelers, offering personalized protection products and services aimed at making travel safer and more accessible for everyone. With a mission to be a globally recognized travel insurance provider with heart, Travelex wants to inspire confidence in travelers as they embark on their adventures around the world.

All policies cover medevacs

All of Travelex's insurance policies include medical evacuation. Let's take a look at the differences in coverage:

• Travel Basic: covers a maximum of $100,000 in emergency evacuation and/or repatriation of remains, plus escort coverage of up to $25,000. This also comes with $15,000 towards emergency medical expenses resulting from an injury or illness while you're traveling. This insurance policy covers a maximum trip length of 30 days and a per-traveler cost of $10,000.
• Travel Select: boosts your coverage to $500,000 for medevac and/or repatriation, plus escort benefits of up to $25,000. If you upgrade to include additional medical coverage, your emergency evacuation benefit jumps to $1 million. This policy covers all children 17 and under when traveling with a covered adult; just make sure to list the kids on the plan when enrolling. This plan can cover trips of up to 364 days, and our Kenyan safari-goer got a quote of $1,149.
• Travel America: you get up to $250,000 in coverage for emergency evacuation/repatriation, and up to $50,000 in emergency medical expense reimbursement. This plan is designed for coverage of up to 8 travelers on a US-based trip of 14 days or less, priced at just $60. It also comes with car rental collision coverage and roadside assistance.
• Travel Med: this plan offers you $100,000 in medevac and repatriation coverage, and up to $10,000 in coverage for emergency medical costs. However, even though this coverage was described in the section about medevac options, we couldn't find a quote for it or a description anywhere else on the Travelex site. We reached out and learned that Travel Med is a post-departure plan, meaning that it does not include any trip cancellation benefits. After entering your trip details on the website and hitting "get a quote", next to "comprehensive", click on "post-departure", to see the details of that policy.

Fantastic record for handling general claims

We're happy to report that Travelex has an "A+" rating and accreditation from the Better Business Bureau, with only 19 complaints filed in the last three years. That's a pretty big advantage over some medical evacuation providers in our review whose complaints number in the hundreds. And, as an insurance company on the whole, Travelex gets pretty good reviews. Customer ratings usually average well over 4 stars out of 5, though the vast majority come from policyholders who are grateful not to have needed to make a claim. But, even among those who had to file for benefits to be applied, Travelex still was recommended by nearly 90% of those leaving reviews.

Most of the usual limitations for medevac coverage

However, we couldn't find any feedback specifically from policyholders who needed their Travelex policy to cover a medical evacuation, so it's hard for us to say what kind of experience you'd have with that aspect of their service. And, the medical evacuations here do have limitations. You get the usual wording of "nearest adequate licensed medical facility" rather than the hospital of your choice. So, let's say you're being evacuated from a cruise to the British Virgin Islands: it'll be up to Travelex to determine if you could get "adequate" care there, or maybe they'd transfer you to the not-so-great hospital in your hometown instead of the one a little further away in your state that specializes in whatever went wrong while you were traveling. That's a little lackluster compared with some of the options on our list, but it's pretty comparable to most generic travel insurance policies. (Also, for what it's worth, this information wasn't anywhere we could easily find on the Travelex site. We had to pop open a chat with a Travelex rep to get those answers.)

Travel companions covered under a different benefit

We also asked about benefits for travel companions. Our Travelex chat rep said this: "If one traveler has an unforeseen illness or injury requiring an evacuation, the other insured travelers would be eligible for the trip interruption benefit. This will allow the traveling companion to travel with the person being evacuated, provided there is room for them to travel together. However, that person's transportation costs would fall under our Trip Interruption benefit, instead of the evacuation benefit." So, those travel escort benefits we spotted only apply to the cost of sending a medical professional with the evacuated patient, not towards members of the travel party.

Better than most catch-all travel insurance policies

So, at the end of the day, should you choose Travelex for medical evacuation coverage? Perhaps. You could get a well-rounded insurance policy for your trip, and it does come with medevac benefits. But, if you're super-focused on medical evacuation protection, the policies here aren't quite as generous and robust as some of the options on our list who specialize in getting you out of wherever you got hurt or sick and transporting you to whichever facility you prefer. Travelex is above average overall, so we have given the company a good rating. But, we'd definitely recommend comparing your coverage here with other options on our list: only you can determine how heavy you want your focus on medevac benefits to be, and whether or not you want those benefits to be included with an overall travel insurance policy.

On the Travelex website