Nomad health insurance: I have it on my credit card
Many digital nomads consider using credit card travel insurance for their global health needs. While cards like Revolut or American Express offer substantial travel insurance benefits, they are designed for short-term trips, not a nomadic lifestyle.
Credit card travel insurance typically covers trips of up to 30 days (or up to 90 days with more premium plans) and requires trips to start and end in the home country. In contrast, international health insurance covers long-term, unlimited travel without such constraints, ensuring continuous protection wherever you are.
You surely already sense that relying on this type of credit card travel insurance as a digital nomad smells like a recipe for trouble. Here is why.
A client asked this very common question:
“I see that Revolut has global health insurance and more. Do you have any opinions on that?”
Yes, modern banking products and premium credit cards often include travel insurance plans. And some of them are actually quite good – within the category of travel insurance for people who embark on a holiday or business trip once in a while. We’re talking about trips which start and end in the home country of the card holder and don’t last longer than some weeks. That’s what the insurance add-ons are made for.
In the category of travel insurance it’s actual quite good what Revolut covers (I have the Metal plan myself for many years).
What Revolut offers is not a health insurance. It’s a travel insurance for people occasionally traveling from their home and back to their home. That is nothing anywhere near to the international health insurance that you have.
Here is the first bullet points from the Revolut page behind the link above:
- “Cover expires on your 76th birthday.”
- “Trips must be paid for with Revolut.”
- “Maximum trip duration is 30 days per trip on Metal and 90 days per trip on Ultra.”
Opposed to that: An actual international health insurance plan for digital nomads will never expire (as long as you pay the premiums) and will cover you for unlimited trip durations wherever you go, independent of any home or residency address.
Read more on the difference between health insurance and travel insurance here.
Revolut is an increasingly popular international FinTech company. You can access different app features depending on your monthly subscription plan. Their Premium, Metal and Ultra plan options have excellent benefits for nomads, including travel delay, cancellation and interruption, expense coverage, and lost or damaged baggage protection.
And also medical insurance. But that’s not for nomads.
The account is well suited to international money transfers, giving you easy access to exchanging and spending money abroad in over 30+ currencies. Also the feature of multiple virtual cards and even disposable virtual cards for one-time use is something really useful.
But why can I not use the credit card medical insurance as a digital nomad?
The answer is easy: It’s against the terms and conditions. Those are the contractual foundations and if you violate them the insurance provider is not going to pay anything.
But how would they know if I am traveling longer?
They don’t need to know while everything is fine. But as soon as you have an insurance case then it’s you who want money from them. And they will ask you to prove that your claim is actually eligible.
Before any health insurance company even looks into the medical bills you file for reimbursement they will first evaluate the eligibility. And for for travel insurance that always means to get the answer to these questions:
- For how long has the client at the time of the incident been traveling?
- For how long have they been away from the home address registered in the contract?
- Are the documents presented plausible or do we want more proof like flight tickets, boarding passes, hotel invoices, or any other documents?
If you fail to present those then just nothing will happen – no money will flow in your direction. And in case of Revolut the app tracks your location all the time anyway for some comfort features like finding a nearby ATM or telling you the current currency conversion rate on arrival in a new country. And to welcome you home with a push notification after a trip!
Conclusion: Don’t play with fire, get a sufficient health insurance coverage for your nomadic lifestyle
We’re here to help. As independent brokers we’ll analyze your actual need and will present you with several options that meet your requirements in terms of coverage level and budget. Just book a free consultation – or first download our free guide for digital nomads on everything insurance.
