BUPA Travel Insurance

BUPA travel insurance for holidays, business, international trips, golfers and explorers.

BUPA was formed in 1947 - the year before the NHS came into being - BUPA started out as The British United Provident Association with the aim of giving the better off a choice in where, when and by whom they were treated for health and medical problems.

On the travel insurance front, take your pick from:

1. Single Trip, Annual or Extended Stay
2. International
3. Explorer
4. Business

Top Private Provider

Even though today's private health care market is bulging at the seams, BUPA is still top banana in its field, with a business now straddling three continents.

Interestingly, it still retains its provident status, ie there are no shareholders and profits are ploughed back in.

At home BUPA's biggest and original business is still health insurance - more than half of the UK's top companies are BUPA customers.

But it's branched out into all sorts of health and wellbeing related areas, even childcare, in the shape of the 'Teddies' nursery chain.

Expatriates

Abroad, BUPA International provides health cover to expats in over 180 countries, including Australia, Ireland, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malta and Saudi Arabia.

As you'd expect, it's mega in Spain (known as Sanitas), where more and more British are buying second homes. In Spain BUPA boasts 1 million insured customers and a network of 18,000 professionals and 450 medical centres.

Satisfied customers

In a survey of BUPA customers, 82% rated the service as excellent or very good. In BUPA hospitals the rating was 88%.

The NHS does have a broader and more expensive remit but struggles to match these figures.

Discount for members

You don't have to be a BUPA member to tap into its travel insurance deals, but if you happen to be one of its 8.2 million customers you get a 10% discount.

Other perks of membership include discounts on BUPA health assessments and joining fees for BUPA approved health and fitness clubs.

Plus there are discounts on a range of products from travel and weekend breaks to car hire and BT Broadband.

Single Trip, Annual or Extended Stay

Whether you're going on a one-off trip to Honolulu, planning several trips over a 12-month period or taking an extended stay away from home, you can choose from three levels of cover.

Age restrictions apply - stop reading now if you're over the age of 79. And as always, the older you are, the more you can expect to pay.

1. Essential cover
   The maximum you can stay away on a Single trip is 31 days, with Annual the limit is increased to 91 days and for Extended Stay, 365 days.
   • £10 million medical cover - possibly in a BUPA hospital - but the cover plummets to just £2 million with the Extended Stay package
   • Up to £30,000 for Personal Accident
   • Up to £600 hospital stay cash benefit
   • Emergency repatriation is automatically included. Plus if your home is burgled or flooded out, say, BUPA will pay for your return home if the old bill need to speak to you.
   • Up to £750 in travel and accommodation costs if someone has to stay abroad with you on medical grounds.
     
     
2. Premier cover
   The maximum stay per trip is 91 days (Annual), 91 days (Single) and 365 (Extended Stay). Medical and emergency benefits are similar to Essential TravelCover, but with a lot more perks, including 17 days' ski cover, plus:
   • £2 million personal liability
   • £5,000 for cancellation or curtailment
   • £1,500 for loss of baggage (single item limit £300)
   • £500 for missed departure in Europe and £1,000 worldwide (Extended Stay excluded)
   Oh and they also throw in a free BUPA Health Screen if you've had a 5-day hospital stay abroad. Comforting to know.
   
   
3. Gold cover
   The maximum length of stay per trip is 91 days (Single) and the same for Annual. With the latter, you are restricted to 183 days in total. As you'd expect, there's no Gold cover for Extended Stay. The Gold TravelCover offers the creme de la creme of VIP perks such as:
   • £15 million medical cover
   • Up to £1,000 hospital stay cash benefit
   • £1,000 emergency cash if yours is lost or pinched
   • £10,000 cancellation or curtailment
   • Up to £2,500 for lost baggage (£700 single item limit)
   Plus there are no excesses to pay for any claim.

International Travel Insurance

Faced with language barriers abroad, most expat Brits turn to home-grown businesses with household names like BUPA for their insurance needs.

The BUPA International TravelCover is specifically aimed at Brits living outside the UK, USA and Canada looking for cover for holidays or business trips.

There are three levels of cover - Essential, Premier and Gold - covering single or multiple trips. Extended Stay is not available to expats.

1. Essential cover
   The Essential package gives you £5 million medical cover, and up to £600 emergency cash, but nothing for personal liability, lost luggage, trip cancellation or passport replacement.
2. Premier and Gold cover see above (Single Trip and Annual TravelCover) above for more information on the benefits.

Explorer Insurance

BUPA Explorer insurance is geared towards students taking time a gap year from college or university to explore the big, bad world.

As with all BUPA policies, there are three types of cover, basic (Bronze); comprehensive (Silver) and belt and braces with knobs on (Gold).

• Bronze gives you basic cover for medical expenses, cancellation or curtailment and legal expenses, but nothing for personal baggage.
• Silver gives you the peace of mind of medical expenses up to £5million, cancellation or curtailment up to £2,000, personal baggage up to £1,500 and cover in the event of hijack or mugging.
• Gold goes that extra mile, with £10 million for medical expenses, cancellation or curtailment up to £5,000, personal baggage up to £2,500 and no excess.

Pre-existing conditions

Pre-existing medical conditions are excluded under all three packages, but each makes provision to help with repaying student loans (£1,000, £2,500 and £5,000 respectively).

Winter sports is an optional add on - up to 21 days.

The maximum age is 35. The rates shown exclude winter sports, and other lengths of stay are available on application.

BUPA Business TravelCover

This has to be one of the best business travel insurance packages around, with cover tailored to suit any size of company, from micro small busiseness's with as little as 3 -10 employees to 150-plus organisations.

You can pay for business cover only (no leisure travel), or combine the business bit with personal leisure travel, including winter sports.

Generous provision

Or if you're a really generous boss, you can pay up for business, leisure and family cover, extending the benefits to your employees' nearest and dearest.

Unusually, BUPA also cover manual work abroad - prices on application.

Take your pick from a range of options covering employees both at home and abroad including -

• Travel costs for replacement colleagues for up to 180 days for any single trip (up to 31 days for BUPA Travel Essentials)
• Baggage
• Business equipment
• Money

For larger companies whose workforce regularly travels abroad on business, BUPA Business TravelCover could make a lot of sense.

Contact details

To obtain a BUPA travel insurance quote:

• 0870 585 8585* (UK)
• +44 (0)1784 410 910** (international)
• email BUPA Travel at BtravQuotes at bupa.com