AIBU to be confused about travel insurance, medical cover and health cover!!!

[ThisCandidHiker]

HELP!!! Posting here for traffic, also couldn’t find a travel section.

My son is going to work in Australia for a few years. Travelling to different states. He is also stopping in at least one country for a holiday on the way to Oz.

He hadn’t thought about insurance and has asked me for help. I haven’t got a scoobies what he needs.

Hive mind please help!!

He will need travel insurance for the holiday part of his trip. World wide policy. He will need to formulate his travel plan with specific dates and look for a company that does extended or multiple trips. Anything over 30 days will require an extra payment amd often they require trips to start and end in the home country. All arranged and paid for at time of booking.
He will need to read the Australian government information about visas. They are very strict.
His future emplouer should arrange his work visa and insurance
It is a huge undertaking and a bit worrying that he is asking his mum to sort it. You would need to detail his itinerary to get proper advice. Is it a volunteering scheme or similar?

Travel insurance for the holiday (he could get an annual policy that covers any trips he takes outside Australia for the next year - if he plans to travel out of Australia multiple times - or a single trip policy just for the one holiday). Look at Tesco, Post Office, Aviva etc for options.

Then regular medical coverage for when he’s in Australia - e.g. ‘Essential Visitors Cover’ from Bupa: https://www.bupa.com.au/health-insurance/overseas-visitors/working-and-holidaying

Thank you @Ankther and @porridgecake

Not sure if regular travel insurance covers long stays, as generally its 28 days max at a time. You’ll need to look specifically for insurance for a long stay.

An annual holiday policy from the UK probably won't work. For most if not all policies you need to live in the UK and go on holiday for up to 28 days. It doesn't cover somebody who lives in another country and goes on holiday from there. This is for Tesco's policy:
Please make sure all of the following statements are true before continuing with the quote:

• you are a UK resident and registered with a GP.
• your trip must start and end in the UK.
• you have not already travelled.
• the policy holder must be 18 or over.
• no travellers on the policy are aged over 80 (or over 50 if you have chosen Backpacker) at the time of travel.

@Mumsntfan1 is correct to point out that most travel insurance policies are only valid for trips that start / end in the country where the person is resident. Your son is going to be resident in Australia once he arrives there (assuming it’s all above board and he has a job / visa to go there). So for what he is proposing there are three periods to consider.

1. Travelling UK to Aus, via holiday destination. He will need a one way travel insurance which is slightly specialist. Travel insurance usually has two main components: covering the cost of medical treatment in the country you are visiting, and the cost of repatriation (if you need to be moved ‘home’ - alive or dead). For the repatriation part - where is ‘home‘? UK or Aus?
2. Health insurance (public or private) while he is an Australian resident, presumably holding a working visa and residence permit. It’s a long time since I lived in Oz so I can’t reminder the system there, which has probably changed anyway. His future employer should help with accessing local healthcare.
3. Travel insurance when he’s in Aus. He should buy this locally but should be aware that the standard repatriation destination will be back to Aus.

the question of repatriation is something you should maybe talk to him about? Idk if there is an insurance that would cover a working resident of one country to be transported to another country in the case of severe disablement or death, assuming that’s what you would all want.

You csn get backpacker/year abroad travel insurance but that won’t cover more than a year. He would need health cover for his stay in Aus but that may be a condition of a work visa.

And backpacker policies won’t cover him if he’s not a backpacker. He’s going to be a resident of Australia, which gives him a different legal status (again, assuming that he’s going above board with a job offer / work visa etc in place).

No but it would travelling to and fro.

I work for a travel insurance company. The majority of standard travel insurance policies won’t cover him as he’s not starting and ending his trip in the UK. There are specialist brokers who may sell polices to cover his one way journey. He may need to look into health insurance once he arrives in Australia

He’ll need travel insurance to get him to Australia via wherever. He will then need health insurance for living in Australia, then travel insurance for subsequent holidays but an oz based policy. An alternative option is a long stay backpackers policy but check conditions very carefully

He’s an absolute idiot for not thinking of travel insurance. He will need a specific policy to cover work and duration, not the standard insurance. Call some companies for prices.

Most people forget to consider repatriation costs, and they can be really huge. And not something a grieving family would want to have to grapple with, in the event of the travellers death or disablement.

Thank you everyone. Your contributions have been really helpful. We have managed to find a long stay backpackers with work cover. He hasn’t got a job yet and will be moving around a lot anyway so this seems to be most appropriate. As and when his circumstances change he will need to review. Thank you

Australia has a reciprocal agreement with the UK for hwalthcare so he can get medical treatment anyway whilst there

I didn’t know this. He will be travelling on an Irish passport. He has dual citizenship UK/Ireland. Will that make any difference? So an extended backpackers should probably be ok for the first 12 months at least.

Follow the guidance for reciprocal health agreements.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-reciprocal-healthcare-agreements-with-non-eu-countries