Multi-Trip Insurance for Canadian Cross Border Shoppers
It’s an alarming reality that over half of Canadians don’t purchase travel insurance when leaving the country. That’s a scary fact when the daily average for a hospital stay in the U.S. can cost over $1,000 a day and can easily reach $10,000 a day for intensive care. Bills reaching into the hundreds of thousands is common. What’s even scarier is something as simple as a broken arm (slipping on some ice) or getting into a car accident are all real possibilities when crossing over the border whether you do it daily or only a few times a year.
For those people that live close enough to the border or frequently jaunt across to save on U.S.-only deals, getting travel insurance should be a high priority. When you factor in the total amount of time you spend across the border, even if it’s only for a few hours at a time, the chance of something going wrong increases significantly.
Unfortunately, purchasing traditional travel insurance every time you skip across isn’t convenient or the most economical.
That’s why multi-trip insurance (sometime known as annual insurance) was created. It’s usually a yearly plan that covers frequent small trips out of the country. It’s also one of the best deals for the frequent border crosser.
Ranging from a few days at a time all the way up to 60 days in length there’s usually a policy that will work for everyone. As well, a lot of companies allow you to add additional days at a reduced cost. So not only can a multi-trip policy work for the frequent crosser but also for the snowbird or long term traveller who also likes the security of knowing they’re covered anytime they leave the country.
If you’re a consistent cross border shopper or are fortunate enough to live in or near a U.S. border town, definitely look into multi-trip insurance. With some plans available for under a hundred a year for a family of four, it’s a small price to pay for a lot of peace of mind.
Where can I get multi-trip insurance?
We think that the Canadian online quote comparison site Kanetix.ca is a great place to start, as it allows you to compare quotes for travel insurance from several different companies at once. You can also compare the prices and policies of multi-trip and single trip policies side by side.
You can get multi-trip insurance almost anywhere you buy single trip insurance.
Many Canadian credit card companies offer multi-trip policies as a perk (click here for our review). Coverage often includes the cardholder’s spouse and children (and sometimes even a travel companion). As always, read the insurance policy carefully, so you know exactly what you’re getting. We like the Capital One Aspire Cash™ World MasterCard®, which offers a suite of travel insurance (including medical travel insurance) at no annual fee.
Tip! Check your wallet – one of the credit cards you’re carrying may already have travel insurance coverage as a perk.
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Greetings. I went to the Kanetix site and tried to fill out their quote form for multi-trip insurance, but although the form let me identify “multi-trip” as my option, it still required me to provide a start and end date for my “trip”, state how many people were going, and identify my destination. In the past, I’ve had multi-trip insurance covering trips to more than one destination, and during a year’s insurance period I’ve taken several trips, some for a few days, some for a few weeks, some with my wife, some without. In other words, Kanetix’ form does not allow them to get the information needed to make an adequate assessment. They rejected my request because I asked for coverage for a year, since they allow the entry up front of only one trip instead of several trips of unknown duration over the course of a year. I didn’t find the site useful for this purpose.
Hi Pierre. You need to provide a start date and destination (US is fine) to get a multi-trip quote on Kanetix. You can just enter whatever date you want the policy to start on and select US whether you’re going there or not. With a multi-trip, the important part is making sure you’re only out of the country for the maximum length of whichever maximum per trip policy you choose.
Most multi-trip policies give coverage for a year so the length of your trip should only be the maximum amount of time you ever plan to be out of country in one stretch, not the entire year.
Just select tomorrow’s date and a few days after that for your return date with United States as a destination and it should give you a list of companies and maximum travel times for you to choose from. If you want your wife to be covered under your policy also select 2 under number of travellers and provide her birthday info. You’ll see your costs go up with every person you include so only include the people you need coverage for. That’s standard for any policy.
Once you’ve found a policy that works for you, you can then take it to the next step and book it. You will probably be required to provide more information at that point. For the first part, Kanetix is only providing you a quote, you’re not under any obligation to purchase it at that time.
Hope that helps!