Blue Cross À La Carte Travel Insurance

Blue Cross à la carte travel insurance lets you pick only the coverages you need for a trip: emergency medical care, trip cancellation and interruption, baggage, and accidental death or dismemberment. In the Blue Cross policy, this build-your-own formula is called Single-Trip. Protecto sells it to Canadian residents and helps you before and after you buy.

The coverages you can choose

Take one coverage or several, depending on what you already have. Maximums are per insured person:

• Emergency medical care: up to $5,000,000, with an optional deductible. Covers the cost of an emergency caused by an accident or illness while travelling. A version for trips taken entirely within Canada is also available. Careful: if you leave Canada during the covered period, that version no longer applies at all.
• Trip Cancellation and Interruption: before departure, up to the amount you choose to insure. During the trip, no global limit, but maximums by type of expense.
• Trip Interruption: during the trip only.
• Accidental death or dismemberment: up to $300,000, depending on age and circumstances.
• Baggage: for delay, loss, theft or damage, up to $1,500 per trip for all Baggage benefits combined.

The Cancel for Any Reason option must be bought at the same time as Trip Cancellation and Interruption. Every contract includes Blue Cross Travel Assistance, 24 hours a day, anywhere in the world.

Who can buy it

• Canadian residents covered by their provincial health plan for the whole trip.
• Anyone 31 days of age or older on departure.

From age 55, extra conditions apply. You are not eligible if, for example, a doctor has advised you not to travel, you are on dialysis, or you have been prescribed or treated with home oxygen in the last 12 months. Your Protecto advisor can check these criteria with you before you buy.

Who the à la carte formula suits

• Your credit card or employer already gives you medical coverage, but no cancellation. You add cancellation only.
• You are leaving without large prepaid costs. You take emergency medical care only.
• You are travelling in Canada, outside your province. The Canada version of emergency medical care is built for this.
• You are heading to the United States. Blue Cross benefits are paid in addition to your provincial plan, not instead of it. Read our article on why RAMQ is not enough in the US.

Pre-existing medical conditions

For emergency medical care, a condition that was not stable before your coverage takes effect is excluded. The stability period depends on your age and the length of the trip:

• 54 and under: 3 months;
• 55 to 59, trips of less than 18 days: 6 months;
• 55 to 59 on trips of 18 days or more, and 60 and over: 6 months, and certain specific conditions are excluded, such as some cardiovascular conditions (including pulmonary hypertension) diagnosed or treated at any time in your life, unless your certificate of insurance says otherwise.

For Trip Cancellation and Interruption, the stability period is 3 months at any age. Your answers to the health declaration, where one applies, also shape the exclusions. Read our guide on what “stable” means.

Trip break: coming home mid-contract

With this formula, you can come back to your province and leave again without ending the contract. You are not covered for the days spent at home, and those days are not refunded. A health condition that is not stable when you leave again becomes an excluded pre-existing condition for the rest of the contract.

What it costs

The premium is based on the travellers’ ages, the destination, the trip length, the coverages included, the amount insured, the deductible chosen and, where applicable, your answers to the health declaration. With Protecto, you get your price online in under 2 minutes.

Changing, extending or cancelling

• The contract must cover the whole trip, from the day you leave to the day you return.
• To extend, contact Protecto before the end of the covered period. The extension requires Blue Cross approval.
• You can cancel for a full refund before the contract start date, or within 10 days of purchase, unless you have submitted or intend to submit a claim, or the contract lasts 10 days or less.
• If you come home early and have not submitted and do not intend to submit a claim, a partial refund of the unused days is possible, minus a $25 fee. This refund does not apply if your contract includes Trip Cancellation and Interruption, or if you were repatriated at the insurer’s expense.

Buying through Protecto, and claims

Buy online or with one of our advisors. An advisor may call to help you choose the right coverages, never to push. Protecto is a firm registered with the AMF (#602624) and licensed in Ontario (FSRAO 41378M). Our clients rate us 4.9 out of 5 on Google, across more than 800 reviews.

In an emergency, call Blue Cross Travel Assistance before getting care: 1-800-361-6068 from Canada and the US, or 514-286-8411 collect from anywhere else. Then send your claim within 90 days of the event.

À la carte or Multi-Trip Annual?

If you travel several times a year, the Blue Cross Multi-Trip Annual plan covers each trip up to the maximum length you choose, from 4 to 180 days. If your main goal is protecting a large prepaid trip, see our Blue Cross trip cancellation page. See also travel insurance for Canadians.