J1 visa insurance: the federal minimums and 6 plans checked against them, from $136

J1 visa insurance is mandatory, and the amounts are set by federal law. 22 CFR 62.14 requires at least $100,000 of medical benefits per accident or illness, $50,000 of medical evacuation, $25,000 of repatriation of remains, and a deductible capped at $500 per accident or illness.

That single fact is what separates this page from every other American visa. An F-1 academic student is told what to buy by the university, and each campus writes its own rule. A J-1 exchange visitor is told what to buy by the regulation itself, identically for an au pair in Ohio, a camp counselor in Maine, a summer work travel participant, a trainee and a research scholar. Your sponsor checks your policy against those four numbers, not against its taste.

So the useful question is not whether you need J1 visa insurance. It is which contracts genuinely clear the bar. We priced six plans that cover an arrival in the United States on hellosafe.com on 1 September 2026, then opened five of their policy wordings and read the deductible clause and the evacuation clause line by line. Prices for a 9-month programme run from $394.57 to $1,752.21. One plan has no policy document attached at all, and we say so rather than list it as compliant.

Two findings are worth the read on their own. Two contracts pay a higher medical ceiling in the United States than our own product sheet records, and one contract caps hospital cover and excludes pre-existing conditions where the sheet says it does neither. On both, the binding wording wins and the page prints the wording.

Six plans quoted for an exchange visitor arriving in the United States, and five of the six clear every figure in 22 CFR 62.14 on the wording we could read. Go Campus is the cheapest of them at $394.57 for a 9-month programme and the only one whose contract uses the words medical evacuation outright.

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If you land in Boston with appendicitis, the plan pays the hospital directly instead of asking you to advance the bill, flies you home under medical supervision if the local hospital cannot treat you, and would repatriate your remains at actual cost if the worst happened. That is the whole federal checklist, and Go Campus meets it over nine months. Its contract pays medical expenses in the United States up to roughly $590,000, applies no deductible at all to care abroad, and is the only one of the six that names your medical evacuation as its own guarantee rather than folding it into a general repatriation clause. World Student is the one to pick if you live outside the European Union, since it accepts residents worldwide and still quotes from India or China where most plans simply do not sell to you. Safe Campus costs four times more, and it is worth it only in one situation: it is the sole plan whose wording covers pre-existing conditions without limit, so a J-1 with a chronic condition should pay the difference rather than gamble. Whichever you take, buy it before you fly and keep the certificate with your DS-2019.

Go CampusInsured by MGEN

From$390.18

Included coverage

International emergency medical expenses$560,000

Personal liability$5,000,000

Rental liabilityNot included

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationActual costs

See the 13 guaranteesGet a quote

Personalized quote · no commitment

World StudentInsured by Mutuaide

From$533.94

Included coverage

International emergency medical expenses$560,000

Personal liability$5,000,000

Rental liabilityNot included

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationActual costs

See the 13 guaranteesGet a quote

Personalized quote · no commitment

Cap StudentInsured by Axa

From$625.18

Included coverage

International emergency medical expensesActual costs

Personal liability$4,500,000

Rental liability$110,000

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationActual costs

See the 13 guaranteesGet a quote

Personalized quote · no commitment

WorldSecure BasicInsured by MGEN

From$664.85

Included coverage

International emergency medical expenses$340,000

Personal liability$5,000,000

Rental liabilityNot included

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationActual costs

See the 13 guaranteesGet a quote

Personalized quote · no commitment

Safe CampusInsured by AIG

From$1,732.72

Included coverage

International emergency medical expensesActual costs

Personal liability$5,000,000

Rental liability$110,000

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationActual costs

See the 13 guaranteesGet a quote

Personalized quote · no commitment

Safe StudiesInsured by AIG

From$681.54

Included coverage

International emergency medical expensesActual costs

Personal liability$5,000,000

Rental liability$110,000

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationActual costs

See the 13 guaranteesGet a quote

Personalized quote · no commitment

Real quotes captured on hellosafe.com for 1 exchange visitor aged 22, a 9-month stay (15 September 2026 to 15 June 2027), arrival in the United States, residence in France, shown in US dollars. HelloSafe data, September 2026. Policies are underwritten in Europe: prices and cover limits are shown in dollars, converted at the live exchange rate. Prices move with the length of your programme and your country of residence, not with your age between 18 and 30.

J1 visa insurance costs from $136.28 for a 3-month summer work travel programme to $516.23 for a full 12-month au pair or research year, on the cheapest compliant plan. Every figure below is a real quote pulled from our comparator, not a brochure price.

Where you live changes the shortlist far more than your age does. From India or China, the same 9-month programme returns only two plans, World Student at $539.94 and WorldSecure Basic at $1,012.39, because the other four sell only to residents of the European Economic Area. If you buy as an au pair specifically, selecting the au pair route in our comparator returns Go Campus at $516.58 and World Student at $652.86 for twelve months. Our general guide to au pair insurance goes into that category in more detail.

The regulation is short and it is numeric. J1 visa insurance must carry at least $100,000 of medical benefits per accident or illness, $50,000 for medical evacuation to your home country, $25,000 for repatriation of remains, and a deductible no higher than $500 per accident or illness.

Three details get missed. First, the requirement covers your accompanying spouse and dependants as well as you, so a J-2 without cover puts the whole family out of compliance. Second, the policy may impose a reasonable waiting period for pre-existing conditions, but it must not unreasonably exclude the perils inherent to your exchange activity. Third, the cover must run for the whole programme as recorded in SEVIS, not for the months you feel exposed.

We read the policy wordings rather than the marketing sheets, and five of the six plans clear all four federal figures for J1 visa insurance. One cannot be checked at all, because no policy document is attached to it.

The audit also turned up cover that is better than our own records said. Go Campus and World Student both carry a two-tier medical ceiling in their wording: about $590,000 per person in eleven high-cost countries including the United States, and about $236,000 everywhere else. Our product sheet stored only the lower tier. For a J-1 in America, the ceiling that applies is the higher one, which is nearly six times the federal minimum.

The four federal numbers are the easy part of J1 visa insurance. What decides whether a claim is paid sits in the waiting periods, the residence conditions and the pre-existing clauses, and those never appear on a comparison table.

• ✓
  A named medical evacuation clause : Go Campus writes medical evacuation as its own guarantee, which is the wording a sponsor recognises instantly against the $50,000 line.
• ✓
  Direct billing with the hospital : all six pay the hospital directly rather than making you advance the bill, which matters when a US admission is quoted in five figures.
• ✓
  Cover that runs the whole programme : your policy must span the SEVIS dates, so check the maximum stay before you buy. Every student plan here stops at 365 days, WorldSecure Basic at 364.
• ✓
  Personal liability : four of the six carry about $5.3 million, Cap Student about $4.72 million. Safe Campus cuts its own liability ceiling to about $1.77 million for damage caused in the United States and Canada, which is the kind of detail only the wording shows.
• ✓
  Studies or training interruption : Cap Student, Safe Campus and Safe Studies refund unused course and accommodation costs up to about $17,700 if hospitalisation or repatriation ends your programme early.

• ✕
  Pre-existing conditions : World Student excludes illnesses diagnosed or treated that led to hospitalisation in the six months before you call. WorldSecure Basic excludes pre-existing conditions, congenital disability, hereditary disease and chronic illness. Cap Student excludes them unless a complication is unpredictable. Only Safe Campus covers them without limit.
• ✕
  A waiting period if you buy late : WorldSecure Basic applies an eight-day waiting period to every benefit when you subscribe after you have already left. Buying on the plane is the one mistake that leaves you uninsured on arrival.
• ✕
  Trip cancellation : none of the six covers it. If your programme is called off before departure, your flights are your problem.
• ✕
  Residence restrictions : Go Campus, Safe Campus and Safe Studies sell only to residents of the European Economic Area, Cap Student to 34 European countries. From India, China or Brazil, only World Student and WorldSecure Basic will quote you.
• ✕
  The out of pocket that is not a deductible : Safe Campus applies no deductible per claim but caps your own contribution at $1,500 per insured. That respects the $500 deductible rule as written, and it is still up to $1,500 you may have to find.

Yes. The regulation requires the accompanying spouse and dependants of an exchange visitor to hold sickness and accident cover on the same terms, so J1 visa insurance is a family requirement whenever a J-2 travels with you.

In practice the catalogue is much thinner for a family than for a solo exchange visitor. Priced for a 9-month stay with two adults of 30 and 29 and a child of three, only two plans accept the group at all: World Student at $1,618.74 and WorldSecure Basic at $2,015.64 for everybody. The other four refuse the quote because the group is too large, and Safe Campus also refuses on the child's age. If your spouse and children are joining you, price the family together from the start rather than adding them later, and check that each J-2 gets their own certificate for the sponsor.

Because American hospital prices make the federal minimum look modest rather than generous. KFF puts average adjusted expenses at $3,297.26 per inpatient day in 2024, from the American Hospital Association annual survey, so a two-week admission passes $46,000 before a single procedure is added.

That is the arithmetic behind the $100,000 line in the regulation, and it is why the ceilings on the plans above matter more than they would in Europe. About $590,000 on Go Campus or World Student, unlimited on Safe Campus: these are not vanity numbers on an American bill. It is also why direct billing is worth checking. Every plan here settles with the hospital rather than asking a 22-year-old to advance five figures and claim it back.

An exchange visitor has no access to Medicare or Medicaid and, in most categories, no employer plan either. The policy in your file is the whole of your cover, which is exactly why the sponsor checks it before your programme begins.

A sponsor plan can replace J1 visa insurance, a credit card cannot. Sponsors often enrol exchange visitors in a group policy that already meets 22 CFR 62.14, and the regulation explicitly allows approved group and institutional plans; a US student credit card carries none of the four required guarantees.

If your sponsor offers a plan, ask two questions before paying twice: does it run for the full SEVIS dates, and does it cover your J-2 dependants. Sponsor plans frequently start on the programme start date, which leaves the days between your arrival and your orientation uncovered, and that gap is the single most common reason exchange visitors buy a private policy alongside.

The card route does not work, and our own card data is unambiguous about why. Reading the US student cards in our database: the Discover it Student Cash Back dropped every travel benefit in February 2018, so it carries no emergency medical, no evacuation, no trip cancellation and no baggage cover at all. The Bank of America Customized Cash Rewards for Students offers baggage delay, lost luggage and $500,000 of travel accident cover on common carriers, but explicitly no emergency medical and no evacuation benefit. The Capital One Savor Student Cash Rewards is the same story: no cancellation, no emergency medical, no evacuation. Not one of them contributes a dollar towards the $100,000 medical or the $50,000 evacuation your sponsor has to verify. If you want to see what a card does and does not include, our guide to travel cover included with a credit card sets out the real ceilings.

Buy J1 visa insurance before you fly, for the full SEVIS period, and send the certificate to your sponsor the same day. Cover bought after departure can carry a waiting period, and one plan here applies eight days to every benefit in that case.

1. Take your programme dates from the DS-2019, not from your flights. The policy has to span the whole SEVIS period, and the plans above all stop at 365 days, so a longer programme needs a renewal planned in advance.
2. Compare with your real residence country, not the United States. The offer set changes completely: six plans quote from the European Union, two from India or China.
3. Check the four federal figures on the certificate itself: $100,000 medical, $50,000 evacuation, $25,000 repatriation of remains, deductible at or under $500. Those are the lines your sponsor reads.
4. If you have a pre-existing condition, read the exclusion before you pay. Only Safe Campus covers pre-existing conditions without limit, and it costs $1,752.21 against $394.57 for the cheapest plan.
5. Buy before departure and download the certificate immediately. Keep it with the DS-2019 and give a copy to your sponsor, who has to hold proof of your cover for the whole programme.
6. If a J-2 spouse or child is joining you, add them to the same quote rather than insuring them separately, since only two plans accept a family group.

For the wider picture beyond the exchange programme, our student travel insurance comparison covers semesters, internships and academic years outside the J-1 framework, and the main travel insurance hub compares the whole catalogue.

• Is J1 visa insurance mandatory?

  Yes. 22 CFR 62.14 requires every exchange visitor, and every accompanying spouse or dependant, to hold sickness and accident insurance for the whole programme as recorded in SEVIS. Your sponsor has to verify it and must terminate your participation if you willfully let it lapse.

• What are the exact J1 visa insurance minimums?

  Medical benefits of at least $100,000 per accident or illness, $50,000 for medical evacuation to your home country, $25,000 for repatriation of remains, and a deductible that does not exceed $500 per accident or illness. The policy may also ask you to pay up to 25% of covered benefits as coinsurance, and its insurer must hold an A.M. Best rating of A- or above, or an equivalent from Standard & Poor’s, Fitch, Moody’s or Weiss.

• Can a European insurance plan meet the J-1 requirements?

  Yes, when its ceilings and its deductible clear the four federal figures. Of the six plans we priced for an arrival in the United States, five do so on the wording we read: Go Campus and World Student pay about $590,000 of medical in America, Cap Student about $1,180,000 in hospital, WorldSecure Basic about $354,000, and Safe Campus is unlimited. Ask your sponsor to confirm the certificate before you rely on it.

• How much does J1 visa insurance cost?

  From $136.28 for a 3-month summer work travel programme, $394.57 for a 9-month exchange year and $516.23 for a full 12 months, on the cheapest compliant plan quoted from the European Union on 1 September 2026. The top-cover plan, Safe Campus, costs $584.07, $1,752.21 and $2,334.72 for the same three durations.

• Are pre-existing conditions covered on a J-1 policy?

  Rarely. Safe Campus is the only one of the six whose wording covers pre-existing conditions without limit. World Student excludes conditions diagnosed or treated that led to hospitalisation in the previous six months, WorldSecure Basic excludes pre-existing, congenital, hereditary and chronic illness, and Cap Student excludes them unless a complication is unpredictable or the condition clearly worsens. The regulation does allow a reasonable waiting period for pre-existing conditions.

• Do J-2 dependants need their own cover?

  Yes, the requirement extends to the accompanying spouse and dependants. Priced for a 9-month stay with two adults and a young child, only two plans accepted the group: World Student at $1,618.74 and WorldSecure Basic at $2,015.64. The others declined because the group was too large.

• What happens if my J1 visa insurance lapses?

  The sponsor must terminate your exchange programme participation if you willfully fail to maintain the required cover, or if you misrepresent what the policy covers. The regulation provides no fine or warning stage, so a renewal that arrives late is a serious problem rather than an administrative one.

• Can I buy the insurance before I get my DS-2019?

  Yes, and you should buy before departure in any case. Cover taken out after you have left can carry a waiting period, up to eight days on every benefit with WorldSecure Basic. You only need your programme dates to price a policy, and you can adjust them if the DS-2019 shifts.

• What is the 25% coinsurance the regulation allows?

  It is the share of a covered claim the policy may ask you to pay yourself, capped at 25% of covered benefits per accident or illness. It is legal and separate from the $500 deductible cap, so on a large American hospital bill it can still be a significant amount. Check whether your plan applies any, and note that Safe Campus caps your total contribution at $1,500 per insured.

• What if my exchange programme runs longer than 12 months?

  Every student plan we priced stops at 365 days, and WorldSecure Basic at 364. A research scholar or trainee staying longer needs a renewal, which Go Campus allows once for a further 12 months subject to the insurer’s prior approval. Plan the renewal before the first policy expires, because a gap in cover is a compliance failure with your sponsor.