Travel insurance for Canada: real quotes from $34.01 a week and what a hospital night really costs

Travel insurance for Canada starts at $34.01 for a week for a 34-year-old leaving the United States, and the reason to buy it is simple: a Canadian hospital bills a visitor between $2,679 and $2,861 for a single night on an ordinary ward, before a doctor has sent a bill of their own.

Canada feels close. It is the one foreign country millions of Americans reach by car, with the same language, the same brands and the same food courts. That familiarity is exactly what catches people out, because the border is also where your health plan stops. Canada's public system covers Canadian residents. You are not one of them, so you are billed at the non-resident rate, which is the highest rate the hospital has.

We priced the whole market for this trip on October 29, 2026: four plans quote for a US resident heading to Canada, from $34.01 to $134.72 for a week. We then read what each of them actually promises, in the binding policy wording rather than the brochure, and found a clause that cuts the liability ceiling by two thirds the moment Canada appears on your itinerary. That clause, the age limits and the hospital tariffs below are the whole of this page.

Every figure here is a real quote or a published tariff, captured on October 29, 2026 and shown in US dollars. Canadian hospitals bill in Canadian dollars and our insurers write their limits in euros, so both are converted at the live exchange rate, the same one our comparison cards use.

One signal is amber for Canada today: the cost of medical care for non-residents. Our destination monitor last refreshed Canada on October 29, 2026 and shows no active climate event and no transport disruption, which leaves the medical line as the only thing worth insuring hard against.

Our monitor also ranks the guarantees worth prioritizing for Canada, in this order: emergency hospital and medical costs first, then medical repatriation, then trip cancellation, then baggage, then personal liability. The sections below take them in that order, with what our plans actually pay for each.

Four plans quote for a US resident going to Canada: WorldSecure Platinum at $58.27 for a week, Go Explore at $107.26, Go Explore + at $134.72 and WorldSecure Basic at $34.01. They are not four versions of the same product, and the cheapest is not the weakest on medical coverage.

What separates them is less the headline medical ceiling than three things a brochure rarely leads with: whether trip cancellation is in the contract at all, whether winter sports are named, and how old you are allowed to be. On the first two, one plan is alone.

Recommended for youA. Fruchard · Co-Founder & Travel Insurance Expert

Why WorldSecure Platinum is our pick for Canada

For a trip to Canada the plan you want is the one that answers the hospital bill without surrendering everything else, and that is WorldSecure Platinum. You get around $347,200 of emergency medical coverage with the hospital billed directly, so nothing comes out of your own account at the counter, and around $5,208,700 of personal liability that is not quietly reduced the way the Go Explore ceilings are for a Canadian trip. It is also the only plan on our shortlist whose contract names winter and extreme sports, which matters if your trip involves Whistler, Banff or a snowmobile, and the only one carrying trip cancellation, up to roughly $10,417 of a prepaid trip for any justified reason. It is not the cheapest of our shortlist, but it sits far closer to the entry price than to the top of it, and it is the only plan here that does not force you to choose between coverage and cost. Two caveats count against it: it stops accepting travelers at 65, and if you want the biggest possible medical ceiling rather than the broadest contract, Go Explore + lifts it by about two thirds. The cards below show today’s price for your own dates and party.

WorldSecure PlatinumUnderwritten by MGEN

From$58.61

Included coverage

Emergency medical expenses$560,000

Direct billingIncluded

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationCovered in full

24/7 worldwide assistanceUnlimited

See all 23 benefitsGet a quote

Personalized quote · no obligation

Go Explore +Underwritten by MGEN

From$135.51

Included coverage

Emergency medical expenses$560,000

Direct billingIncluded

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationCovered in full

24/7 worldwide assistanceUnlimited

See all 23 benefitsGet a quote

Personalized quote · no obligation

Go ExploreUnderwritten by MGEN

From$107.88

Included coverage

Emergency medical expenses$280,000

Direct billingIncluded

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationCovered in full

24/7 worldwide assistanceUnlimited

See all 23 benefitsGet a quote

Personalized quote · no obligation

WorldSecure BasicUnderwritten by MGEN

From$34.21

Included coverage

Emergency medical expenses$340,000

Direct billingIncluded

Emergency medical evacuation & repatriationCovered in full

24/7 worldwide assistanceUnlimited

See all 23 benefitsGet a quote

Personalized quote · no obligation

Prices for 1 traveler aged 34, 7 days in Canada, departing from the United States, shown in US dollars. HelloSafe data, quotes captured on 29 October 2026. Your own dates, age and party change the price.

A week of coverage for Canada costs from $34.01 for a traveler of 34, from $136.03 for a family of four and from $81.10 for a month-long stay. Price moves with four things only: your age, how long you stay, how many of you travel, and which of the four plans you pick.

Two readings matter here. The first is that age moves the price far harder than party size: two travelers in their early sixties pay more for a week than a family of four, and more than a solo traveler pays for a whole month. The second is that duration is cheap. Stretching one week into one month multiplies the bill by about two and a half, not by four, which is why a long Canadian road trip is rarely the expensive case. If you cross the border several times a year, compare this against annual multi-trip coverage before buying trip by trip.

One night on an ordinary ward costs a non-resident $2,679 at Niagara Health and $2,861 at Queensway Carleton Hospital in Ottawa, and those are hospital fees only: the doctors who treat you bill separately. An intensive care night runs from $3,215 to $11,175 at the same two hospitals.

These are not estimates from a comparison site. Canadian hospitals publish a rate schedule for patients with no provincial coverage, and the two below are the published 2026 schedules of two Ontario hospitals, converted to US dollars.

Read the last line of the Niagara schedule and the trip starts to look different. It tells non-residents, in its own words, that payment for hospital charges and physician fees is the patient's responsibility and is due prior to receiving treatment. A plan that pays the hospital directly, which all four of our shortlisted plans do, is therefore not a convenience on this destination. It is the difference between being treated and producing a card.

Set against those tariffs, the ceilings in our comparison stop looking abstract. The smallest medical ceiling on the shortlist, about $289,400, buys roughly a hundred nights on a Niagara ward. A $2,500 credit-card cap, which is the best that the most travel-focused US card offers, buys less than one night at Queensway Carleton.

No. Medicare usually pays nothing for health care received outside the United States, and the three exceptions it does list are narrow enough that no ordinary trip to Canada fits any of them.

Medicare's own fact sheet on coverage outside the United States defines abroad as anywhere other than the fifty states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. Canada is abroad. The three situations in which Medicare may pay a foreign hospital are these:

• ✕
  An emergency inside the United States where a foreign hospital is closer: You are in the US when the emergency starts and the nearest adequate hospital happens to be across a border.
• ✕
  Transit through Canada between Alaska and another state: You are taking the most direct route between Alaska and the lower forty-eight when an emergency happens. This is the one exception written for Canada, and it covers a drive through, not a vacation in.
• ✕
  Living near a border: Your home in the United States is closer to a foreign hospital than to a US one, whether or not it is an emergency.

Outside those three cases, Medicare generally pays nothing: not the hospital stay, not the ambulance, not the doctors who see you after a covered stay ends, and not the prescriptions you fill in a Canadian pharmacy. Medicare Advantage plans usually stop at the border too, though a few add an emergency benefit abroad as an extra. Some Medigap plans add foreign emergency care, with a lifetime limit, which is worth checking before you buy anything else.

The Niagara Health schedule makes the same point from the other side, in a line addressed to non-residents: US Medicare, Medicaid and HMOs do not cover hospital visits outside of the United States. When the hospital that will bill you says it in its own fee schedule, the question is settled.

Nothing beyond proof of citizenship: US nationals and US permanent residents need neither a visitor visa nor an Electronic Travel Authorization to enter Canada. Flying in, Canada recommends you always travel with a valid passport; crossing by land you may combine documents that together show your full name, date of birth and citizenship.

There is no insurance requirement at the Canadian border either, which is the trap. Nobody will ask you for a policy, no official will mention the non-resident tariff, and the first time the cost of care comes up is at a hospital reception desk. Canada does not make travel insurance for Canada compulsory; the hospital rate schedule is what makes it necessary.

• No vaccination is required to enter Canada
  Hepatitis A, hepatitis B, rabies and mpox are recommended for some travelers, the first for rural trips and street food, rabies for anyone whose plans bring them near wildlife or bats.
• Duty-free allowances for non-residents
  1.14 liters of spirits, or 1.5 liters of wine, or 8.5 liters of beer, plus 200 cigarettes.
• If your trip pairs Canada with a stop south of the border
  The coverage you need changes, because US medical pricing is in a different league again: see our page on travel insurance for the USA.

On our shortlist only WorldSecure Platinum names winter and extreme sports in its contract. The other three cover ordinary leisure sport and stop there, which means a ski injury at Whistler, Banff or Mont-Tremblant is the single most likely way a Canada claim gets refused.

This matters more in Canada than almost anywhere, because the reason to go in winter is the snow, and because mountain rescue is one of the few costs that can outrun the ward tariff. All four plans carry a search and rescue guarantee, which is the one that pays for getting you off the mountain:

• ✓
  WorldSecure Platinum: Winter and extreme sports named in the contract, with about $5,787 of search and rescue costs per insured person.
• ✓
  Go Explore +: The largest search and rescue line on the shortlist, about $6,945 per insured person, but extreme sports are not named.
• ✓
  Go Explore: About $5,787 of search and rescue per insured person, extreme sports not named.
• ✓
  WorldSecure Basic: About $3,472 of search and rescue, the smallest on the shortlist, extreme sports not named.

Ticking the extreme sports option in the comparator is the declaration: there is no separate form to fill in and nothing to send the insurer before you travel. If you are skiing, tick it before you compare, because it changes which plans come back.

Both Go Explore plans reduce their personal liability ceiling from about $1,736,200 worldwide to about $578,700 as soon as the trip includes Canada or the United States. The clause is in the policy wording, not on the product page, and it exists precisely because North American civil claims are the expensive ones.

That is the clause most specific to this destination, and it is the reason the liability column in our table carries an amber badge on two of the four plans. Four more conditions decide claims on Canada trips:

• ✕
  Pre-existing conditions are excluded on all four plans: The policy wording defines illness as a sudden and unforeseeable deterioration in health, and excludes costs arising from conditions known before the policy took effect. On the Go Explore plans, assistance is also excluded for any condition that put you in hospital, even as a day case, in the six months before departure.
• ✕
  Electronics sit under a tiny sub-limit: Laptops, phones and smartphones are capped at about $116 inside the baggage guarantee on both Go Explore plans, whatever the headline baggage figure says, and only while carried on you or locked in a safe.
• ✕
  There is a deductible on the guarantees that matter: About $29 per claim on baggage for the Go Explore plans, about $35 on WorldSecure Platinum's baggage and cancellation, about $174 on liability.
• ✕
  Pregnancy coverage stops at week 36: Only unforeseeable complications are covered, up to and including the thirty-sixth week. Routine pregnancy care and anything following the birth are excluded.

On the other side of the ledger, the shortlist is consistent where it counts: all four pay the hospital directly instead of reimbursing you later, all four run 24/7 assistance with no cap, all four cover medical repatriation at actual cost, and all four include emergency dental up to about $347. For the guarantee that most often decides a trip, read our page on trip cancellation insurance.

Not far enough to matter at a Canadian hospital. The strongest emergency medical benefit on a mainstream US travel card is $2,500 with a $50 deductible, which covers less than one intensive care night at Queensway Carleton, and even that one is secondary coverage.

Secondary is the word that undoes it. The Chase Sapphire Reserve's $2,500 emergency medical benefit pays after your own US health plan has paid, so a retiree whose only US coverage is Medicare, which pays nothing in Canada, can find the card paying nothing either. Its medical evacuation benefit, $100,000, is real but requires pre-authorization: call first or it may not apply.

Below that card, the picture thins out fast. The Chase Sapphire Preferred carries no emergency medical benefit at all, though it does include $100,000 of evacuation provided the transport is arranged by the insurer's own assistance company. The Capital One Venture X, the American Express Gold and the Chase Freedom Unlimited carry no emergency medical coverage and no evacuation. Where the cards are genuinely strong is cancellation, not medicine: the Sapphire Reserve pays up to $10,000 per person across thirteen covered reasons, which is more generous than three of our four plans.

The honest conclusion is a split one. Pay for the trip with a good travel card and keep its cancellation and baggage benefits; buy a policy for the hospital. For the detail on your own card, see what US credit cards really pay.

Three of the four plans still quote at 60, and WorldSecure Basic stops long before that: its contract accepts travelers up to 39. Age is the hardest constraint on this destination, harder than the length of the trip or the size of the party.

Two things fall out of that table. Of the three plans that still quote at 60, WorldSecure Platinum is the cheapest at 34 and the most expensive at 60, so the ranking on this page is not the ranking for an older traveler: at 60 Go Explore is both cheaper and valid to 80. And the age question is the one place where comparing rather than renewing genuinely pays, which is the argument our senior travel insurance page makes in detail.

• Do you need insurance to enter Canada?

  No. Canada sets no insurance requirement for visitors and nobody checks for a policy at the border. What makes coverage necessary is the bill afterwards: hospitals charge non-residents a published non-resident rate, between $2,679 and $2,861 for one night on an ordinary ward at the two Ontario hospitals whose 2026 schedules we read.

• How much medical coverage should you buy for Canada?

  Our destination monitor puts emergency hospital and medical costs first among the guarantees to prioritize for Canada, and every plan that quotes for this trip carries at least about $289,400, which is roughly a hundred nights on a Canadian ward. The higher ceilings, about $347,200 and about $578,700, cost between $24 and $100 more for a week.

• Does Medicare pay for a hospital stay in Canada?

  Almost never. Medicare usually pays nothing outside the United States. It lists three exceptions, and the only one written for Canada covers an emergency while you are transiting Canada by the most direct route between Alaska and another state. A Canadian vacation is not one of the three. Some Medigap plans add foreign emergency care with a lifetime limit.

• Will a Canadian hospital treat you before you have paid?

  Not necessarily. The Niagara Health rate schedule tells non-residents that payment for hospital charges and physician fees is their responsibility and is due prior to receiving treatment. That is why direct billing matters more here than on most destinations: all four plans that quote for Canada settle with the hospital instead of asking you to pay and claim back.

• Are pre-existing conditions covered on a Canada policy?

  No, on all four plans. The policy wording defines a covered illness as a sudden and unforeseeable deterioration in health and excludes anything known before the coverage started. The Go Explore plans go further and exclude assistance for any condition that put you in hospital, even as a day case, in the six months before departure.

• Is skiing in Canada covered?

  Only by WorldSecure Platinum, the one plan on the shortlist whose contract names winter and extreme sports. The other three cover ordinary leisure sport and stop there. Tick the extreme sports option in the comparator before you compare: that tick is the declaration, and it changes which plans come back.

• What is the age limit on these plans?

  WorldSecure Basic accepts travelers up to 39, WorldSecure Platinum up to 65, and both Go Explore plans up to 80. At 60, three of the four still quote, from $132.11 for a week. Age moves the price more than any other factor: two travelers of 62 and 60 pay more for a week than a family of four.

• Is trip cancellation included for a Canada trip?

  On one plan. WorldSecure Platinum’s contract carries cancellation up to about $10,417 of a prepaid trip for any justified reason, with a deductible of about $35. The other three do not include it. If canceling a prepaid Canadian trip is your main worry rather than the hospital, compare on that guarantee first.

• Why is the liability ceiling smaller for Canada?

  Because both Go Explore plans reduce their personal liability coverage from about $1,736,200 worldwide to about $578,700 for any trip that includes Canada or the United States. It is written into the policy wording, not the product page. The two WorldSecure plans do not make that reduction and keep about $5,208,700.

• Does the policy pay the hospital or reimburse you?

  It pays the hospital. All four plans that quote for Canada include direct billing, so you are not advancing thousands of dollars at a reception desk and claiming them back weeks later. Their 24/7 assistance line is what arranges it, and it runs with no cap on all four.

• How much is a week of coverage for a family going to Canada?

  From $136.03 for two adults of 38 and 36 and two children of 8 and 5, for the whole party, up to $329.62 for the highest-coverage plan. Children are priced far below adults, which is why four people cost less than four times one adult.

• What does a long stay or a semester in Canada cost to insure?

  A month for a traveler of 34 costs from $81.10, about two and a half times the one-week price for four times the stay. A semester from January to May for a student of 22 costs from $291.68 on a dedicated student plan, which undercuts the general plans over that length. Our page on student coverage goes through the differences.