When it comes to travel insurance, the options can be overwhelming! With our extensive experience in teacher travel, the GEEO team would like to offer our advice on purchasing travel insurance. When traveling with GEEO and our partner G Adventures, it is mandatory for all of our travelers to have Emergency Medical insurance that covers emergency medical, emergency evacuation, and repatriation to the sum of $200,000 USD. Regular health insurance plans almost never include emergency evacuation and repatriation insurance, so you will almost certainly need to purchase a separate TRAVEL health insurance plan.
You are welcome to use any travel insurance company you like. In order to receive your trip vouchers, you must enter your insurance information into our tour operator’s online check-in system, Good To Go. You will receive login information for Good to Go roughly two months before departure.
We recommend the International Volunteer Card (IVC).
IVC has a $79 plan (Premium Plan) that includes the minimum amount of travel medical, evacuation, and repatriation insurance you need for our programs, plus other trip insurance benefits. The card will also get you discounts and benefits at many locations, including many museums and hotels. Do NOT buy IVC’s Basic Plan, as it does not have enough coverage for our programs. Anyone from any country of any age can purchase an IVC card. Another great thing about the International Volunteer Card is that it covers you for an entire year, and it can be used for any international trips during that year that are 180 days or less in duration.
We strongly recommend including trip cancellation insurance to cover your trip and flights. With IVC, the additional cost for cancellation coverage is 6.5% of the total amount you wish to cover. This can be purchased on their website when you buy the card. To buy the IVC card, you can use this link: http://www.volunteercard.com/geeo.html. Read our post about cancellation insurance for a comprehensive explanation of how cancellation insurance works and how to purchase it.
If you want to look for other options for purchasing travel insurance, we recommend visiting www.insuremytrip.com. This website pulls quotes from the top travel health insurance companies.
