BootsnAll Travel Community

This is a question for anybody who lives in Canada (BC particularly).

When leaving the country for travel (for 8 months) does travel insurance purchased from a private company require that I am still enrolled in provincial health care (MSP in BC).

MSP says that private travel insurance is totally void if I am not enrolled in MSP. Some comments on this site suggest otherwise. Does anybody have experience with this?

Thanks.

I've called BCAA and they said that they used to have such a product, but no longer do due to lack of demand. I can't believe that there would not be a huge demand for a product like this.

YES you MUST DEFINTELY be covered by MSP for your travel insurance to be valid.
i live in BC and i learned this lesson the hard way...

I've contacted over 20 travel insurers about this question. Most of them agreed with you ohmama - you must be covered by MSP for travel insurance to be valid.

I DID, however, find a few that DO NOT require you to be covered by MSP (company - product name):

ETFS - Viator Expatriate
TIC Travel Insurance - Global Expatriate
AIG Travel Guard - World Wide Health Plan
Global Underwriters - Diplomat International

AIG had the best price of all of these, so I'm going with it. I've confirmed with them multiple times that I am fully covered by their insurance despite not being covered by MSP.

manchu, i am in the same position. looking for international backpacker medical insurance, but I don't have a valid BC MSP/provincial health insurance. World Nomads rejected me, so Im wonderig how your experience with AIG went?