More than a billion people currently live outside the country of their birth. People are living and working outside their home countries in numbers like never before. All of this results in people travelling outside international borders regularly for reasons like education, vacation, business, visiting family members... As a consequence of this regular travel, there is a tremendous need for the health insurance industry to provide travel health insurance for international travellers.
There are numerous American travel health insurance providers selling International travel health insurance plans for international travellers. However, there are many insurance terminologies that we come across while choosing a plan for us which can be confusing for people outside the insurance industry. Amongst them are "per injury/illness" and "per policy period", terms which are commonly used while describing coverages of health insurance plans.
In a health insurance plan, the term "per travel injury/illness" refers to the insurance policy maximum amount of the plan and the deductible of the insurance plan. In this type of insurance policy maximum amount is the plan benefit and will be the same for every new travel injury/illness for the lifetime of the plan. The deductible amount that has been selected on the policy by the customer has to be paid each time for a new injury or illness.
As per policy period" plan, the available insurance policy maximum keeps changing. Any injury or illness for which the plan has paid the claims previously will be deducted from the plan maximum each time and the deductible amount selected on the plan needs only one time payment by the customer during his/her first visit to the facility and they need not pay the deductible each time in case of new injury or illness.
Typically, Fixed benefit visitor insurance plans are 'per travel injury/illness' plans and Comprehensive visitor insurance plans are 'as per policy period' plans. To learn more on the difference between Fixed and Comprehensive visitor insurance plans is important. US Student insurance plans are designed for international student coming to US on F1 Visa and health insurance plans for J1 Visa holders usually require 'per injury/illness' plans. The University health insurance and the J visa insurance requirements mention this in their requirements list.
