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When people first look into SafetyWing, most of the focus goes straight to their price, flexibility and how easy it is to sign up with them as a traveller.

But realistically, none of that actually matters when you remember why people need travel insurance in the first place: to cover you in a medical emergency and make sure you can get treatment when necessary. So, one of the most important features when deciding if a health insurance plan is right for you is whether they actually help you when you need it.

Because at the end of the day, this isn’t your typical “travel insurance” in the traditional sense.

It’s health insurance for when you’re abroad, and that’s the part you need to properly understand before committing to their policies.

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What SafetyWing Health Insurance Actually Is

One thing that confused me at the start (and I know I’m not the only one) is how SafetyWing is positioned in the travel industry.

It’s often called travel insurance, but in reality, it’s much better described as emergency health insurance for travellers – especially those travelling slowly long-term and through multiple destinations.

That means:

• It’s designed for unexpected illness or injury
• It works while you’re away from home (overseas)
• It’s not designed for routine check-ups or ongoing medical conditions

So if you’re thinking of SafetyWing health insurance like a replacement to the NHS in the UK or a private health insurance plan in the USA, you’d be mistaken. It’s there for emergencies and unexpected medical issues that can arise while you are partway through your overseas trip. It’s essentially there as a safety net to give you peace of mind and help you out if something goes wrong.

Created by nomads and remote workers travelling long-term, to fill a gap in the travel insurance world, they created SafetyWing to help us. It’s certainly an option worth considering as a digital nomad or someone who moves between destinations frequently. SafetyWing Nomad Insurance: The Best Option For Digital Nomads?

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What Medical Situations Are Actually Covered

Although I will cover it briefly in this post, I have gone into a bit more detail on coverage in the post below:

• SafetyWing Travel Insurance: What it Covers (& what it Doesn’t)

For this post, instead of just copying and pasting the SafetyWing health insurance policy wording (which, let’s be honest, nobody enjoys reading), it’s easier to think about this using real-world situations and examples.

SafetyWing health insurance is designed to cover things like:

• Getting sick unexpectedly while travelling
• Injuries (falls, accidents, etc.)
• Hospital visits
• Treatments
• Scans like X-rays, MRIs, etc
• Emergency procedures (if needed)
• Prescription medication related to that treatment

Basically, if something happens to you while overseas that you didn’t plan for, expect and can’t ignore, then SafetyWing health insurance is there to help you.

From my own experience, this is exactly where the policy did what it was supposed to do. I ended up needing hospital treatment, multiple scans, and months’ worth of follow-up care after an injury in Japan, and everything that clearly fell under emergency treatment was processed and reimbursed.

I had made a small mistake by misunderstanding the policy limits, so one of my two claims (for the same injury, just two different treatment centres, as requested that way by SafetyWing) was fully reimbursed, but the second was only partially reimbursed.

Outside of my misunderstanding of limits, everything I expected them to do when I needed it was covered and paid back to me.

If you’d like to see how its policies could help you on your trip, head over to the SafetyWing website, here.

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What Happens If You Actually Need Treatment Abroad

This is the part people don’t give much thought to until they’re unfortunately going through it.

In most cases, using SafetyWing health insurance looks like this:

• You (unfortunately) get sick or injured while overseas
• Head to a hospital or clinic
• Go through the diagnosis process
• Start the treatment process (where applicable)
• Pay for everything out of pocket
• Gather all receipts, diagnosis reports, and other paperwork relating to this sickness/injury
• Submit your claim online through the SafetyWing claims page
• Get reimbursed (for everything covered)

It’s a pay-first, claim-and-reimburse-later system

There are some situations (like inpatient hospitalisation) where they may be able to arrange payment directly, but generally speaking, this is for extreme emergencies, so you typically need to have access to your funds upfront, then claim for reimbursement afterwards.

That’s something I always tell people to plan for, because it makes a big difference in how stressful the situation feels at the time. I always try to recommend people to have a savings fund AND an emergency fund that remains separate from the rest of your money.

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SafetyWing Health Insurance: Limits You Need To Know

As someone who not only used SafetyWing during my own trips to South Korea (on a Korean working holiday visa) and Japan (both a tourist period followed by a Japanese working holiday visa), AND as a traveller who made the mistake of not knowing everything that was covered, I really want to drive it home to my readers that you really need to make sure you’re aware of what is covered so you don’t try to claim for reimbursement for things you’re not actually covered for – or for things outside of your policy limits.

This is where things can go wrong if you don’t pay attention. SafetyWing health insurance definitely works, but it only works within clear limits.

There’s a Lifetime Cap

There’s a total lifetime limit of up to $100,000 USD per person,

For most travellers, even those travelling long-term, that’s more than enough. But in more serious cases (major surgeries, medical evacuation, long hospital stays), it’s something to be aware of, as you may reach that cap much quicker depending on the severity of your sickness or injury.

Please note: The typical SafetyWing health insurance plan is NOT inclusive of the USA. If you plan to travel to the USA during your trip, you will need to contact SafetyWing and add on the USA policy for additional costs.

This is due to the USA having some of the most expensive medical costs worldwide, so, similar to other insurance plans, it costs significantly more to include coverage for the USA.

It’s Not Designed For Long-Term Treatment

This is not coverage for ongoing healthcare.

It is just there to get diagnosed for an unexpected medical issue abroad, treat the issue, stabilise it, and get you through that initial emergency. It is not for ongoing check-ups or routines of general care, as you’d get at home.

The only way you can have ongoing treatment is (for example) if you have a broken foot, and need to have a plaster cast for 6 weeks, followed by some outpatient treatments such as physiotherapy as a direct part of your treatment plan for 3 months afterwards.

Just remember that as long as you don’t go outside of your treatment limits, you’ll still be in the scope of coverage and should be reimbursed.

Pre-Existing Conditions Are Not Covered

I understand how unfair this might feel to those who have conditions before their trip, but this is a pretty typical rule for many insurance companies. That’s not to say you can’t find any policy to cover pre-existing conditions, but unfortunately, SafetyWing isn’t one to do that.

If you already have a condition BEFORE starting your policy, it generally won’t be included (aside from limited emergency stabilisation in some cases), so it’s best to find a more comprehensive policy that specialises in these types of policies.

There Are Limits On Ongoing Care

Things like physiotherapy, follow-up treatments, or extended care often have a cap.

It’s usually included in some capacity, although the specific number of sessions or treatments is limited. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has made this mistake, so I would highly recommend checking the limits of things before committing, so you can avoid doing what I did, and actually have everything reimbursed correctly.

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Where People Misunderstand SafetyWing Health Insurance

This is usually the area where most people mess up, and most of the issues come from. Not the insurance or policy itself, but the expectations and not understanding everything correctly.

A lot of travellers assume SafetyWing health insurance:

• Covers everything health-related
• Works exactly like full private healthcare plans
• It will handle every part of recovery

But that’s not what it’s designed for. It’s there for unexpected medical situations while travelling only, and not a long-term care plan or full lifestyle coverage.

Once you understand all of that, it actually makes so much more sense and allows you to utilise the plan in the best way to suit your own travel plans. To see the policy wording and make sure you understand what SafetyWing plans include, check out their site.

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My Experience Using SafetyWing for Medical Treatment Abroad

It’s one thing to read what a policy says it covers. It’s another thing entirely to actually rely on it when something goes wrong.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I ended up doing exactly what during my time in Japan when I faced an unexpected injury. I was on my tourist visa before starting my Japanese working holiday visa, and I fell over at the beach and fractured my foot.

It hurt, but I didn’t think much of it and continued walking on it all day. I wouldn’t recommend doing that, because it resulted in me overcompensating and tearing my tendon by walking on a bad injury for longer than I should have.

I slept on it, woke up the next day, and my foot was 3x the normal size, and multiple shades of grey, black and purple, which is how I realised there was something really wrong. If only it were a simple one-off hospital visit, but unfortunately, due to the severity of my injuries, it turned into multiple appointments, scans, crutches, and eventually months of physiotherapy just to get me walking again.

This is where understanding how SafetyWing health insurance actually works becomes important, because I was unaware that part of my physiotherapy treatment costs would not be reimbursed due to being over my session limit.

What was covered

The reason my claim was successful comes down to one thing:

It clearly fell under the label of unexpected emergency medical treatment.

• A fractured foot due to an accident
• A torn tendon directly caused by the fractured foot.

Everything started with the above injuries, which happened while travelling in Japan. From there, the policy covered:

• Initial hospital visit and diagnosis
• Follow-up scans (1x x-ray, 1x MRI and 1x ultrasound)
• Crutches and prosthetics
• Ongoing treatment related to the injury
• A portion of my physiotherapy

This lines up exactly with what SafetyWing states in its coverage: medically necessary treatment for new injuries.

And to be fair, when my claim fit within the policy conditions, the process itself was really easy and straightforward to claim. The claims themselves were approved within 2 days each time, and reimbursed to the maximum allowed within their limits. The first claim was reimbursed in full. The second was just over 50%.

So yes, SafetyWing health insurance is legit and really works when you stay within its policy limits.

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Where I Got Caught Out (And What You Need To Learn From It)

This is the part that matters more, and I apologise if I sound like a broken record (I just don’t want you caught out like I was).

Not everything I submitted was covered. And this wasn’t because SafetyWing “refused to pay”, it was because of the policy limitations and my misunderstanding.

For example:

• My taxi transportation to the physiotherapy appointments was not included
• There was a cap on how many physio sessions could be covered
• Anything outside “medically necessary treatment” started to fall into grey areas

So while I did get reimbursed for a large portion of my treatment, I didn’t get everything back. I was a few hundred pounds out of pocket by the end of it.

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What This Tells You About SafetyWing Health Insurance

IF you take anything from my personal experience with my injury and SafetyWing, please let it be this:

SafetyWing works best when:

• The situation is clearly a new, unexpected injury or illness that took you by surprise
• The treatment is medically necessary
• You stay within the defined limits of the policy

It starts to fall short when:

• You make assumptions that related costs (like transportation) are included
• You don’t check the policy limits
• Treatment becomes long-term or ongoing

There’s no evidence that SafetyWing want to avoid paying claims; however, it should be known that they are very strict about what qualifies under their policy wording.

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Final Thought On My Experience Using SafetyWing

Would I rely on SafetyWing health insurance again for medical emergency coverage abroad?

Absolutely, for what it’s designed to do.

But I’d likely go into it next time a little wiser than before:

• I’d double-check my treatment limits
• I’d be clearer understanding of exclusions
• And I wouldn’t assume anything outside emergency care is automatically included

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What to check out my review in more detail:

Feeling ready to just dive straight in and book a plan for your upcoming trip, you can do so on the SafetyWing website directly!