How Much Does Travel Insurance Cost in Canada?

Travel insurance costs Canadians anywhere from a few dollars a day to several thousand dollars for a winter away. The spread is that wide because the price is built almost entirely on who you are and how long you’ll be gone, not on where you’re standing when you buy it.

Here’s the short version, with the usual caution that these are indicative ranges for healthy travellers, not quotes: a person under 50 might pay $20–$60 for emergency medical coverage on a one- or two-week trip that includes the United States; a healthy 70-year-old might pay $150–$300 for the same two weeks and $1,500–$3,500 or more for a five-month snowbird season. Trip cancellation on top typically costs about 4–10% of the trip cost you’re insuring.

This guide is for anyone trying to budget for coverage before booking, or trying to work out why the quote they just received is higher or lower than a friend’s. We’ll go through what moves the price, indicative tables for the main plan types, and the honest reasons the cheapest option isn’t always the best value.

What actually sets the price

Travel insurers rate on a handful of factors. Roughly in order of impact:

1. Age. The single biggest driver. Rates rise gently through your forties and fifties and steeply after 65, with another step at 75 and again at 80 on many plans.
2. Trip length. Priced per day or in bands. A 30-day trip costs a lot more than a 7-day trip, though not always four times as much.
3. Destination. Trips that include the United States cost more to insure than trips that exclude it, because U.S. healthcare is the most expensive in the world. Many insurers offer a lower “worldwide excluding U.S.” rate.
4. Health. From around age 60, and at any age on some plans, you’ll complete a medical questionnaire. Conditions such as heart disease, diabetes on insulin, lung disease or recent cancer treatment move you into higher rate bands, or on some plans out of eligibility.
5. Plan type. Single-trip, annual multi-trip, long-stay, or all-inclusive package.
6. Coverage limits and deductible. A higher deductible lowers the premium; a higher medical limit raises it slightly.
7. Insurer. Two insurers can price the same person differently by a surprising margin, especially for older travellers and those with health conditions. This is where a broker earns their keep.

Notice what’s missing: your city. Rates don’t change because you live in Ottawa rather than Toronto. The only geographic factor is the destination.

Single-trip emergency medical: indicative prices

The table below shows illustrative premium ranges for single-trip emergency medical coverage including the United States, for a healthy traveller with no deductible. Your actual quote depends on the insurer, exact age, health answers and the plan’s limits.

Traveller age	7-day trip	14-day trip	30-day trip
30	$20–$40	$35–$65	$65–$120
45	$25–$50	$45–$85	$85–$160
60	$45–$90	$80–$160	$160–$320
70	$80–$160	$150–$300	$300–$600
75	$120–$240	$220–$450	$450–$900

All figures are indicative ranges for illustration only. They are not quotes.

Children are often included free or at a low flat rate on a family plan when travelling with an insured parent. Trips that exclude the U.S. (Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean, Asia) are commonly priced noticeably lower than the figures above; our destination guides for Mexico, Europe and the United States explain what each destination changes.

Annual multi-trip plans: indicative prices

An annual plan covers every trip you take in a 12-month period, up to a set maximum length per trip. The per-trip cap is what you’re really choosing: a 15-day plan is cheapest, a 30- or 60-day plan costs more.

Traveller age	15-day cap	30-day cap
Under 55	$100–$250 per year	$150–$350 per year
55–64	$150–$350 per year	$250–$550 per year
65–74	$300–$700 per year	$500–$1,100 per year

Illustrative ranges for a healthy traveller. Actual premiums vary by insurer and health answers.

The break-even is straightforward. If a single-trip plan for your typical trip costs $60 and you take three trips a year, an annual plan at $150 is roughly a wash on price and a clear win on convenience, since you’re covered for the spontaneous weekend across the border without doing anything. Our guide to annual vs. single-trip travel insurance walks through the decision in more detail.

Annual plans also make a good base under credit card coverage for travellers whose card caps trips at a short length; see our article on credit card travel insurance for how those interact.

Snowbird and long-stay plans: indicative prices

This is where premiums get serious, because you’re combining the highest-cost destination, the longest trip lengths and the ages at which claims are most likely.

Traveller	3 months in the U.S.	5 months in the U.S.
Healthy, age 65	$700–$1,500	$1,100–$2,400
Healthy, age 70	$900–$2,000	$1,500–$3,500
Healthy, age 75	$1,400–$3,000	$2,300–$5,000
Age 70 with controlled conditions (e.g. blood pressure, cholesterol)	$1,200–$2,800	$2,000–$4,800

Illustrative ranges only. Snowbird pricing is highly individual and depends heavily on medical questionnaire answers.

A few levers that meaningfully change these numbers:

• Deductible. Choosing a $1,000 to $5,000 deductible can cut a snowbird premium substantially. Many couples decide they can absorb the first few thousand of a claim in exchange for a much smaller premium every year.
• Excluding the U.S. Wintering in Mexico, Portugal or Costa Rica instead of Florida is usually cheaper to insure.
• Companion or couple rates. Some insurers discount the second traveller on a joint policy.
• Shopping the questionnaire. Insurers treat the same medical answers differently. One may rate a well-controlled condition as standard while another loads it or excludes it. Comparing several is the single most effective way to lower a snowbird premium without weakening the coverage.

Our snowbird travel insurance guide covers the stability-period rules that matter more than price at this stage of life.

Other coverages: trip cancellation, visitors and Super Visa

Trip cancellation and interruption: what it adds

Cancellation coverage is priced on the amount you insure, your age and the trip length, rather than per day. As an illustrative guide, expect roughly 4–10% of the non-refundable trip cost, with older travellers and longer trips toward the top of that range. Insuring a $5,000 package might add $200–$500.

Bundling cancellation with medical in an all-inclusive package is usually cheaper than buying the two separately, and it often adds baggage and flight delay benefits at little extra cost. Our article on trip cancellation insurance explains what’s covered and when to buy.

Visitors to Canada and Super Visa insurance

This is the reverse situation, insuring someone coming to Ontario who has no provincial coverage. Prices depend on the visitor’s age, the coverage amount and the length of stay. A Super Visa policy, which must provide at least $100,000 in emergency medical coverage valid for a year, is a larger purchase than a two-week visitor plan; a healthy parent in their sixties might pay in the low thousands for the year, more with health conditions or a higher limit. Our guides to Super Visa insurance requirements and cost and visitors to Canada insurance go into detail.

Ways to pay less without weakening the coverage

• Buy the right trip length, not a round number. Ten days costs less than fourteen.
• Exclude the U.S. when you’re genuinely not going there, and add it back only for trips that need it.
• Take a deductible if you have the savings to cover it, especially on long-stay plans.
• Use an annual plan if you travel more than twice a year.
• Check what you already have. A premium credit card or an employer benefits plan may cover short trips, leaving you to buy only a top-up for the longer ones.
• Compare insurers, particularly after 60 or with any health condition. The spread between quotes for the same person can be larger than any discount.
• Don’t shave the medical limit. Dropping from a multi-million limit to a low one saves little and exposes you to exactly the catastrophic claim insurance exists for.

Why the cheapest plan isn’t always the best value

Price is easy to compare. Stability periods, exclusions and claim service aren’t, and they decide whether the policy pays. Three things to weigh against the premium:

The stability period. A plan with a 365-day stability requirement is cheaper than one with a 90-day requirement for a reason: it covers fewer people. If you adjusted a prescription six months ago, the cheaper plan may not cover anything related to that condition.

The exclusions. Some budget plans exclude activities (motorcycles, scuba, skiing off-piste), cap emergency dental very low, or reduce benefits if you don’t call the assistance line before treatment.

The assistance service. In a real emergency, the value of a 24/7 line that arranges direct payment to a U.S. hospital and organises an air ambulance home is hard to overstate. It’s a service you hope never to use and can’t judge from a price.

A sensible way to shop: decide what stability period and exclusions you can live with first, then find the cheapest plan that meets them. Our guide to travel insurance with pre-existing conditions helps with the first step.

The Ontario context

Since Ontario ended its out-of-country traveller program in 2020, OHIP pays essentially nothing toward emergency care abroad, and within Canada it doesn’t cover ambulance or prescriptions in another province. That makes travel medical coverage the entire safety net for Ontarians away from home, which is why we suggest treating the premium as part of the cost of the trip rather than an optional extra. Our article on whether OHIP covers travel sets out the details.

How Hayes can help

We compare travel insurance from Canada’s major travel insurers, and because we’re independent, we can show you how several of them price the same trip and the same medical answers side by side. For younger travellers that’s a quick confirmation you’re getting a fair price. For travellers over 60 or with a health history, it’s often the difference between a premium that stings and one that doesn’t, on coverage that’s the same or better.

Our advice costs you nothing; insurers pay us. Get a free travel insurance quote in about two minutes, or contact us if you’d rather talk through your trip first.