Do visitors to Canada need health insurance?

It is not legally required for most visitors, but it is strongly advisable. Provincial plans like OHIP cover residents only, so a visitor is billed directly for any hospital or physician care, and Canadian hospitals charge non-residents substantially more than the provincial rate. The exception is the parent and grandparent Super Visa, where IRCC requires proof of at least $100,000 of coverage.

How much does visitors to Canada insurance cost?

Indicatively, a healthy visitor under 40 pays roughly $2–$4 per day for $100,000 of coverage, a visitor in their 60s roughly $4–$8 per day, and a visitor in their late 70s roughly $8–$12 or more. A one-month visit for a parent in their 60s therefore lands around $120–$240. These are illustrative ranges; the actual premium depends on age, coverage amount, deductible, pre-existing conditions and insurer.

Can I buy visitors insurance after arriving in Canada?

Yes, most insurers allow it, but a waiting period applies to illness claims, commonly 48 hours to 8 days depending on the insurer and the visitor's age, while accidents are usually covered immediately. Buying before the visitor leaves home avoids the waiting period entirely and is the better approach whenever possible.

Does visitors to Canada insurance cover pre-existing conditions?

Many plans do, provided the condition has been stable, meaning no change in symptoms, medication or treatment, for a set period before the policy starts, often 90 to 180 days. Some plans exclude pre-existing conditions entirely or limit that coverage past a certain age, so this is one of the most important things to compare before buying.

Visitors to Canada Insurance Explained

Someone you care about is coming to Canada, or you’ve just arrived yourself, and the question is what happens if they end up in a hospital. The short answer: without insurance, they pay the whole bill, and the bill is large. Visitors to Canada insurance exists to cover that emergency.

Below is what the coverage actually does, who it’s for, what it costs, and the handful of decisions (coverage amount, deductible, timing, pre-existing conditions) that determine whether a claim gets paid. It’s written for Ontario families hosting visitors and for newcomers and returning Canadians who need a bridge before OHIP kicks in.

Who needs visitors to Canada insurance

The name suggests tourists, but the market is broader than that. In practice, the same plans serve:

Parents and grandparents visiting family, whether on a standard visitor visa or a multi-year Super Visa.
Tourists and short-term visitors from any country, including those who don’t need a visa to enter Canada.
Temporary foreign workers and international students who aren’t yet enrolled in a provincial plan or an institutional plan. Many Ontario universities enrol international students in UHIP, the University Health Insurance Plan, but there can be gaps before enrolment or for accompanying family members.
New permanent residents and work-permit holders who face a waiting period or a paperwork gap before provincial coverage starts. Rules on waiting periods vary by province and change over time, so check your OHIP start date with ServiceOntario and insure any gap.
Returning Canadians who lost provincial coverage while living abroad and need to re-establish residency before OHIP resumes.

If you’re in one of the last three groups and settling here permanently, you’ll eventually want to think about the longer-term picture too; our guide to life insurance for newcomers to Canada covers the next steps.

Why OHIP won’t help a visitor

OHIP is a residency-based plan. It covers medically necessary physician and hospital care for eligible Ontario residents, and nobody else. A visitor treated in an Ontario hospital is billed as a non-resident, and Ontario hospitals set their non-resident rates well above what the province pays for insured patients. A single night in hospital can cost thousands of dollars before physician fees, diagnostics and any procedure are added.

Nor does the visitor’s home-country coverage usually follow them. Most national health systems don’t pay for care abroad, and where a home policy does, the limits are often small.

The gap is not a technicality. Our article on what OHIP does not cover is written for residents, but the underlying point applies with more force to visitors: the care is excellent, and it is not free.

What a visitors to Canada policy covers

Visitors coverage is emergency medical insurance. It pays for sudden, unexpected illness or injury that needs treatment before the visitor can reasonably go home. A typical Canadian plan includes:

Benefit	What it usually means
Hospital care	Room, nursing, and hospital services during an emergency admission
Physician and specialist fees	Emergency room, clinic and in-hospital physician charges
Diagnostics	X-rays, blood work, scans and other tests tied to the emergency
Prescription drugs	Medication prescribed for the emergency, usually with a supply limit of around 30 days
Ambulance	Ground ambulance, and air ambulance where medically necessary
Emergency dental	Relief of acute dental pain or injury to natural teeth, with a modest limit
Follow-up care	A limited number of follow-up visits after the initial emergency
Repatriation	Transport home for continued care, or return of remains
Paramedical	Some plans include limited physio or chiropractic after an injury
24-hour assistance	A line to call before or as soon as possible after seeking care

What it does not cover is just as important:

Routine checkups, vaccinations, and prescription renewals
Treatment the visitor knew they’d need before arriving, or travelled to Canada to get
Pregnancy and childbirth in most cases, and usually anything after a certain week of pregnancy
Non-emergency care that could reasonably wait until the visitor returns home
Pre-existing conditions that aren’t stable, or that are excluded outright by the plan

Most plans require the visitor (or a family member) to call the assistance line before treatment when possible, and within a short window afterward if not. Skipping that call can reduce the benefit paid.

Choosing coverage amount, deductible and start date

These two settings drive both the price and the protection.

Coverage amount. Plans commonly offer limits from $25,000 up to $300,000 or more. The right amount depends on the length of stay, the visitor’s age and health, and the family’s tolerance for risk. For a young, healthy visitor on a two-week trip, $50,000 to $100,000 is a common choice. For an older parent, especially on a long stay, $100,000 to $200,000 is more typical, and a serious cardiac or surgical admission can exhaust a low limit quickly. Super Visa applicants must carry at least $100,000; see our Super Visa insurance requirements guide for the IRCC rules.

Deductible. This is what the family pays before the insurer pays. Options usually run from $0 to $5,000 or more. Moving from $0 to $500 or $1,000 trims the premium meaningfully; going to $2,500 or higher trims it further but leaves the family with a real bill for smaller claims. Check whether the deductible applies per claim or per policy.

Timing: buy before arrival if you can

Insurers treat policies bought before and after arrival differently.

Bought before the visitor leaves home, effective on arrival: coverage begins the moment they land, with no waiting period.
Bought after arrival: most insurers impose a waiting period on illness claims, often 48 hours for younger visitors and up to 7 or 8 days for older ones. Accidents are generally covered from the start. Some insurers won’t sell to a visitor who has already been in Canada for more than a set number of days.

The practical rule: buy the policy before the flight, with the effective date set to the arrival date. If dates change, insurers will usually move the effective date at no charge if you ask before the original start.

Pre-existing conditions for visiting parents and grandparents

For an older visitor, this is the section that decides whether the policy is worth anything.

Most visitors plans cover pre-existing conditions only if stable for a set period before the effective date, commonly 90, 120 or 180 days. Stable means no new symptoms, no new diagnosis, no new or changed medication or dosage, no new treatment, and no pending tests. A parent whose blood pressure medication was adjusted six weeks before travel likely won’t have that condition covered under a 90-day plan.

Some plans exclude pre-existing conditions altogether (cheaper, riskier), some cover them up to a certain age (often 69, 74 or 79), and some cover them at higher ages for an added premium. Insurers differ enough here that the same parent can be covered by one company and excluded by another. Our detailed guide to travel insurance with pre-existing conditions explains what breaks stability and how to shop around it.

Before you buy, get the visitor’s medication list and recent medical history. Answer the medical questions accurately. An error on the questionnaire can void the policy at claim time, which is far worse than an exclusion you knew about.

Indicative costs by age

The table shows illustrative daily premiums for $100,000 of emergency medical coverage with a mid-range deductible, for a visitor with no unstable conditions. Actual premiums depend on age, coverage amount, deductible, pre-existing-condition coverage, length of stay and insurer. These are not quotes.

Visitor’s age	Indicative cost per day ($100,000 coverage)	Indicative cost, 30-day visit
Under 40	roughly $2–$4	roughly $60–$120
40–54	roughly $3–$5	roughly $90–$150
55–64	roughly $4–$7	roughly $120–$210
65–69	roughly $5–$8	roughly $150–$240
70–74	roughly $6–$10	roughly $180–$300
75–79	roughly $8–$13	roughly $240–$390
80–84	roughly $10–$18	roughly $300–$540
85+	roughly $14–$25+	roughly $420–$750+

Lower coverage limits and higher deductibles pull the price down; adding pre-existing-condition coverage past 70 pushes it up. For a full year, as required for a Super Visa, the annual figures in our Super Visa guide apply.

Claims, refunds and extensions

Making a claim while the visitor is in Canada

A well-handled claim looks like this:

Call the assistance line first if the situation allows, or as soon as possible after emergency care begins. The insurer can often arrange direct billing with the hospital so the family isn’t fronting the money.
Keep every document: admission records, physician notes, itemized bills, prescription receipts.
Submit the claim promptly. Policies set deadlines for notification and for submitting paperwork.
Expect a medical review for any claim that could involve a pre-existing condition. The insurer will request records from the visitor’s doctor at home.

If direct billing isn’t arranged, the family pays and is reimbursed. This is one reason to choose an insurer with a strong assistance network, and to keep the policy number somewhere the visitor can find it.

Refunds and extensions

Most plans are flexible in ways that help:

Early departure: a pro-rated refund of the unused premium is common if no claims were made, sometimes less an administration fee.
Extending a stay: many insurers allow an extension before the policy expires, provided there’s been no claim and the visitor’s health hasn’t changed. Ask before the expiry date, not after.
Visa refused: for Super Visa policies, a full refund on proof of refusal is standard; for regular visitor policies, cancellation before the effective date is usually refundable in full.

How Hayes can help

We help Ottawa and Ontario families arrange travel insurance for visiting relatives, and we help newcomers and returning Canadians bridge the gap before OHIP starts. Because we work with Canada’s major visitors-to-Canada insurers, we can match the stability period and pre-existing-condition rules to your visitor’s actual health rather than hoping the first plan fits. There’s no cost to you for our advice; insurers pay us.

Expecting a visitor, or newly arrived yourself? Get a free visitors to Canada insurance quote, or contact us with the visitor’s age, arrival date and any medications, and we’ll send options the same day.