JAPAN TRIP: Don't Forget Travel & Health Insurance Coverage! Here's Why

Whether you're looking forward to exploring  Tokyo's vibrant nightlife, skiing in Hokkaido, powering up a Super Nintendo World, or immersing  yourself in Japan's Rich history traveling to Japan can be an incredible experience. However  please keep in mind that unexpected events can happen anytime anywhere. That's why having  travel insurance for your trip to Japan is crucial. Travel insurance may include coverage  for unexpected medical emergencies lost or stolen luggage trip cancellations or in

terruptions and  even natural disasters. If you experience any of these unforeseen circumstances during your trip  travel insurance can provide you with financial assistance to help you recover your costs.  Additionally, many travel insurance policies also provide 24-hour emergency assistance  services that can help you navigate language barriers unfamiliar Health Care systems or other  challenges that may arise during your travels. Why travel insurance in Japan? Japanese culture  places a stron

g emphasis on preparedness and responsibility and they prioritize having adequate  protection and coverage for unexpected events. In addition some travel agencies may require that  you purchase travel insurance in order to book a trip. A few years ago I was invited by some  of my Japanese friends to hike to the top of Mount Fuji. I had never done this before so they  weren't sure of my capability and they wanted to be sure that I was physically fit to do this.  I felt I was so then the next ques

tion was do you have travel insurance? I just kind of brushed  that question aside because I didn't think it was a big deal but then as the days went by they  kept politely asking me if I had purchased my travel insurance. That's when I realized that  okay they're saying you're going to get travel insurance! So I went online and I found a company  and I purchased travel insurance that was specific for one day and it had to be on that one day that  I marked and it cost me fifty dollars USD and th

is was to cover climbing Mount Fuji only. I would  have been better off with the plan I have now. Medical insurance versus travel benefits.  Travel insurance can be broken down into two main categories travel medical insurance and other  travel benefits. Whether you want to buy travel medical insurance will depend upon whether you  already have coverage through your normal health insurance policy so if you have health insurance  in your home country you can either check your policy or contact yo

ur insurance provider and find  out if you will be covered while traveling abroad. For some policies they will cover major medical  emergencies while you're in a foreign country. You may be restricted to using certain hospitals  or providers or perhaps your home insurance plan may not cover you at all while you're traveling  abroad. If your medical insurance does not cover you while traveling in Japan then you will  definitely want to choose a travel insurance that includes medical benefits. We

actually have  two types of insurance that are covering us during our adventures. First of all we use SafetyWing  Nomad insurance and we also get some travel benefits through booking our airplane tickets and  accommodations using a Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card. Our family has been using SafetyWing  Nomad insurance for the past few years. It has really simplified purchasing travel insurance for  us in the past when George and I were planning for say a three-week trip to Thailand and Japan

  I would spend hours comparing travel medical insurance policies seeing what the deductibles  were the benefits. Eventually, I would choose one, pay for it, print out the confirmation, and  then just hope that I had purchased it from a legitimate company and we actually had health  insurance coverage and not just a piece of paper. Also most travel insurance plans are priced per  day of your trip so that can add up quite quickly especially if you're going on longer than a  couple week trip when

we found safety Wing we realized that it was the perfect fit for our  family also we like knowing that there are real people behind the company George has contacted  them multiple times with various questions and they're always happy to respond both U.S citizens  and non-us citizens who are anywhere from 14 days old up to 69 years old are eligible for coverage  outside their home country for safety Wing Nomad insurance for members who are aged 10 years old to  39 years old the price is around 45

US dollars for up to a four week coverage period the premiums do  increase with age and unfortunately or both above that bracket however one of the great benefits  with safety Wing is that you can have two children covered under your plan that's one child per adult  if the children are under 10 years old so for our family we pay for three plans two adults and then  we're paying for a plan for our nine-year-old both are two-year-old and four-year-olds are covered  under us safety Wing Nomad Insu

rance isn't just for Nomads it could be a great choice for your  vacation as well forty five dollars per person for travel health insurance is not a bad price this  insurance really shines for long-term Travelers or digital Nomads like ourselves films once we  set it up we could have it auto renew every four weeks also we keep the same plan as we travel  from country to Country we don't have to cancel and get a new plan just because we're headed  to another country it's also great that you can s

ign up for the plan once you're already abroad  also it does not require that we have a primary health insurance plan in our home country that  is a requirement for quite a few travel health insurance policies so what is covered by safety  Wing Nomad Insurance it covers most of the things that our family is looking for one thing is not  covered but that's covered by a credit card so more on that later safety Wing covers both  medical benefits and other travel benefits first of all for safety Win

g medical benefits  Nomad Insurance provides coverage for unexpected illness or injury while traveling outside  your home country and it does cover medically necessary treatment for covet 19. it does not  cover pre-existing conditions routine checkups cancer treatment or high-risk sports activities  in case you're wondering recreational snow skiing and snowboarding are covered and yes safety  Wing does cover hiking Mount Fuji it covers hiking up to 4500 meters and Mount Fuji is about  3 800 mete

rs so it is covered here's a summary of some of the main benefits of the plan safety  Wing Nomad insurance has a maximum limit of 250 000 US dollars or a hundred thousand dollars  if you're 65 years and above there is a 250 deductible it covers hospital room and nursing  Services intensive care up to the overall maximum limit reasonable charge charges for ambulance when  the illness or injury results in a hospitalization urgent charges are subject to a 50 co-payment if  you're in the U.S but the

y're not subject to the deductible physical therapy and Chiropractic  Care up to fifty dollars a day but this must be ordered in advance by a physician emergency  dental up to one thousand dollars which is not subject to the deductible and all other eligible  medical expenses up to the maximum limit of course if you're interested in this plan you may  want to read the full policy details we are not insurance agents or anything like that we're  just sharing which insurance we use coverage include

s trip Interruption up to five thousand  dollars I was wondering what exactly that meant and it's referring to one-way Transportation home  after something major like an emergency medical evacuation or if an immediate family member died  and you need to return home it's very limited what is covered under that trip Interruption  travel delay up to one hundred dollars in day after 12 hour delay period requiring an unplanned  overnight stay subject to a maximum of two days last checked luggage up t

o three thousand dollars  per certificate period 500 limit per item and up to six thousand dollar lifetime limit with  no deductible a note here when you're packing for your Japan trip it's a good idea to make a  detailed packing list I like to use the Keep app on my phone to make a checklist of all the items  that I'm packing also as I'm packing my suitcase I take photos that show all the items that go into  that particular suitcase if you were to have to claim for lost luggage you would need a

way of  proving exactly what was in that last suitcase and how much it was worth it also covers a new  place to stay during a natural disaster up to one hundred dollars a day for a maximum of five days  personal liability of up to twenty five thousand dollars emergency medical evacuation and political  evacuation up to ten thousand dollars lifetime maximum which is not subject to the deductible  if you're wondering if we've ever had to make a claim through our safety Wing Insurance the  answer

is yes we did one one time perhaps surprisingly the one benefit that we've actually  taken advantage of was the political evacuation benefit the first thing that pops to mind may be  unrest in the country that you're visiting however this also came into play during covet 19. we were  in Malaysia at the time and the U.S Department of State issued a travel for warning advisory asking  all U.S citizens traveling abroad to come home if they could and because of that travel advisory the  political ev

acuation policy went into effect and safety Wing actually reached out and emailed us  and let us know hey you could take advantage of this you got 10 days to let us know if you want  to so we either could have had safety Wing book our plane tickets for us and in that case it  would have been all paid for upfront by safety Wing or the route we went is we chose to book  our tickets ourself and then we had to file a claim for reimbursement it did take a while for us  to get reimbursed at the time t

his was unexpected and a whole bunch of people were filing their  claims at once but we did get our money back for our families plane tickets from Malaysia home  to the USA and mostly we were thankful that safety Wing had let us know this was available to us just  as a note here also for the medical benefits you would be paying the bill out of pocket up front  and then claiming for reimbursement from safety Wing if you're interested in signing up for safety  Wing or looking at the details for yo

urself I will leave our ambassador Link in the description box  below we really appreciate the commissions we earn when you purchase through our links there is  one main benefit that you may be looking for that is not covered under that safety Wing policy and  that is trip cancellation so if you were to have to cancel your trip before you even head out the  door however that is covered under a credit card so let George take over and tell you about that  we have used many travel credit cards over

the years and the best by far is the Chase Sapphire  Preferred Card because it comes with a ton of perks and a lot of good benefits for travel we use  our Chase Sapphire Preferred Card for all of our travel related purchases this includes purchasing  airline tickets accommodations and travel related activities the Chase Sapphire Preferred  Card does not come with medical insurance so so that is why we use safe doing to cover medical  expenses in order for the benefits to apply you must charge a

portion or all of your trip to  the card for instance your flight let's now go over all of the categories related to travel the  first one is trip cancellation or interruptions the benefit amount is up to ten thousand dollars  per person or twenty thousand dollars per trip and a maximum of forty thousand dollars per year  next is trip to leave coverage it's for 500 for each purchase ticket and it requires a delay  of at least 12 hours or an overnight stay if your luggage is delayed or misdirect

ed for at  least six hours they will cover you one hundred dollars per day up to five days so a maximum  of 500 lost luggage coverage up to a maximum of three thousand dollars for lost or damaged  luggage auto rental Collision waiver this one is a great one if you decide to rent a car what you  need to do though is make sure that you decline the rental companies collision damage waiver then  you will be covered up to the the actual value of the car of course specialty cars sports cars are  not c

overed and the last one is travel accident coverage hopefully this will never happen this  covers loss of life loss of limb dismemberment there are a ton of other benefits associated  with the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card the main one is when you sign up there is a bonus of 60  000 points that you can earn if you spend four thousand dollars within the first three months I  highly recommend you do that because with sixty Thousand Miles that's enough for a one-way ticket  from Los Angeles to Japa

n or if you earn up to 80 000 miles that would be enough for a round-trip  ticket from multiple airports within California to Japan the way the point system works is every  single dollar that you spend you earn one point and there are bonus categories such as travel and  dining where you earn two times so let's say you spend 500 on your trip you will earn one thousand  points and they have promotions all throughout the year which can help you accumulate a ton of  Miles pretty quickly over the pa

st year we have earned over 200 000 miles just by spending all of  our travel related expenses and in general using our card to make any purchase that we can with  it and there's even more perks such as purchase protection and an extended warranty on items that  you purchase this is great for electronics however let's leave that for a separate video as that's  going off track the only downside of the card is it comes with a 95 annual fee however I think the  benefits far exceed that cost and wit

h any credit card just make sure you pay off your balance every  month so you don't incur any ridiculous interest charges if you are interested in signing up for  the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card I will leave a referral Link in the description below I may  earn some points if you register through my link we hope you found this information useful and that  it will help you make the right decision for you whether or not you need to purchase any additional  insurance or if you're good to go this v

ideo using a Japan Rail Pass or a video on how  to ship your luggage with koroneko we also have some clever hacks for visiting  Super Nintendo World Japan our family is traveling long term so come along  for more tips on traveling with kids