Travel Insurance File
Your Marketplace for Travel Insurance

The Cuban government has decreed that after May 1, 2010, all visitors to that country will be required to buy traveler’s medical insurance from approved foreign companies, or from Cuban vendors at its ports of entry. No insurance: no entry.

The measure, seen as a way of raising much-needed cash from foreign sources, will apply to all tourists and other visitors, Cubans living abroad visiting family of friends, and foreigners temporarily living in Cuba.  It will only exempt diplomats and representatives of accredited international organizations.

To date, no information is available about the costs of this insurance or the extent of its coverage, but visitors, particularly tourists, must be warned NOT to drop their own travel insurance or consider the Cuban-mandated variety a substitute for it: not until we know a lot more about what it covers. Cheap travel insurance can sometimes be worse than no travel insurance because it may delude you into thinking you’re covered, when you’re not.

Because tourism is so critical to Cuba’s economy (almost 2.5 million tourists visit the island-nation annually) the government is likely to keep the premiums cheap so as not to detract visitors. But we can safely assume that any such insurance will be of a bare bones variety, covering only emergency services provided by local hospitals, clinics or doctors, and not for air ambulance repatriation to hospitals at home, travel to the site by family members, transfers to specialty centres off the island, or other benefits normally encompassed by travel insurance such as missed connections, cancellations or interruptions due to weather, lost baggage, etc.

Cuba is reputed to have good medical services and routinely exports well-trained physicians to other third world countries. But Cuban health care and Cuban hospitals are also different from what you are used to, and you may well prefer to be brought home and cared for in your own environment, with your own physicians, and with your family nearby in case a serious medical emergency arises.

We’re trying to find out more about the companies that will be authorized to sell this insurance, how it can be purchased at Cuban ports or entry, what it is likely to cover, what it will cost, and how it may affect your normal travel insurance coverage, if and when you plan a trip to Cuba.  Stay tuned.