Travel
Travel insurance
What travel insurance covers, and what Medicare does not.
Travel insurance pays for medical care or evacuation overseas, a cancelled trip, lost luggage and a hire car’s excess. Medicare doesn’t cover you overseas. The Australian Government won’t pay your medical bills or an evacuation.
What’s covered and what’s often excluded
Any trip
- Usually covered: medical costs, cancellation and delays, lost or stolen luggage, and a hire car’s excess.
- A single-trip policy covers set dates; an annual policy covers every trip in a year, and can limit how long each one is.
- Often excluded: pre-existing conditions you did not declare, pregnancy past a set stage (often 23 to 32 weeks), unattended luggage, places under an official warning, riskier activities, and anything while drunk or on drugs.
- We introduce a licensed travel insurer only if you ask, and tell you first if we are paid.
Source: Moneysmart, June 2026; Smartraveller, August 2026.
Trips home to the UK or Ireland
UK and Irish practitioners living here
- Australia’s agreements with the UK and Ireland cover urgent public care, not evacuation or private care. To use them, you show a Medicare card and a passport proving permanent Australian residence. On a temporary visa, check before you rely on them.
- England charges former residents living abroad as overseas visitors, at 150% of the cost, unless an exemption applies. A&E and GP care are free to everyone. Urgent treatment is never withheld, but it is billed.
- Ireland covers Irish citizens living outside the UK, the EU, the EEA and Switzerland only while the HSE still counts them as ordinarily resident, which can last up to 3 years abroad.
Source: Services Australia; Department of Health and Social Care, May 2026; Citizens Information; Smartraveller.
What to know
Family visiting
Health cover when family visit Australia.
Visitors are not covered by Medicare. The UK and Irish agreements cover some public care, some visas require health insurance, and an ambulance is paid in full.
What the UK and Irish agreements cover
Visitors living in the UK or Ireland
- UK visitors: medically necessary treatment as a public patient, and some medicines. They enrol at Medicare with a UK passport, their visa and a GHIC or EHIC.
- Irish visitors: public hospital care, not visits to a doctor. They show an Irish passport and get no Medicare card.
- Neither covers private care, dental or an ambulance. In NSW an ambulance costs a non-resident $909 plus $8.20 a kilometre; in Queensland emergency transport was $1,508.64 in 2025–26.
Source: GOV.UK (January 2025); Services Australia; privatehealth.gov.au; NSW Ambulance (December 2024); Queensland Ambulance Service.
Visitors who must hold cover
Parents and family on a visitor visa
- Some visitor visas carry condition 8501: health insurance for the whole stay that pays at least the state rates for hospital care.
- Parents of citizens and permanent residents can visit for up to 12 months at a time, and must keep health insurance.
- Overseas visitor health cover is sold by some Australian health funds and general insurers. Some policies exclude pre-existing conditions for good, and most cover medicines only in part.
- Whether a reciprocal agreement meets the condition depends on the visa; the grant letter says which conditions apply.
Source: Home Affairs; privatehealth.gov.au, September 2026.
What to know
Travelling with family
Travel cover for children, partners, pregnancy and work trips.
A policy and the reciprocal agreements may cover different people in one family. Work trips have their own cover, which usually stops when the holiday starts.
Children, a partner and pregnancy
Families travelling together
- Card travel cover may cover only the cardholder, not a partner or children.
- Family policies usually cover children free up to an age the insurer sets: under 18 at one, under 21 and dependent at another.
- The UK and Irish agreements need proof of Medicare eligibility, or for Ireland permanent residence. A partner or child on a temporary visa may not qualify, and England charges overseas visitors 150% of the cost.
- Pregnancy is often covered only to between 23 and 32 weeks, and some policies exclude it.
Source: Moneysmart (June 2026); Smartraveller; Services Australia; Department of Health and Social Care (May 2026); insurers’ published terms.
Conferences and work trips
Official travel, CPD and volunteering
- NSW Health staff on official overseas travel are covered by the state’s Treasury Managed Fund, but not on private leave added to the trip. A partner’s travel is private.
- Victoria’s business travel policy can cover accompanying family and up to 14 days of private travel, where the agency has paid for it.
- Conference travel is deductible when work is the main purpose; if the trip is mainly a holiday, only direct costs such as registration are. Travel insurance is never deductible.
- Indemnity abroad: one defence organisation covers practice overseas under 120 days in a policy year; another covers charitable work for up to 6 months. Neither covers the USA.
Source: NSW Health PD2024_033 (October 2024); VMIA 2025–26; ATO; Avant (July 2025) and MDA National.
What to know