Posted on Friday, May 24th, 2013 at 9:25 am

With the summer travel season coming up, and with the new school year just a few months away, many students will be busily getting everything ready for their adventure abroad. In some cases your school will offer international insurance coverage, however in some cases this may not fit your needs or you may want to look for something that is slightly cheaper. If English is not your first language, then trying to understand insurance plans is much more difficult – if not impossible!

So how do you evaluate international student insurance plans? We have developed a number of resources that should help guide you in the right direction:

Step 1 – Know Your Insurance Lingo! 

Insurance terms can be confusing enough, but if you take some time to understand what some of the core terms mean, you will quickly be able to tell your deductible apart from your coinsurance, and your medical evacuation from your trip interruption. To get started, you can learn more about the most important insurance terms on our website.

Step 2 – Know What You Want! 

The only person that can help you choose what is important to you….. is you! That is why we recommend that you write down what benefits are most important to you and what should be included in any plan you purchase. Everyone is different, and depending on what you want (maternity benefits, sports coverage, etc.) – it could be the difference between two plans and might allow you to purchase a cheaper insurance plan.

Step 3 – Compare Benefits!

Once you have figured out what is important to you, you need to compare plans side-by-side to work out how the benefits and plans line up. To do this, we recommend you use our handy insurance comparison PDF that you can print off, and write in the insurance details of the plans you are comparing. By doing this, you will be able to clearly see how each plan differs on key areas such as price, policy maximum and – of course – plan servicing and administration.

For more in-depth information and tips for evaluating student insurance plans, please see our full length article as that goes into more detail on the benefit of an insurance plan. You can also call and speak to our customer care representatives who will be more than happy to help you.

Posted by Ross Mason

Ross is the Vice President of International Student Insurance, with over 15 years experience in the international education arena. A graduate from the Nottingham Trent University in the UK with a First in BSc (Hons) Business and Technology, Ross has lived all around the world including LA, New York, Boston, London, Hong Kong, Florida and Germany.