What to check before buying travel insurance for Korea

Travel insurance is not priced from a list — the premium is quoted from your age, trip length and cover level, so there is no single price for us to publish. What decides whether you are actually covered is the wording: undeclared conditions, excluded activities and trip-length caps refuse claims regardless of what you paid. Tell us about your trip and we will list the clauses that apply to you, worst first.

Your situation

Trip length (days)Age of the oldest traveller

Tick anything that appliesI have already left homeHiking, skiing, diving or similarAn existing medical conditionI was going to rely on my card’s travel coverCarrying a camera, laptop or similarMy flights involve a connectionI am renting a car

In your situation

0 of 3 could void a claim

Not merely reduce a payout — refuse it outright. Those are listed first below.

0 could void a claim2 change what you are covered for1 worth checking

Changes what you are covered forThe medical expense limit, and the separate limit for emergency evacuation.These are two different numbers, and both cap what you get back rather than deciding whether you are covered at all. A policy can carry a large medical limit and a small evacuation limit, and evacuation is the part that produces the very large bills.
Changes what you are covered forThe deductible (excess) per claim, and whether it applies per incident or per person.A low premium is often a high excess. Per-person excess on a family policy multiplies the amount you pay before cover starts.
Worth checkingHow a claim is submitted, and whether the insurer pays the hospital directly.Direct billing versus reimbursement decides whether you need thousands available on a card while abroad.

Why an insurer would not show you this list

Every policy is sold by someone with no reason to lead with its own exclusions. The items above are ordered by how badly they bite, not by how easy they are to sell around. The ordering comes from your answers and does not change based on who pays us.

Compare cover on EKTA

Same trip, next decision

First: does the cover on your card already do this?

Worth settling before anything else, because if the answer is yes there is nothing to buy. Card travel cover is real cover, but it is written narrowly, and three clauses decide whether it reaches your trip at all.

How the trip was paid for. Card cover commonly applies only when the trip — often specifically the flights — was charged to that card. Paying with a different card, or with points, can switch it off entirely.
Whether evacuation is included. Medical treatment and medical evacuation are separate limits, and card policies frequently carry the first without the second. Evacuation is the line capable of producing a bill far larger than any other in the document.
The per-trip day cap and the upper age limit. Both are absolute. Being one day or one year over does not reduce the cover, it removes it.

If all three come back clean, you are covered and a second policy buys you nothing. We would rather say that than sell you something you already hold.

What a travel policy does not do: the hire car

A travel policy covers the traveller. The rental contract covers the vehicle. The two are widely assumed to overlap and generally do not — damage to the car you hired is settled under the rental company's own cover and its excess, not under the medical or liability sections of your policy. Some insurers sell rental excess as a separately named add-on; if you intend to rely on it, confirm it appears in the policy under that name rather than assuming it is folded in. Tick I am renting a car above and the checklist adds it.

This matters most in Jeju, where a rental car is close to the default rather than an upgrade. Our Jeju rental page covers what the counter will ask you and which exposures the contract leaves on your side.

What we measure here, and what we don't

This page contains no prices, because we cannot measure a quote. The checklist is generated from the structure of how travel policies are written, which does not change day to day. When we start recording specific policies' cover limits, each figure will carry the date a person checked it against the policy document — the same rule we apply to every other number on this site.

Quick answers

Why can you not just show me travel insurance prices?

Premiums are quoted per traveller from age, trip length, destination and the cover level chosen, so there is no single price to publish. Any figure we printed would be an invention rather than a measurement, so we compare what the policy does instead.

What most often causes a travel insurance claim to be refused?

An undeclared pre-existing condition, an activity on the exclusion list, or a trip that ran past the policy’s maximum duration. All three are decided by the wording rather than by the premium, which is why they are worth checking before you buy.

Is the travel cover on my credit card enough?

It depends on two clauses: whether cover applies only when the trip was paid for with that card, and what its medical and evacuation limits are. Card cover frequently omits emergency evacuation, which is the item that produces the largest bills.