Mission trip insurance is highly recommended for anyone traveling abroad for a short term for missionary work.

According to a study, more than 15 million people plan to take a foreign trip that is affiliated with their religion. From the United States alone, over 2 million US citizens travel overseas for missionary or other social good trips.

Most of the missionary trips are associated with the church. However, there are other similar trips made for disaster relief or social good.

Many of you get to visit a foreign country where you could combine some vacation and at the same time, learn new skills or do challenging projects that you would not otherwise attempt at home normally.

Foreign travel for a mission trip has several risks, including the risk of getting sick or injured. If that happens to you, obviously, you can't do any missionary work.

Mission Trip Insurance vs. Domestic Health Insurance

Domestic health insurance that people normally have in their home country may not provide the coverage while in a foreign country. Even if they provide some coverage, it may be limited or it may have higher out of pocket expenses including higher deductible, coinsurance, and higher copay. Most likely, there won't be providers in the participating network. On the other hand, medical insurance for missionaries is relatively low cost and easy to purchase.

Emergency Medical Evacuation

Majority of the mission trips are to developing countries where the healthcare may be poor or of inferior quality. Therefore, if you get into any serious medical condition or injuries, a facility may be hundreds of miles away or even in a different country. Emergency medical evacuation may cost anywhere from $20,000 to $200,000, depending upon the situation and it provides the transportation to the nearest place where adequate care can be given. Therefore, it is critical to have mission trip insurance that includes emergency medical evacuation, and fortunately, most missionary trip insurance plans do provide such coverage.

Emergency Reunion

While on a mission trip, if you were seriously sick or injured and, in a hospital, you may want a close family member or a friend by your side. Many missionary trip insurance plans provide emergency reunion benefits that would pay for the transportation and accommodation of a loved one so that can be near you and provide you the much-needed assistance and support for your treatment and recovery.

Dental Emergency

Going to dentist is never a fun. Obviously, the situation can be worse if you have a dental emergency while on a mission trip abroad. Fortunately, many mission trip insurance plans provide the coverage for dental emergency, including the damage to the sound and natural teeth in an accident. This benefit can be very valuable, though often overlooked.

Trip Interruption

While on a mission trip abroad, if you needed to return home early in a covered emergency such death of an immediate family member or house on fire, mission trip insurance could provide coverage under the trip interruption benefit.

Other Benefits

Mission trip insurance plans may provide other benefits such as for natural disaster, political evacuation, kidnap and ransom coverage, terrorism coverage. Please look through the certificate wording carefully to see what is covered and what you think you may need.

Group Coverage

Mission trip insurance is available as individual travel medical insurance. Additionally, for groups of 5 or more, group mission trip insurance is available which generally provides the same coverage but is usually 10% cheaper.