Understanding the differences between single trip vs. multitrip travel insurance is necessary when traveling abroad. Traveling abroad can be exciting and fun, but international travel has its challenges. Therefore, you should highly consider purchasing travel insurance. Travel insurance can be bought either for a single trip or multiple trips. There are many differences worth considering.

Single Trip Travel Insurance

When you leave your home, go on a trip and come back home, and you need insurance for that entire duration, it is called single-trip travel insurance. While on your trip, you can visit multiple destinations or multiple countries, and that is still considered a single trip while you are away from your home. When you leave home, your trip starts, and when you get back home, your trip ends.

If you travel occasionally or if you travel for a long duration, single-trip travel insurance is appropriate. You pay for the exact length of your trip in single-trip travel insurance.

Single trip travel insurance plans are available primarily in two types:

• Travel medical insurance

  It is focused more on emergency medical coverage and has a variety of policy maximums and deductibles to choose from. It can be purchased for durations ranging from five days to six months to three years. Of course, it additionally offers emergency medical evacuation, repatriation of remains and other travel-related benefits.

• Trip-cancellation insurance

  It is focused more on nonrefundable trip cost in case you have to cancel your trip for a covered reason. Such coverage starts from the next day of purchase and lasts until you depart on your trip. Once you are on your trip, it also covers emergency medical expenses, trip interruption, travel delay, baggage delay, lost baggage, emergency medical evacuation and repatriation of remains.

  Such insurance is typically suitable for a trip up to 30 days, but many plans provide coverage up to 180 days.

  Also, trip-cancellation insurance must be purchased for the entire duration of the trip. Many visitors to the United States visit for four to six months and may like to go on a cruise to the Caribbean for five to seven days. They cannot buy trip-cancellation insurance just for that cruise, because their trip starts when they leave their home country and not when they embark on the cruise.

Multitrip Travel Insurance

Multitrip travel insurance is purchased on an annual basis. Multittrip insurance is suitable if you are going to take two or more trips during the year. To be eligible for multitrip travel insurance, you must maintain domestic health insurance in your home country.

You will be covered irrespective of the number of trips you take throughout the year. However, each trip has a maximum duration that it will provide coverage for, and it can vary from 30 days to 70 days per trip, depending upon the plan. Therefore, if you are going on an international trip for three months, returning home for two weeks and then going on another trip for four months, multitrip travel insurance is not suitable for you. You must purchase two separate single-trip travel insurance — one for each trip.

Multitrip travel insurance plans are essentially like travel medical insurance plans, as described above. They usually offer one policy maximum, and they are low-cost travel insurance.

No multitrip insurance would be trip-cancellation insurance. That means multitrip insurance would not provide any coverage for trip cancellation or travel delay.

Multitrip travel insurance is the most popular among executives and business travelers who take many short duration trips through the year. However, it can be useful to many other people as well.