We hope that because you’re here on our website, you’re thinking about coming to Bali and maybe even staying here at Little Bingin when our doors open to the public.
If so, we’d like to share with you our views on travel insurance for Bali and why we think it’s an essential part of booking a holiday. Sure, we know that everyone hates paying for insurance (after all, when you don’t need it, it just feels like an unnecessary expense that you could have avoided), but a travel insurance policy could make or break your time in Bali if you do need it.
You see, Indonesia is a developing nation, and while there is a public health service which is open to all Indonesian expats and legal foreign workers in the country, it’s not open to tourists unless they pay for service and if you want to use the larger private network of hospitals and clinics here in an emergency? You’ll have to pay for that too.
And while we’re not insinuating anything about anyone’s personal finance situation, we wonder if you’d be able to cover $400,000 worth of medical bills on a single trip to Bali if it becomes essential to do so?
In that context, travel insurance is a bargain, and it’s much easier and more reliable than starting a GoFundMe for help if you do find yourself in need of assistance.
So, here is our guide to Bali Travel Insurance and what you should be aware of before you buy a travel insurance policy and what you might find in the fine print, all in non-technical language, of course.
TL;DR
- At Little Bingin, we’ve seen the distressing results of what happens when people on holiday don’t have travel insurance or have the wrong kind of cover for their Bali holiday.
- If your policy covers medical care and evacuation if necessary, you’re heading in the right direction. However, you may also need cover for other stuff like scuba diving or bungee jumping or motorbike riding that isn’t a standard part of a policy
- Good travel insurance will protect you no matter what you intend to do in Bali and cover your costs if things go wrong; it can help with everything from trip cancellation to volcanic eruptions causing flight delays. To get value for money, we recommend that you compare and contrast different travel insurance policies online and that you make your decision on more than just price.
Why (In Our Opinion) Everyone Should Have Travel Insurance For Their Bali Holiday
Little Bingin is not in the travel insurance business. We don’t benefit directly if travellers are insured any more than we benefit if you have had your vaccinations brought up to date before you visit Bali.
However, we very much care about the travellers who visit Bali and we’d much rather that an illness or an accident didn’t leave your life in tatters in this dream destination.
Travel insurance is very affordable, and once you understand the details of these policies and how to claim, you will see that it’s a valid way to gain peace of mind for your holiday.
We recently learned that Southern Cross Travel Insurance Company pays out on around 1 in 10 travel insurance policies! That means there’s a 10% chance you might benefit from cover.
And that doesn’t just mean medical cover; it might pay out if natural disasters interrupt your holiday schedule, or if your adventure activities require the assistance of search and rescue (SAR), or your luggage goes missing on your trip, or if your vehicle is in an accident and it turns out that the excess on the basic vehicle insurance is excessive and so on…
Travel insurance can be massively flexible, and visitors to the island are often amazed at how helpful it is when trouble arises.
A Quick Checklist For Choosing Travel Insurance For Your Travel Plans
Before we get into the specifics of Bali travel insurance and what matters most. Let’s just do a quick run-through of things you should be most aware of while choosing a travel insurance policy.
- The cost/price of your policy matters – but it shouldn’t be the overriding objective of choosing your travel insurance either. Cheap travel insurance can be very bad value when it comes to making a claim. Take a look at the policy carefully; does it match your travel plans? Check the sub limits (which are defined in the fine print to show what the most your provider will pay out in each eventuality); is the excess reasonable (a policy with a $10,000 excess will be cheap, but if you don’t have $10,000, it’s worthless; you must pay the excess in full before the travel insurance wil pay so much as one penny to help you). So, think less about “price” and more about your budget and how you can make the travel insurance that you need work.
- How long are you coming to Bali for? Every travel insurance provider will need to know this because they will tailor the policy (and cost) to your trip length.
- What will you do in Bali? As we’ve already noted, adventure sports and activities are often not included as standard. If you want to go scuba diving, you need to let the insurer know and get quoted for extra coverage.
- Do you meet the eligibility criteria for the travel insurance? Travel insurance often requires that you have a specific home base. So, an Australian using an Australian travel insurance provider who lives in Australia is going to be fine. But you can’t use travel insurance as cheap health insurance if you live in Indonesia and try to claim you’re a resident in Australia. You will find they refuse to pay when you need to claim.
- Always read the fine print. Travel insurance can be confusing and complicated, but if you don’t know what you’re signing up for, then it may let you down when you need it the most. Don’t worry, if you don’t understand something, you can ask your insurer to explain it to you.
- Consider multi-trip insurance if you want to travel a lot in the coming months or year. This can save a lot of money compared to buying single-trip travel insurance for every trip.
Pre-Existing Medical Conditions And Overseas Medical Cover: What You Must Know
Firstly, almost no policy covers pre-existing medical conditions. If you want coverage for pre-existing medical conditions, you may be able to buy it at an increased premium.
However, whether or not you want this coverage, you must declare any pre-existing medical conditions to the insurer during the purchasing process. If you do not do so, they can refuse to pay any medical costs the moment the condition comes to light.
If it’s been declared, on the other hand, you’re covered on the terms set out in the policy online.
Secondly, you should be aware that medical costs here can reach stratospheric heights. We heard about Blake Gibb, whose family were left desperately trying to raise ( $370,000 ) when he had a serious motor accident in the Nusa Islands (which are in Bali province, not far from the mainland).
Good travel insurance will cover accidents and illnesses. It will help you get better if you have dengue fever, Bali belly, or a serious scooter crash. The best such insurance will also get you back home or to another hospital if your care turns out to be too complex for the hospital you are taken to.
If you don’t take out travel insurance for any other reason, medical cover makes it all worthwhile. We don’t know many people who have $400,000 that they can drop on medical bills in an emergency; that’s a lot of cash to have lying around.
Finally, on scooters. This is super important. Everyone comes to Bali and thinks they can ride a scooter. Yet, technically, they may be able to rent a bike without a problem; they just can’t drive one legally.
And we cannot stress clearly enough that your travel insurance only covers you if the driver of the bike is legal to drive and if you are the passenger and you are wearing a crash helmet.
To be legal to drive here, you must either be a local driver with an Indonesian license, or if you come from overseas, you must have a driving license with a motorbike endorsement AND an international driver’s permit (IDP).
And in both instances, the driver must be sober and wearing a helmet.
If the driver’s not legal, nor is the passenger, even if they’re wearing a helmet.
If you’re not legal, your travel insurance is invalid. This is why we strongly recommend taking taxis (or ride shares) rather than being on a scooter in Bali.
Why Everyone In Bali Should Consider Search And Rescue Cover In Their Travel Insurance
Bali and Indonesia as a whole are wonderful for adventurous activities, and on your holiday, you’re bound to partake in something exciting.
However, this is a developing nation that is spread over 18,000 islands, and that means that emergency services cannot always respond easily when you’re in need.
Traffic can stop an ambulance from being able to reach someone if you’re swept out to sea or are injured on the slopes of a volcano; you may be trapped, and so on.
That’s why everyone ought to include Search and Rescue coverage in their Bali travel insurance policy.
This cover means that you can rely on SAR to come and find you when you need them. Running a SAR service is extremely expensive, and having coverage makes certain that you don’t have to cover the costs.
A Grim Note But Death And Disability Coverage Are Important Too
We genuinely hope that nobody reading this article will ever need to rely on their travel insurance in the event of death or permanent disability in Bali, but it’s something you should consider having in your policy.
If you are permanently disabled, a clause that provides either an income or a cash lump sum can make a huge difference to the quality of your life after the holiday.
And as for death benefits? You may not know it, but transporting somebody home for a funeral is incredibly expensive. This is because of the legal complications on both ends of the journey and the need for care and maintenance of the body storage facility in flight.
So, if you die, your travel insurance policy could save your relatives $20,000 or more on the costs of shipping you home. Otherwise, your body may have to remain in Bali and be cremated and disposed of locally.
Make Sure A Travel Insurance Policy Starts When You Book Your Trip – Here’s Why
The right time to buy your travel insurance cover is when you book your trip. Once you’ve got the flight sorted and the hotels, it’s time to get your travel insurance.
That’s because the cover often includes “trip cancellation” and that means if you get sick, or somebody in your family dies, or other unforeseen circumstances arise to prevent or delay you from travelling, the travel insurance pays for the costs of either cancellation or moving your bookings.
This is really useful because these kinds of instances can be super stressful, and it’s even worse when you know that you’re losing all the money you spent on your holiday because you weren’t insured.
You’ll also find that most policies nowadays have a clause regarding delayed flights. While your airline is supposed to provide you with some compensation if a flight is delayed, they often do everything they can to avoid making it happen.
If your travel insurance is good, they will pay for any extra costs you incur after an x-hour delay, and if you’re forced to stay overnight, they can cover the costs of accommodations and travel to and from the airport.
They will also pursue your carrier for the compensation that you should have been paid, which makes life much less of a hassle during a stressful moment.
Get The Right Travel Insurance To Cover Lost Passports, Baggage, Personal Liability, Etc.
One fairly standard part of travel insurance nowadays is coverage for lost passports. This is a horrendously stressful thing to happen on a trip as it means you must obtain new travel documents before you can move on or return home.
That typically involves flying to your embassy or consulate and going through some expensive and complicated rigmarole to get things sorted out. While travel insurance can’t cut down on the time it takes to resolve this, it does cover the costs you incur.
Your luggage and personal belongings are also often covered in the event of delivery delays, loss or theft. This can be very useful, but we strongly recommend paying very close attention to the sub limits in this area.
It’s not uncommon for the payment per bag or per item to be very low, which means you may not be fully insured.
If there’s something you need covering for more money, talk to the insurer, and they can usually offer (for a small fee) improved coverage for cameras, laptops, jewellery and the like.
You should also have some personal liability insurance; while Bali is not as litigious as the United States, if someone does sue you, this takes care of the legal fees and potentially also any liabilities you incur in court.
High-Risk Activities Like Adventure Sports Are Not Included As Standard In Most Travel Insurance Policies
One of the most standard exclusions of standard travel insurance is adventure activities and sports.
That’s because a lot of people flick through a directory of nice hotels before they come to Bali, and then they arrive and spend their whole time in the resort. So, policies tend to be tailored to those folks.
But if you do want to have some thrills in your life, you can; you just have to arrange cover with the insurance company first.
- For any activity such as hiking, surfing, rock climbing, cycling, etc. (basically anything more dangerous than walking or sunbathing), you probably need cover. The good news is that you’re not alone and many travellers need help for these activities, so the insurance companies are very good at defining premiums for them and giving you options that will make sense to you. It’s worth remembering that you are much more likely to need medical expenses covering if you’re doing something energetic.
- For ATVs and quad bikes especially, these activities are very dangerous comparatively and local tour companies are often woefully underinsured. By having your own travel insurance policy, you know you’re covered and not just for your medical expenses but also for any damage you cause to other people or their property in an accident.
- Rental car coverage: given that it’s as cheap to hire a car with a driver, you really don’t need to rent a car and drive it yourself. But if you do, make sure your travel insurance has rental excess coverage as the local rental firms tend to load all their risk on to the renter.
- Scooter and motorbike coverage – as before, you must state you need it, you must ensure that the engine size of your proposed bike is covered, and you must be road legal if you want to rely on your insurance to pay out.
Indonesia And Natural Disasters: What You Should Know
One of the risk factors in Indonesia is the chance of natural disasters. While it is very unlikely that you will be injured in volcanic eruptions, earthquakes or tsunamis, it is possible that they may have a steep impact on your ability to travel home or onwards.
If you are insured for such events, you won’t be hiking around looking for room at an inn; travel insurance will cover rooms, food costs, etc. and it will be like having an extra holiday for free, even if a slightly inconvenient one.
To minimise the need for help in such circumstances, we recommend you monitor local travel alerts for any signs of natural disaster.
You could also follow the Australian government SmartTraveller portal too. This is a good source of up-to-date info that any person can use to learn more about the state of play in Bali.
Travel Insurance Providers In Bali With Good Reputations
Little Bingin isn’t in the travel insurance business, and that means we can’t direct you to the exact policy online or offline that you should use for your travel needs.
What we can do is point you towards a bunch of reputable Australian travel insurance providers who can offer Bali coverage.
You must still review all documents and offers carefully, and declare anything that you are asked to declare, before arranging your coverage. We can’t take any responsibility for any contracts or arrangements you enter into with any given provider.
Our Complete Checklist For Before You Enter Indonesia
The team here has helped to put together a little checklist that should help every traveller before they come to Bali:
- As soon as you book your hotel and flights, get your travel insurance arrangements sorted to ensure you have trip cancellation cover if you need it
- Always declare pre-existing medical conditions and any adventurous activities and expensive items you need to cover, and make sure they are covered
- When you have a policy, install the insurance company’s app and register it properly, so you can use the emergency helpline when you need it
- Also keep a hard copy of your policy in your luggage and keep the policy number and the emergency contact number in your phone and in your wallet/purse just in case
- Make sure to check your passport before you book, making certain that you will have 6 months’ validity beyond your date of entry to Indonesia and that it’s in good condition (damage can see you refused entry to Bali)
- Arrange your visa online or make sure you meet the criteria for a visa-on-arrival
- Visit your doctor and see if you need any vaccinations
- Bring a refillable water bottle and never drink tap water; only bottled water is safe for consumption in Bali. Many businesses have free refill stations for your use
- Take a first aid kit with you, and if you have any medication you need to bring, make sure to get written prescriptions from your doctor and bring those too
- Also, make sure you know how to submit a claim on your policy if you should need to make one in an emergency
Final Thoughts On Bali Travel Insurance Coverage
If you want your travel plans to go without a hitch, you’ll need to talk to your deity of choice and hope for the best. However, the vast majority of visits to Bali are pretty uneventful.
But things can and do go wrong, and when they do, it can be very expensive to try and deal with the problem yourself. We’re not speculating about your personal finances here; $400,000 is a lot of money to anyone except billionaires, and medical bills can end up that high.
So, we strongly recommend that every traveller gets the right travel insurance for their needs. If you want to enjoy adventure activities, for example, make sure you cover that.
And that’s because healthcare here is based on your ability to pay for it. Don’t leave your relatives floundering with a GoFundMe trying to save your life; make it easy on everyone and get some travel insurance just in case things go wrong.
And we really hope that nothing goes wrong, because the only thing worse than not claiming on travel insurance is having to claim on it. And the only thing worse than that is not having it when you need it.