Why (nearly) 'free' travel insurance is a bad idea

It seems nowadays everyone and their uncle is offering 'free' travel insurance. Got an account with the right bank? Free travel insurance. Have the right credit card? Free travel insurance. Using Revolut Metal? Believe it or not, free travel insurance. It appears that seemingly at no extra cost a whole lot of companies throw in travel insurance with their products.

So what's the catch?

Let's start with the idea that travel insurance is as interchangeable as a flight ticket: People recently ask 'Do you have travel insurance?'. Somehow we're pretending it doesn't matter which one you get. In practice, travel insurance is more like 'free food'. If you can't afford anything else, sure go for it. Otherwise you might be right to have concerns: Is it prison slop? Is it rotten? Is it a five star meal? Seems like there's a significant difference. For travel insurance the equivalents are as follow:

Coverage limit: Easiest way to get the price of travel insurance down is to reduce the coverage limit. Credit cards often go that route where they only cover USD 20,000 in expenses. Need a medical evacuation? Spending a few days in the ICU? Your 'travel insurance' won't cover that.

Exclusions: Also known as fine print. You caused an accident because you were drunk? Excluded. You were drunk while something happened? Excluded. You had any amount of alcohol in your blood when you got injured? Excluded. What?! Exactly. The clauses alone around alcohol can vary a lot, meaning you might find yourself without coverage in situations where you never expected that to open.

Trip duration: This one is particularly relevant for digital nomads who rely on things like Revolut Metal for insurance coverage. Doesn't work. ALL insurance plans that are offered as an add-on with another (often financial product) have a maximum trip length, usually 30 days. And no, changing locations or countries doesn't count as a new trip. But even if the insurance says you can be covered for an unlimited length of time doesn't mean they can't kick you out (hello there, SafetyWing... though admittedly that's not exactly 'free' medical travel insurance).

Copay/Excesss/Deductible: A condition by any other name would still smell as shitty. This could be that the first USD 500 are for you to pay yourself, rendering coverage useless for anything but the most severe cases. Or another fun one: Pay 10% of the entire bill yourself (looking at you again, Revolut Metal). That doesn't sound so bad if it's USD 200, but if you're doing an USD 80,000 medical evacuation and hospital stay, that gets scary real quick.

So does the free-add-on-to-some-other-thing insurance always suck? Not necessarily. If you're just going somewhere for a weekend or a conference, you may not want to take out proper medical travel insurance, but it would still be nice to be covered on the offchance something actually happens. So it's better than nothing, but not much else.

Think your travel insurance that came with your bank account is the one exception? Post a link and I'll tell you why that one sucks as well.