Emergency Medical Benefit

The benefit paying for treatment when you're injured or fall ill abroad — hospital care, doctors, medication. Separate from (and often confused with) medical evacuation, which pays for transport, not treatment.

Emergency medical pays the hospital; evacuation pays the airplane that got you there. They carry separate limits, and a policy can be strong on one and weak on the other — $500,000 of medical cover means little if a $50,000 evacuation cap can't get you out of the bush to use it.

For safari travel, look for at least $100,000 of emergency medical cover, confirm malaria treatment is included (it's an illness like any other under most wordings), and check whether the benefit is primary or secondary.